Question

Back in the day, Mike Royko was one of my favorite journalists. People complained that he became racist in his later years, but I don't think he was at all, it's more like he became kind of curmudgeonly. He was particularly disgusted with the advent and proliferation of the term "political correctness". In this interview, he says:

"Maybe if I understood it, things would be different, but they keep changing the language. I've given up. I think and write in the same terms I used to write in. If somebody's short, they're short. They're not vertically challenged, or whatever.

"I think I was onto this before other journalists. Several years ago, before this PC thing was even talked about, the University of Missouri Journalism School put out a list of no-no's and wrote about them. Reader's Digest picked it up. You couldn't say that someone ate fried chicken. Or gypped someone out of money, because you'd offend the Gypsies. It went on and on. . . . Dutch treat was forbidden because you'd offend some guy over in Amsterdam. The whole list was so stupid. And most of the things that people carp about today under the guise of political correctness are really kind of dumb. And that's one of the things about newspapers today that bothers me.

"Recently, I did a column about Veterans Day, about how all these people in America get the day off. They close the schools, government buildings. But I'm a veteran and I work, and most veterans work. I suggested that, no, let's give all the veterans a day off and everybody else will work and we will gather in bars and play poker, maybe on a footlocker, and drink and tell stupid lying stories about our exploits. It was just a fun column. My mail reflected that.

"So what letter do we print in the Tribune? A guy wrote saying that, well, most of the veterans he knows are gay and lesbian, and they didn't act that way.

"What the heck? Now I'm being whacked over the head for something that has no relationship. What? I'm gay-bashing because I just wrote about Veterans Day? That person had no reason to take offense. I don't know how gays spend Veterans Day. I never asked. But somehow it turned into a politically incorrect column."

To be clear, I'm pretty sure a lot of what's written on this website would horrify him, as would QAnon, but he was a liberal (kind of centrist), and he thought some of what some of you think of as leftist nonsense was nonsense also.

A NOSE RUB OF SORTS FOR DITZY WORD JOCKS
[chicagotribune.com]

Political correctness is not very appetizing
[baltimoresun.com]

#racist #university #schools #liberal #reason

altschmerz 5

Answer 1

Leftists are always looking for new ways to accumulate victim points.

What's so non-PC about eating fried chicken? Are leftists boycotting KFC now?

Answer 2

I think he would really be offended by the extreme overuse of "to be clear".

Answer 3

I remember laughing a lot at his satire of Ebonics during middle school. But in retrospect, I think a little more cultural sensitivity is due, especially in a diversifying country. [chicagotribune.com]

Answer 4

I grew up in Chicago and read Royko. He may have been a liberal but would probably be horrified by the liberals today. There aren’t too many columnists like Royko around today. He was one of the good ones.


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