Polite vs. politically correct
“Is this just political correctness? What’s the difference between political correctness and workplace civility?”
This is a question I was asked recently in the Q&A for my keynote Optimize Your Language for Workplace Civility. Here in the US, workplace civility is a real concern in the current political climate. So, I’m giving keynotes and workshops that help people use science to make good judgments and determine if something is or isn’t appropriate to say.
Here are two examples of people being corrected for their language that can help us see the difference between political correctness and politeness.
“You should say person with a disability”
Disability activist Emily Ladau refers to herself as a disabled person and not a person with a disability. But she is told repeatedly by people who are not themselves disabled that she shouldn’t use that phrasing. Abled people say to her, “Oh, you shouldn’t talk about yourself like that.”
The phrase disabled person follows what is called identity-first language. In other words, the disability comes first in the word order. This is the phrasing commonly preferred by Deaf people and by autistic people. The reasoning is that the identity so shapes and modifies their experience that it’s appropriate for it to come first. Life as a Deaf or autistic or disabled person is so profoundly different from life as a hearing or allistic or abled person that the syntax mirrors their experience.
Photo by Seth Kane (via Unsplash)
Person with a disability is an example of person-first language. Here the phrasing is “a person with” and then the disability comes second. The reasoning here is that a person is first and foremost a person and that they should not be fully defined by their disability.
In recent years, many people in the US have been taught that the only respectful and polite and appropriate phrasing is person-first language. That by saying person with a disability, they are taking into consideration the whole person and not stigmatizing or disparaging them.
So, when abled people correct Ladau for calling herself a disabled person, are they being polite and inclusive? Or are they being politically correct?
“The correct term is First Nations individual”
“Matt” was at work and wearing his favorite necklace, made out of bone and clearly Native American or First Nations in origin. Matt lives in the US and is half Irish American and half Siksika, but most people think he’s Mexican.
A new coworker pointed at his necklace and asked, “Why are you wearing that?”
“What, my Indian choker necklace?” Matt asked.
“Yes. It’s cultural appropriation. And the correct term is First Nations individual,” she said.
Matt responded, “Do you think I’m Mexican or something? I’m not. First Nations is a Canadian term. If you want to go PC, I’m American, so it would be Native American.”
“But Indian is an ethnic slur, you shouldn’t use it,” she insisted.
“Yeah, but my dad is Siksika and said Indian his whole life, and so do I. We even joke and say it like N D N,” he replied.
“Ok, you’re making me uncomfortable,” she said, and walked away.
Photo of Siksika powwow dancer in a bone necklace from siksikanationfair.com
There is no single way to refer to the original inhabitants of North America — and present-day boundaries between the US and Canada and the US and Mexico go right through and artificially divide tribal and nation territories.
In Canada, the most widely used term in English is First Nations, which is used for people covered by the Indian Act, but there are other terms as well.
In US, the mostly widely used term in English is Native American, although some people prefer Indigenous.
The US government uses American Indian and Indian. Note that this is based on Christopher Columbus’s mistaken belief that he had reached Asia on his 1492 voyage.
As we can see from Matt’s story, there are a good number of people in the US and Canada who self-refer as Indians. But this is an in-group only term, not meant for outsiders. In a 2023 Comedy Actress roundtable, indigenous actor Devery Jacobs carefully corrects actor Sheryl Lee Ralph, who doesn’t yet understand that indigenous use of word Indian to self-refer doesn’t license out-group people to use it.
So when Matt’s coworker corrected him and said that he shouldn’t say Indian but should say First Nations individual, was she being polite? Or was she being politically correct?
I don’t really care for the term politically correct, but I accept that it’s a widely used shorthand for a certain kind of language policing and language performance. This language policing and performance is a performance for others. It has an outward and public orientation.
And it is about being in lock step and rigid. A “right” word and a “wrong” word have been chosen, and then people police for that correctness without sensitivity to context.
But when it comes to language, context is everything. It can change everything. I used to teach entire graduate classes on how context affected language, and we’d only be able to cover a tiny fraction of what goes on out in the world.
This is why I constantly tell people, in my book and in keynotes and workshops, if you want to be polite and considerate and civil and inclusive, you can’t do it with a list of “bad” words and “good” words. It won’t work.
And the two stories above are a great illustration of why.
Instead of a static list of “good” and “bad,” I suggest that people use the context-sensitive Principles of Language Optimization. These principles help you avoid the trap of inappropriate language policing.
When you take context into account, you:
Reflect reality and understand that sometimes the terminology you were taught is wrong is actually ok for some people to use.
Show respect and allow members of groups to choose the ways they want to refer to themselves.
Draw people in and avoid alienating them by “correcting” them for something that isn’t wrong.
Incorporate other perspectives and understand that what’s not acceptable for you to say might be acceptable for someone else to say.
Prevent erasure and take into account another group’s experiences and perspectives.
Recognize pain points and consider what it’s like to be a member of a stigmatized group and often treated with disrespect, ignored, and erased.
It’s ok to monitor your language and the language of others. (I mean, it’s part of human communication, it’s not like you’re going to be able to stop.)
But it’s not ok to do it in a rigid way that ignores context and is more about public performance than actually taking someone into consideration.
Political correctness doesn’t improve workplace civility — it makes things worse.
The best way to be polite, respectful, and careful is to put work into optimizing your language. And to make sure you’re actually “correct” when you’re correcting someone.
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