Monthly Archives: February 2023

Politically correct terms are a hot topic. The focus on using PC words has sky-rocketed recently with so much focus on diversity & inclusion in the news. We decided to create a list of the top 20 most-Googled questions on PC terms to help better understand each one.

Disclaimer: There are words or phrases in this article that are politically incorrect and might offend you. I am sharing the exact phrases/questions that people are querying on Google (source: ahrefs). I couldnt think of any other way to answer these questions without listing them exactly as the user typed them into Google. I am not an expert in politically correct terminology.

Ok, here are the top 20 questions users search about on Google (verbatim):

People of Color (POC for short) is widely used but not everyone approves of the term and there are often better alternatives.

A few alternatives are:

People of Color is a term used to identify people who are not white or of European heritage. The phrase People of Color was introduced in the 1960s by Black leaders in an effort to move away from terms like colored people and Blacks. POC is still widely being used worldwide today, but not everyone approves of the phrase.

The Washington Post interviewed 25 People of Colorand was met with comments like:

Not everyone likes this label, it flattens differences and it simplifies complexities.

What is another word for people of color? BIPOC, which stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Color is a more inclusive term that is being widely accepted as a replacement for POC. BIPOC is one of the hottest words in diversity, gaining traction since the Black Lives Matter Movement.

The popularity of the term POC (people of color) dropped 50% from January 2020 to June 2021 (while BIPOC grew 6X during the same period. (source: Google Trends

Are Asians People of Color? It may depend on who you ask. People of Color may be an accepted label for some, but it is always best to ask a person what they prefer to be called.

PC Term Google search volume: Is People of Color politically correct?(450/month);is people of color capitalized (350); people of color synonym (300); people of color definition (300); are asians people of color (700); another word for people of color (5)

What is a politically correct term for disabled? A PC term for disabled is people with disabilities. Disabled is considered a politically incorrect word because it is tied to negative stereotypes. The phrasepeople with disabilities is less de-humanizing.

When referring to a single person with a specific disability it is more appropriate to say the person has that disability instead of saying they are disabled. For example, anarticle on inclusive language at Colorado State University says:

Less Appropriate: Sue is an arthritic, diabetic, paraplegic.

More Appropriate: Sue has arthritis, diabetes, paralyzed, has paralysis in her legs

Another PC word for disabled is the disability community. This phrase refers to a group of people with disabilities and is also received more positively than the word disabled.

Irelands National Disability Authority says the following about addressing people with disabilities:

When writing or speaking about people with disabilities it is important to put the person first. Catch-all phrases such as the blind, the deaf or the disabled, do not reflect the individuality, equality or dignity of people with disabilities.

When speaking about the disabled community, you also hear the word handicapped. A politically correct term for handicapped is disabled person, or person with a disability.

What is the politically correct term for mentally disabled? Neurodivergent, a person who has an emotional disability, or neuroatypical are all PC terms.

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for disabled? (500/month); handicapped or disabled what is politically correct (60); what is the politically correct term for disabled (30); what is the politically correct term for mentally disabled (20); another word for disabled (300); proper term for disabled (200); politically correct term for handicapped (100); another word for handicapped (100)

What is the politically correct term for mental retardation? A PC term for mental retardation is intellectual disability.

The term mental retardation was introduced to replace words like idiot and imbecile that were used in the past to identify people with certain levels of intelligence. But just like those derogatory words, the term retardation has become an insult, along with the word retard.

Mental Retardation as a phrase has even been legally replaced by the term intellectual disability according to an article addressingAppropriate Language About People With Disabilities.

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for retardation (250/month);politically correct term for mental retardation (200); politically correct term for retard (80); what is the politically correct term for mental retardation (80)

There are 4 popular questions around PC terms for the word Black:

What is the politically correct term for Black?

Is Black or African American politically correct?

What is another word for Black?

What are other words for Black?

The terms Black and African American can be used interchangeably, according to Keith Mayes,associate professor of African American and African studies at the University of Minnesota.

Mayes said that descendants of slaves have historically been referred to as African Americans, but the percentage of those folks is decreasing in the United States.Mayes said:

We have more Black people here from other parts of the diaspora and other parts of the continent. We have a lot of East Africans here. West Africans here, always had a lot of Caribbean Blacks in the United States. When I address you as Black or African American, they both apply but it may be a situation where some black folks whose parents come from other parts of the world may not identify as African American. It is better to call them Black American

Finding a PC word for Black can be tricky because it depends on where a person comes from as well as what they prefer to be called. So in this case, it is best to ask someone which term they are comfortable with, whether it be Black, African American, Black American, Black Caribbean, Person of Color, etc.

PC Term Google search volume: Other words for Black (1,700); Another word for Black (1,400); Politically correct term for Black(200/month); What is the politically correct term for a Black person? (100); Black or African American politically correct (150); Another word for African American (80); What is the politically correct term for Black? (20);politically correct term for Black (30)

Is Mulatto offensive? In 2021, the popular rapper Mulatto (who has 1 Black father and white mother) was forced to change her name (to Latto) after a huge backlash over her name not being PC. If you search Google for Mulatto rapper backlash, you get 3.2 million results!

Mulatto was once a word used to identify people of mixed race or mixed ethnicity. In 1850 the U.S. Census Bureau used M as a racial category for mulatto, which meant someone with one Black and one white parent. The Mulatto category became a catch-all for people whose race was not just Black or white, this included Native Americans.

A more PC term for Mulatto (as well as mixed race and mixed ethnicity) is biracial or multiracial. Multiracial is used to describe people with blended ancestries.

Over time terms have changed, so another way to be more politically correct is to identify a person by a group, like Latinx or Mexican American.But, mixed race is still used and accepted by people who are comfortable with saying Im Mixed.

NPRs article onAll Mixed Up: What Do We Call People Of Multiple Backgrounds?says that celebrities may also set trends for multiracial people. For example:

Rihanna,Drake,Key and PeeleandShemar Moorehave all used the term biracial to self-identify. Barack Obama, ever tongue-in-cheek, likes to throw aroundmongrelandmutt.Slash,Nicole RichieandTrevor Noahhave used mixed.

PC Term Google search volume: Is mulatto derogatory (450/month); Is mulatto offensive (400/month); Mulatto politically correct (200/month);politically correct word for mulatto(5);Which is more politically correct Mulatto or Mixed Ethnicity? (5)

The terms Dwarf and Midget are widely misused and can be considered derogatory. What is the politically correct term for midget?

First, make sure youre being precise.

Little People of America (LPA) defines midget vs. dwarf in this way:

Dwarfism is a medical or genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 410 or shorter, among both men and women, although in some cases a person with a dwarfing condition may be slightly taller than that.The average height of an adult with dwarfism is 40, but typical heights range from 28 to 48.

In some circles, a midget is the term used for a proportionate dwarf. However, the term has fallen into disfavor and is considered offensive by most people of short stature. The term dates back to 1865, the height of the freak show era, and was generally applied only to short-statured persons who were displayed for public amusement, which is why it is considered so unacceptable today.

Midget is on its way out

Midget has been met with criticism from organizations like the Little People of America (LPA).

LPA surveyed their community and 90% of members stated that the word midget should never be used in reference to a person with dwarfism.

Recommendations for using the term Midget and Dwarf

The LPA suggests you use:

But the LPA says that most people would rather be referred to by their name than by their label

PC Term Google search volume: How tall is a midget (1,400/mo.); What height is considered a midget (900); Dwarf vs Midget (1,000); Midget vs Dwarf (700); Difference between dwarf and midget; Is midget a slur (500/mo.) How tall is a dwarf (500/mo.) Politically correct term for midget (200/month); proper term for midget (200/month); what is the politically correct term for midget (150); pc term for midget (150) politically correct term for dwarf(100);pc term for dwarf(100); what is the politically correct term for a dwarf? (10)

What is the politically correct term for mental illness? There are many different alternative terms to use when it comes to mental illness. Health Partners has an excellent detailed list of some of these more PC terms for mental illness, and also lists terms to avoid. Some examples:

Dont use Mental Illness as an aggregate term (its too broad)

Instead, use Mental illnesses or A mental illness

Dont use Afflicted by mental illness, suffers from mental illness or is a victim of mental illness

Instead, useLiving with a mental illness

Dont use Mentally ill person

Instead use, Person with a mental illness

Another term related to mental illness is special needs. Special needs has been met with criticism from people with disabilities. What is the politically correct term for special needs? A person with a disability or disabled person is more politically correct. Special needs can make people feel excluded or belittled.

This article,12 different ways to say disabled, has multiple comments surrounding the use of special needs, from both teachers and people with disabilities.

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for mental illness (150/month); what is the politically correct term for mental illness(5)

What is the politically correct term for gypsy? The word gypsy has ties to racial discrimination and the politically correct term is Roma which means people.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says:

Roma (Gypsies) originated in the Punjab region of northern India as a nomadic people and entered Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries C.E. They were called Gypsies because Europeans mistakenly believed they came from Egypt.

A blog post from the Mindful Mermaid explains why we should stop saying gypsy. The blog says:

Gypsy is straight-up racist, similar to using the n-word. The word is as a racial slur against the Roma people, the PC term for gypsy.

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for gypsy (150/month);what is the politically correct term for gypsy(10)

What is the politically correct term for gay? Gay is an acceptable term, along with gay person, gay people, and lesbian.

GLAAD says however the use of homosexuals should be avoided.

On a related note, a lot of people ask Whats the politically correct term for LGBT?LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) and its variations are PC terms when referring to gay people. Over time LGBT as an acronym has evolved into many more acronyms in the effort to be more inclusive to the gay community.

The New York Times discussedThe ABCs of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+back in 2018. The author talked about the addition of the letter Q for questioning or queer and said:

Now theres also I, for intersex; A, for ally (or asexual, depending on whom youre talking to); and often a plus sign meant to cover anyone else whos not included: L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+.

PC Term Google search volume:Politically correct term for gay (90/month); What is the politically correct term for gay? (20);Politically correct term for LGBT (40/month)

What is a politically correct term for race? Race is a PC word that is used to divide people into groups based on shared physical or social qualities. Race can be based on skin color, ethnic association, cultural history, or ethnic classification.

Here is a list of race-related terms that are used most frequently:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people can choose more than one race to indicate their racial mixture (e.g. American Indian and white).

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for mixed race (100);Politically correct term for race (90/month);what is the politically correct term for a mixed race person(5); Politically correct terms for race (90); list of politically correct terms for race(5)

What is the politically correct term for deaf? Deaf is considered a PC word, as well as hard of hearing or people with hearing loss according to the National Association of the Deaf. Other terms like hearing impaired are not widely accepted in the deaf community and could be considered derogatory.

The term hearing impaired was not coined by the deaf community, and a 2019 article on Medium.com titled The Deaf Culture Hates Being Politically Correct says:

The word impairedmeansweakened or damaged or having a disability of a specific kind.

The deaf community may not see their deafness as a disability, so it is best to avoid hearing impaired. Another word for impaired could be limited hearing or partially deaf.

PC Term Google search volume: Another word for impaired (150); Politically correct term for deaf (80/month);what is the politically correct term for deaf(5)

What is the politically correct term for minority? The term minority was popular in the 1990s and replaced the use of the offensive phrase colored people, but its popularity as a PC term has lost traction in recent years.

One reason that minority is politically incorrect is that the word minor in minority suggests someone of lesser significance.

More inclusive terms are now being used to replace the word minority like:

The other alternative is to refer to groups individually (e.g. Asian American, Mexican American, Inuit, etc.)

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for minority (80/month); what is the politically correct term for minority (5); what is a minority? (1,900/mo.)

Googlers also search for politically correct terms for ethnic groups like the ones listed below.

What is another word for white? Caucasian is the most common, formal word to identify a white person, but federal data collection also simply uses the word white. Caucasian is defined as a person of European origin which derived from the word Caucasus, but according to workforce.com:

Most white people in the U.S. arent descended from the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia (touching Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) but from western and northern Europe.

This author says white people is acceptable and politically correct language.

PC Term Google search volume:Another word for white (1,000/mo); Other words for white (600/mo);white or caucasian politically correct(80); What do you call a white person? (70/month);politically correct term for white person(5)

What is the politically correct term for Eskimo? Inuit is the most widely used term to replace Eskimo, which is plural meaning people. The singular term, which means person is Inuk.

NPR gives reasons Why You Probably Shouldnt Say Eskimo in an article addressing the confusion behind the word. The article says:

People in many parts of the Arctic consider Eskimo a derogatory term because it was widely used by racist, non-native colonizers.

PC Term Google search volume: Politically correct term for Eskimo (50/month);what is the politically correct term for an Eskimo? (5)

Continue reading here:
The Top 20+ Questions on Politically Correct Terms [with Answers!]

Found on r/AskReddit.

Our stereotypes have at least a basis in truth.

A few decades back the bad Asian driver was a popular stereotype. And that came from the years before had a wave of Asian immigrants. Many of them came from countries where most people did not drive. So there were a lot of first and second generation Asian drivers out there and their ratio of accidents where higher than average because of that. Hence the stereotype being born.

Today we are on the third, fourth, and fifth generation of those immigrants who have now grown up around cars. Now that ratio of accidents are about the same across the board and, since there is no longer that grain of truth in that particular stereotype, it is dying out. In fact the only times I hear it anymore are from older people who grew up with it. Younger people dont subscribe to thatstereotype because it no longer makes any sense to them.

Now I am not saying that stereotypes are right and true. I am saying there is a grain of truth behind the stereotype that caused it to come about.

Eugenics works. If we can breed horses to be bigger, we can do the same with people. If we can breed dogs to be smarter, we can do that same to people. You can argue all you want about the moral and social ramifications, but the truth is that people are subject to all the same laws of heredity that animals are.

The rate of homicides involving a firearm decreased by half from 1992 to 2011

I save links to things I find interesting.Heres one about Rape convictions. Women are duped into thinking rapes are harder to solve than they are.

Theres a huge health risk with being mixed race, and thats getting organ transplants apparently.

Religion either is good for the mind/body, or people who are religious are from a healthier (mentally, physically, socially) demographic to begin with. The correlation and causation is hard to gauge, but here are some sources showing positive correlations with religion.

Ive already posted it, but Circumcision has huge negative effects on a person, and the benefits are controversial. Have some studies, the first one in particular, published last year, is one of the most massive.

The idea that men make much more money than women as an unfair advantage may not be as it seems.Since immigration and integration is becoming controversial in Europe.Heres some data on minorities in the UK, who are in fact a disproportionate source of crime.

Similar in Sweden, where immigrants commit a disproportionate amount of crime, mostly those of non-western background. The article is in Swedish but can be translated, but for the most serious crimes the instance among these certain groups is 300-400% higher.

Denmark has a similar problem, but its restrictions on refugees has potentially saved billions. In Denmark immigrants do not necessarily account for a disproportionate number of crimes, only certain immigrants particularly middle eastern. Chinese and Americans actually commit crimes lower than ethnic Danes.

The gender gap for wages is no longer an accurate reflection of systemic discrimination. It is now due primarily to personal choices women choosing to work part time receiving less pay overall, taking time off to raise children, choosing particular low paying industries, not choosing to pursue higher-level positions with certain characteristics, etc. From the report below: the raw wage gap continues to be used in misleading ways to advance public policy agendas without fully explaining the reasons behind the gap.Source:

Also, not talked about are the other effects of this division of labor. Because of the industry choices men and women make, men may get paid more but make up something like 92% of all workplace deaths, and a similar percentage of workplace suicides.Source:page 8.

In short lets stop talking about women being paid less than men. We won that one already.

Bureau of justice stats here:

Between 1980-2008 blacks accounted for 56.9% of all gun related murderswhile being 10-12% of the population. If you were to somehow remove guns from black people gun crime would drop by 50-60% overnight.

Im probably late to the game, but heres one. The USA actually has the highest life expectancy once you remove non-natural deaths such as accidents and murders.Also, I cant remember where I read this one but I remember it: the US also does not have a higher infant mortality rate, it is because not all countries calculate the statistic the same. In many other countries, babies born before a certain week are not counted in the infant mortality rate, while in the US, all of them are.

Young Male Muslims are more likely to be terrorists than elderly Swedish grandmothers.

Proof: I have been unable to find a single case of a Swedish grandmother hijacking a plan or committing a suicide bombing.

Nevertheless, they all have to take their shoes off in airports.

Im new to reddit, and I realize the sentiment on here runs VERY against this, but Ill jump in.

Marrying a promiscuous woman is a poor investment.Essentially, it boils down to Batemans Principle.Briefly, sperm(male sex) is cheap, eggs(female sex) are expensive. A female with an unrestricted sociosexuality (loosely- promiscuity) is incurring substantial risk due to the cost of the act, the differential investment applied, as well as an increase in disease exposure.

The rebuttal for this is the advancement of technology. We now have birth control, which takes away parental investment, the cost, as well as disease exposure. I agree.That covers the physical side of things. In the modern day, slut-shaming occurs due to the psychological side of things.

Kahn and London, 1991 and more recently Teachman, 2003 as well as others have demonstrated that women who have an unrestricted sociosexuality are more likely to be involved in marriages that divorce and extra-pair fertilizations (cheating). No similar robust correlation exists for men. Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that this may be due to a release of Oxytocin, which facilitates pair bonding with the previous men(decreasing the value of current commitment) due to the aforementioned differential parental investment.

Furthermore, Agostinelli, 1994 has linked an unrestricted sociosexuality with poor impulse control as well as risky decision making. Additionally, Ramrakha, 2013 has found a strong correlation between drug use in women who have an unrestricted sociosexuality, which has a substantially weaker effect for men.

This psychological and biological landscape paints a picture wherein having many sexual partners leads to poor impulse control and risky decision making for both genders, and in women, correlates with drug use, dissolved marriages and cheating to a much stronger degree.

When considering the divorce, alimony, child-custody, child-support and domestic abuse laws that govern most first world countries. This makes choosing a woman who has an unrestricted sociosexuality a poor investment for your future.

ummmm most black people in the us (70%) cant swim. Looked this up after I saw that story about about all those people in Louisiana who drowned trying to save that little girl and was very surprised.

If you have unprotected heterosexual sex with a HIV-infected woman (that is, insertive penile-vaginal intercourse), there is only a 1 in 2000 chance that the disease will be transmitted. Vice verse, it is still only a 1 in 1000 chance. For receptive anal intercourse, the risk jumps to 1 in 200.

I consider it controversial firstly because the transmission rate is surprisingly low generally, and extremely low (in comparison to general expectations) for heterosexual sex.Source.

Yes. The cause of the sudden windfall reduction of crime in NYC in the late 90s was not due to better policing or a better economy or anything like that, but because 15-30 years ago abortions had a windfall increase. This is also largely based on the finding that unwanted children are more likely to become criminals.

I did a report on how the perceived ideal body differed through American cultures. Long story short, black and Latino men prefer their chicks at least 2-3 dress sizes larger than Caucasian preferences.

Getting rid of all the obese people in the US could save over 21% of their healthcare budget.Source:

Edit : great my most upvoted comment is about eugenics (somewhat) sorry guys.

That children with parents who are MARRIED, are better off emotionally, financially, and health wise that any other type of parent relationships. That includes families in loving cohabitation for 50 years, homosexual marriages and multiple other family situations. I wrote a paper on in a couple years ago. But I was so surprised that maybe that piece of paper actually has an effect.

View original post here:
15 Very Politically Incorrect Things That Are Also Absolutely True ...

"The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it," then-President Donald Trump said during a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention. It was remarkably similar to a sentiment expressed by another Republican president about political correctness nearly 30 years earlier. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

"The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it," then-President Donald Trump said during a speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention. It was remarkably similar to a sentiment expressed by another Republican president about political correctness nearly 30 years earlier.

When former President Donald Trump announced his lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google this month, he used a word that has become a familiar signal in modern politics.

"We're demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well," Trump said in a speech.

That term, "canceling," has become central to the present-day debate over the consequences of speech and who gets to exact them. It has ascended from minor skirmishes on Twitter to the highest office in the country, and it actually mirrors a cultural conversation that started three decades ago.

"This is a power struggle of different groups or forces in society, I think, at its most basic," says Nicole Holliday, an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this is the same case with political correctness that used to get boiled down to, well, 'Do you have a right to be offended if it means I don't have the right to say something?' "

The idea of being "politically correct," having the most morally upstanding opinion on complicated subjects and the least offensive language with which to articulate it, gained popularity in the 1990s before people on the outside weaponized it against the community it came from just like the idea of "canceling" someone today.

"I do think that 'cancel' in particular is something that was invented sort of by young people, and it actually just kind of means boycott, right? It means 'Do not support this thing,' " Holliday says.

Now, she says, "conservatives have picked it up not to just mean boycott, but rather to say: Our value system is under threat by these people who want to [de-]monetize or de-platform us because we have unpopular opinions."

But it's not just conservatives figures who think cancel culture has gone too far. The fear of being "canceled" has caused some everyday people to be more aware of and at times, concerned about what they say and post online.

So how did an effort to hold people accountable for their actions become politicized and get so out of control? To understand the uproar over cancel culture, it may help to examine the past.

Ruth Perry has seen the long arc of these kinds of debates. She's a professor emeritus of literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked for almost four decades and founded the women's studies department in 1984.

Back in her early career, Perry says, she ran with a crowd of idealists.

"We cared about the Earth, we cared about ecology, we cared about treating animals correctly," she says. "We cared about sexism, we cared about white supremacy all these things."

Perry says her peers would use the phrase "politically correct" to tease each other over whether their actions lined up with their ideals.

"Somebody would say, 'Would it be politically correct if we had a hamburger?' somebody who was a vegetarian would say that. Or somebody who was a feminist might say, 'It may not be politically correct, but I think he's really hot,' [about] some sexist movie star or something," says Perry.

"Politically correct" was a kind of in-joke among American leftists something you called a fellow leftist when you thought the person was being self-righteous. "The term was always used ironically," Perry says, "always calling attention to possible dogmatism."

Then, right-wing think tanks and conservatives started to use the term as a form of attack in both the media and academia.

"It felt like, 'Oh, my God, they're using this against us,' " Perry says. "And they're acting as if this term really was a kind of litmus test for political correctness, which it never had been."

A search of newspapers and magazines in the archive Nexis shows just how rapidly the term expanded beyond its original scene. In 1989, the phrase "politically correct" appeared fewer than 250 times in print. By 1994, the archive shows more than 10,000 hits. The idea was everywhere: from comedy shows like Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect to cartoons like Beavis and Butt-Head and even current events shows like Firing Line on PBS.

This national obsession didn't just bubble up organically.

"It is an industry," John Wilson, author of the 1995 book The Myth of Political Correctness, says. "There are all these right-wing foundations and books that were published that made a lot of money promoting this idea."

He adds that the word "myth" in the title of his book is important to understanding how it became a phenomenon.

"A myth is not a falsehood: It doesn't mean it's a lie. It doesn't mean everything is fabricated," he says. "It means that it's a story. And so what happened in the '90s is, people, with political correctness, they took certain sometimes true anecdotes and they created a web, a story out of them, a myth that there was this vast repression of conservative voices on college campuses."

Wilson says there were grains of truth to the conservative argument isolated examples of conflicts and protests, often on college campuses, and real cases of people getting punished or fired but that those isolated cases got magnified into a sweeping national narrative that the right used to claim conservatives were being silenced. And by claiming victimization, Wilson says, conservatives were able to use the term "political correctness" as a bludgeon to hammer the left, a lot like the way the phrase "cancel culture" is used today.

Then, like now, local debates that might have stayed largely unknown beyond college newspapers suddenly became national news.

For example, in 1988, NPR and several other news organizations reported on a fight over Stanford University's freshman requirements. The name of the course at the center of the controversy was "Western Culture," which the students wanted replaced with a more multicultural class, Wilson says. People like Education Secretary William Bennett a Republican took the student protests as a broader attack.

"Right from the beginning, this was an assault on Western culture and Western civilization," he said in a 1988 PBS interview.

By 1991, this panic had reached all the way to the president of the United States.

President George H.W. Bush waves to a crowd of over 60,000 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich., on May 4, 1991, as he arrives to deliver the University of Michigan's commencement speech. Greg Gibson/Associated Press hide caption

President George H.W. Bush waves to a crowd of over 60,000 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich., on May 4, 1991, as he arrives to deliver the University of Michigan's commencement speech.

"We find free speech under assault throughout the United States, including on some college campuses," said then-President George H.W. Bush in his commencement address at the University of Michigan in 1991. "The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land."

Bush went on: "The disputants treat sheer force getting their foes punished or expelled, for instance as a substitute for the power of ideas."

Another Republican president, Donald Trump, who denounced political correctness during his 2016 presidential campaign, made the same argument against cancel culture almost 30 years later at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

"The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it," Trump said during a speech.

Discussion about public cancellations increased in the years leading up to the 2020 election, and that points to something else that these two battles in the culture wars share.

"There tend to be these flare-ups or panics about political correctness in moments of institutional transformation or instability," historian Moira Weigel says, "and I think it tends to be a way that certain groups claim authority in a changing public sphere."

In those political correctness wars of the '90s, college campuses were becoming more diverse, and Weigel says something similar is taking place right now.

"It usually happens in response to movements for racial and gender and sexuality justice, and I think it's no accident that it's with the rise of BLM [Black Lives Matter] that you see it come back again as a big media theme," she says.

Before the entire country started to weigh in on a single person's actions, "canceling" started out on a much smaller scale.

Meredith Clark, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, says "cancel culture" builds on a process of accountability that has unfolded in Black communities for years. But, she takes issue with the description of "canceling" as a part of our broader culture.

"Canceling is what comes out of Black discourse it's what comes out of Black queer discourse but the assignment of 'culture' to that makes it a label that's big enough to be slapped on anyone and anything," she says. "And that is where the weaponization of what is otherwise accountability really takes off."

If this had remained something that just stuck within Black communities, within Latinx communities, then this wouldn't really be a story.

Meredith Clark

Clark thinks one reason that cancel culture has become such a hot national topic is people in powerful positions are unaccustomed to having to answer to marginalized people who, through social media, have greater access to them than ever.

"That's what it's all about," Clark says. "If this had remained something that just stuck within Black communities, within Latinx communities, then this wouldn't really be a story."

"But because it has crossed over," she continues, "now this becomes newsworthy, and it becomes something that is positioned as something that every everyday person should fear."

Undoubtedly, the biggest difference between discussions of political correctness in the '90s and cancel culture today is the way social media creates access to both public and private individuals and puts their dialogue on equal footing.

Jon Ronson has been studying that transition for a decade and wrote about the way private individuals have been disproportionately punished for minor transgressions on social media in his 2015 book So You've Been Publicly Shamed. He thinks the issue with cancel culture is not so much one of right versus left, but with the idea that private individuals should be judged in the same way as public figures.

"The term 'cancel culture' has become this ridiculously catchall term where a private individual who did nothing much wrong, whose life was very heavily impacted by an overzealous social media shaming, is suddenly put into the same basket as a provocateur newspaper columnist," Ronson says.

Clark's studies illuminate a similar problem. She says that when you look at the small percentage of the U.S. population that is on Twitter 42% of adults between 18 and 29 and only 27% of adults between 30 and 49, as of February 2021 you understand how out of proportion the narrative of cancel culture is.

"Given the tiny, tiny portion of the American population in particular that uses Twitter, we're not really talking about a lot of people who are clamoring to cancel others," she says. "It sounds loud because it gets amplified. The Twitter commentary gets amplified by mainstream media; it gets picked up in discussions [with people] that otherwise would not have been privy to what was happening online."

Ronson thinks one way to alleviate the debate over cancel culture is to better understand how powerful social media and our actions on it can be.

"This is a very new weapon that we have. On Twitter, we're like children crawling towards guns," he says. As with any weapon, the best advice for navigating social media may be to proceed with caution and think before you shoot.

"I just think it's up to every individual on social media to be curious and patient. ... It's absurd to think that you know everything about somebody just because of one poorly worded tweet, and we are judging people that way," Ronson says.

Ronson says he remembers growing up in a culture of racism, misogyny and homophobia in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and '80s and how the idea of political correctness was used to address those issues. In the cases of both political correctness and cancel culture, he thinks some degree of correction is necessary, but what we're witnessing may be overshooting the mark.

"We're living in this very binary world," he says, "and in this world, people on the right are saying, 'You know, we are being silenced by a woke mob,' and people on the left are saying, 'It's not happening we're just holding people accountable.' "

The truth, Ronson says, "is somewhere in the middle."

Mia Venkat, Noah Caldwell and Patrick Jarenwattananon produced and edited this story for broadcast. Alejandra Marquez Janse adapted it for the web.

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