Recently, I was meeting an old friend for lunch. When I got to the restaurant, I wasn’t sure if he was already there, or if I had arrived first, so I asked the hostess if there was anyone waiting. “There’s a woman waiting on a party of four”, she explained, “and another man wearing a grey suit.”
I had absolutely no idea what my friend was wearing, so I said, “The man I’m looking for is a tall, bald, black man.” The reply I got was quite telling. The hostess looked quite uncomfortable, and replied, “I didn’t know I could identify him as ‘black’”.
“It’s OK”, I said, “he knows he’s black.”
I’m happy we’ve moved beyond Amos and Andy jokes, but the story above illustrates a hyper-sensitivity to cultural diversity that does no one any good
For this reason, I am self-proclaiming myself to be living in the post-politically correct era. This means the cultural differences between people have such little consequence for me, that it is entirely appropriate for me to comment on such differences.
Just the other day, I was saying to my Irish friend, Alexis Theodropoulos, that this politically correct garbage has gotten way out of hand. It seems that every Tom, Dick and Xianlong in town feels comfortable critiquing your tolerance simply because you mention in passing that you don’t like curried food.
I live in a city where the WASP population is significantly less than half the population. I live in a country where there are no majorities – not white males, not English speakers, and not people of Protestant faith. It’s a community of communities (with proper credit to Joe Clark).
These diverse groups do not integrate, but they do coexist, and do so nicely. So next time you see an Italian on the street – ask him the best place to eat schnitzel. You just might be surprised at the response.