When conservatives question the need for caution in the way people talk to those who have to listen and here I’m thinking mainly of students I wonder if they believe the stupid, crude, racist drivel so many people spout. An elderly man told me he doesn’t remember any racist jokes told by college instructors. The reason he doesn’t remember them is b/c at the time, they were so normal they went unnoticed. Back in the 60s my insurance agent told me this: he had sent a man to check on my character when I applied for more coverage. The man, seeing I lived in a Black neighborhood, had asked my house guest, White, if the Barretts were White. He replied, “He is.” So my buddy called me and told me this and I called the agent to ask what was going on. He explained the character investigation part and then asked, “You wife is White, isn’t she?” And I said no, she’s Black and why does it matter. His said, right after I told him my wife was Black, “Well, you know if it comes to a choice between a bottle of wine and a premium payment, which one they choose.”
Of course, conservatives will declare this guy an outlier (he wasn’t) or say it was just the times…….. exactly, and restricting the racism of teachers helps reduce the racism students encounter all around them. We restrict the things teachers say to students all the time if a teacher were to say we should have killed more Japs in WW II so we wouldn’t be driving so many Jap cars, we would reprimand him; if a teacher said we should let kids whose parents don’t want them vaccinated die, we would reprimand him. That doesn’t mean he can’t spout these things at dinner out with his friends, just not to a captive audience. That’s why P.C. arose in schools, universities. Conservatives are still angry they can’t use the N word. That’s all.