Disabled People can be A-holes too

In school today we were told that 'political correctness' means to treat all people the same, no matter where they're from, who they are or what they look like. Our teacher said it doesn't matter if someone is disabled, white, black, male, female, short or strange, for as long as you treat them all as if they were normal. And he also told us that we should never call someone an idiot or an a-hole to their face. Especially when we're talking to disabled or to black people.

I didn't understand why calling someone who is black an idiot would be any more wrong than calling someone an idiot who is not. I was also confused why it was OK for my dad to call George from next door a 'little bastard a-hole' for hitting our cat for no apparent reason, and why it would be wrong for him to call him that if he was sitting in a wheelchair. I mean, to me it really doesn't matter if George is short or black or green. He would still be a giant a-hole bully for hitting our cat. So I did a little research and here is what I found:

Most people don't know what 'political correctness' means. There is an Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook by someone called Henry Beard (check out the book on Amazon). But most people think that 'political correctness' means not to say or do something you really want to say or do because it is not allowed. Check out this article by someone called BJ Gallagher in an American newspaper, who says that the way people understand political correctness has gone way too far and how it now controls almost everything we think and do.

I checked the dictionary and also did a little search online. It seems that political correctness has more to do with language than it has to do with what we think or do. What it means is that we should not use words that 'exclude, marginalize or insult people' on purpose. (I found this in the Oxford Dictionaries here). But it doesn't mean that we can't say what we think if someone like George behaves like a giant bully idiot.

On my way home, someone in an electric wheelchair hit me from behind because he was talking on his mobile phone and didn't look where he was going. He didn't say sorry or anything but drove on and hit a few of my classmates too. He was angry and started shouting at them because they didn't get out of the way.

My ankle still hurts from where he drove into me with his chair. So I think it should be OK for me to call him a rude idiot. Political correctness should mean that if you are an idiot or a giant a-hole, it should be OK for everyone to call you one, no matter if you're black, white, male, female, short or disabled.

The cat picture is from Pawnation.com.