Or Latin American Again this is the party of 2nd how about that how about that how about ice these ice guys are tough as hell they go in and then out playing games you know the only thing I hate to say this is not so politically correct but the only thing these gang members understand is toughness I hate to say the origin and evolution of the p.c. From the obscure fringe of the American left to a prominent place among the rhetorical cudgels of the right it's truth politics and power after the news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Jim Hark story Danielle's the woman who claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006 told her story on c.b.s. 60 Minutes Sunday night as N.P.R.'s Tamara Keith reports that is potentially a violation of a non-disclosure agreement she signed on the eve of the election in 2016 this isn't the 1st time Daniels has tried to tell her story in 2011 the porn actress and director did a magazine interview where she talked about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump 5 years earlier but it never ran she told 60 Minutes she was threatened at the time a guy walked up on me and said to me leave jump along forget the story and then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said That's a beautiful little girl be ashame of something how much are mom and then he was gone through spokespeople Trump has denied there was an affair but there hasn't been a direct response to this interview under the nondisclosure agreement Daniel signed in 2016 each violation could result in a 1000000 dollars fine Tamara Keith n.p.r. News the White House and Trump's lawyers have not responded to our request for comment now that the weekend marches by hundreds of thousands of people around the country calling for gun control are over what happens next N.P.R.'s Scott Horsley reports one component of the $1.00 trillion dollars spending bill President Trump signed on Friday includes improving federal background checks for gun buyers something the marchers were calling for the so-called fix nics provision it was in that spending bill just tries to ensure that disqualifying information about it would be gun buyer is included in the federal database against which background checks are run it does not require universal background checks which is one of the items on the marchers list it doesn't call for a ban on high capacity magazine or a ban on assault weapons 2 of the other demands from the marchers N.P.R.'s Scott Horsley reporting China says it's going to impose. $3000000000.00 in tariffs on the United States one of the things on that list is apples and there's the Northwest News Network Santa's King reports that has Washington State apple growers worried Washington state exports a 3rd of its crop to more than 60 countries around the world and China has been one of the biggest customers Todd fry whoever is the president of the Washington Apple commission he says many growers still support President Donald Trump but he admits they're also worried you know we're always in support of our government no matter who's in power and obviously you know free trade is something that we all Bush should look forward to but you know we're going to be cautious in a way to remain supportive of the president and his administration and see what happens Friday over says apple growers are also concerned about NAFTA and they're hoping for some last minute deals for n.p.r. News I'm in a king in Richland this is n.p.r. . Yemen's Shiite rebels fired a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting Saudi Arabia late Sunday on the 3rd anniversary of a Kingdom led war in Yemen with fragments of one missile over Riyadh killing one person and wounding 2 the casualties were the 1st in Saudi Arabia's capital since the Saudi led war in Yemen began in March of 2015 the streets of Barcelona and other Catalan cities in Northeast span were filled with protesters Sunday night as were unfair reports from Madrid the demonstrations are in response to the arrest in Germany of a cattle on separatist leader. Protesters chanting freedom clashed with riot police and blocked major roads in Barcelona where demonstrations erupted outside an e.u. Building and at the German Consulate police in Germany have arrested the deposed Catalan president Carly's pooch tomorrow after Spain issued a European arrest warrant for him presided over an October independence referendum Spain considered illegal then he fled to Belgium to avoid arrest some of his aides have already been in jail for months saying Supreme Court has ordered 25 Catalan separatists to trial for rebellion sedition and disobedience charges that carry up to 30 years behind bars for n.p.r. News I'm Lauren Frayer in Madrid the men's basketball in c double a Final 4 is now set number one seed Kansas beat Duke in overtime Sunday night the Jayhawks will play fellow number one seed Villanova on the other side of the bracket number 3 seed Michigan plays tournaments underdog Leyla Chicago I'm Jim Hark n.p.r. News in Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include Newman's Own Foundation working to nourish the common good by donating all profits from humans own food products to charitable organizations that seek to make the world a better place more information is available at Newman's Own Foundation dot org. From the archives of truth politics and power this is the politically correct addition I'm Neal Conan in his campaign and now as President Donald Trump uses the term politically correct to both skewer his opponents and to position himself as unfiltered it's a rhetorical device that bolsters his claim to authenticity and helps his supporters overlook some of his more outrageous remarks just try being Trump in a few minutes linguist John McWhorter on the interesting Arjen and evolution of the term and we'll also talk with a man who flirts with the p.c. Line every night as part of his job stand up comic Josh Blue But 1st an expert on political rhetoric Kathleen Hall Jamieson professor of communication at the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2017 I asked her to describe how Trump uses politically correct political correctness is for Donald Trump what I call a universal rebuttal that is it sits in his bag of rhetorical options to be used anytime someone accuses him of saying something that's inappropriate so and make and Kelly It reads out a list of offensive things that he said about women Donald Trump's response in that 1st debate is essentially you're being politically correct here and political correctness run amok is a tool of definition a way to describe and ridicule an opponent yes it's also a way of marking off to your opponents that this is something that has been said that is illegitimate that is that you should bracket off as something that liberals say because they live in a cocoon in which they will not confront real problems and they use language as a camp kind of camouflage for the fact that they're not really willing to live in the real world and so when we hear remarks that a lot of people see as outrageous as you mentioned about women about Mexicans and Muslims and others his supporters tend to hear that as refreshing even authentic Yes but there's another element the when. When Donald Trump makes the argument that there are things liberals will not say he is also making the argument in 2 cases in 1st in the case of Benghazi and 2nd in the case of the immigration debate that because they will not say some things they are unwilling to deal with some things and so it becomes a signal that he is a person of action was willing to do things that liberals will not do so when he uses the phrase criminal aliens he is arguing that the Democrats have not been willing to confront the fact that there are criminal acts committed by people who are here who are undocumented and that kind of dismissal is actually based on an argument which says that when you use the language it's an acknowledgment that you're willing to confront the problem and by extension that Democrats liberals are so fearful of offending minorities that they will not take action when action is needed Exactly and that because they live in a world in which they are sensitive to any slight about anything there's a whole range of problems that have gone on addressed that affect Trump's constituency and which trumps constituency would express in terms that liberals would find offensive another extension by using p.c. To deride someone as overly sensitive does that allow Mr Trump to come off as tough not only tough but also candid and realistic so you know why don't you talk about radical Islamic extremists quote unquote according to Donald Trump Hillary Clinton will not articulate the phrase according to them what is that same it's saying that my policies will be tougher I'm more willing to confront the problem I will deal with it more effectively because I'm willing to acknowledge it on the terms that it actually exists it's a claim about realism to claim that his language reflects reality and liberals engage in a world of illusion heightened sensitivities and as are. Salt can't act because they're incapable of seeing what problems are to be fair some terminology twists words awkwardly in an effort to avoid offense later in this program for example going to be talking with comedian Josh Blue who has cerebral palsy now he calls that a disability some would now use differently abled and terms like that seem to lend themselves to ridicule we've moved into a world in which we have become far more sensitive than we once were to the rights and some people would characterize it as the rights of individuals to identify themselves on terms that they are comfortable with and once you say that then everyone around those individuals should want to adapt to those self identifications so there's a kind of primal impulse in inside just this kinds of discourse that say I should be able to call myself what I want to call myself and you should honor my right to do that by also adopting that language once you say that you are sometimes in a world in which you're asking what is the appropriate language perhaps I shouldn't use any language at all because any language I use might be problematic because it might offend a person who doesn't see themselves that way so out of a concern to make sure that people's ability to say this is who I am was being honored We also got a kind of heightened sensitivity that sometimes meant that we didn't talk about things we might really need to talk about because that's how we solve problems one aspect of that and we'll talk more about this with John McWhorter later in the program the terminology seems to be the protean it changes all the time it's hard to keep up with and because it changes over time you can use language that at one point was considered appropriate normative acceptable across all communities and in and in out change circumstances it is no longer considered acceptable by some and others are trying to determine where those boundaries are has a change hap. And what are the what's the alternative language and you get these awkward silences and you also get people hesitating before they gauge because they're not sure what the language that's acceptable is and there's a point to be made about that if that means that we're not talking to people about things that we should talk about then those kinds of transitions can create moments that are that are problematic. After any of our 2 parties has been in power for 8 years political history suggests it's wise to run as a candidate of change Donald Trump certainly did that and by being so brazenly under p.c. Was he trying to show that as president he would not put up with the you know the soggy euphemisms of of Washington in the federal government yes because to the extent that they have progressive us were in power the kinds of language that you heard across the 8 years of the Obama administration were far more likely to be those with which that community was comfortable and so part of the root way you argue that you're candidate of change is to change the language in which you talk about politics and say that the language others are using is basically dysfunctional language but it also signals something else by rejecting that language Donald Trump was signaling that I don't have the kinds of identifications with those communities who use that language that Hillary Clinton does that the Democrats have and there were people of color who heard that to say I get the signal here I hear who's going to be advantaged here Donald Trump as a result hearing that that was being used in the culture as advisors hearing that was using the culture began to actually go and reach out specifically to audiences of color in order to try to say don't interpret those language signals to mean that I will not be her president that was a very very important move in the Trump campaign and one that was under reported what was it about in my judgment recognizing that some of the language she was using and the attacks he was making could be heard to say I'm the president of the white disenfranchised class and there's a term that's almost exclusively used by the left to hurl at the right and that's what Donald Trump was accused of dog whistle racism yes and the dog whistle also becomes a way of saying some people are able to hear it and some people are able to hear what Donald Trump means by it and so the dog whistle metaphor. There is a really important metaphor that dog whistles are heard at a certain you know pitch level that other people may not be able to hear but those who are sensitive to it that is in the metaphor the dogs are able to understand what it is and so the implication is there's something subtle going on here I've always wondered about that because many of the instances people cite as dog whistle or racism don't seem to be out of the ability of audiences to hear it seems to me if you listen carefully you can hear exactly what's going on with many of those things but that may be my interpretation of the world not other people's a governing as we all know is a very different from campaigning do you hear changes and Mr Trump's rhetoric and particularly his usage of p.c. Since he took office to the extent that Donald Trump is now engaging in different kinds of interviews with different kinds of individuals we're seeing the politically correct you know language being marked up by Trump less frequently because of the nature of the exchanges that he's having So for example you're not seeing people in a debate format raising a whole series of instances with a large crowd in the audience for him to appeal to by saying that's just political correctness when Donald Trump made those kinds of claims he often had a real live audience there waiting to cheer that move it's at the movies less likely to make in the one on one interview but he does continue to hold campaign style rallies from time to time both to fire up his supporters and I think to draw from their energy are those in any way changed by the fact that he's now in office I don't think so I think when you get into that environment the part of the dynamic that's different is you don't have a reporter asking him a question in a debate format with an audience in the debate in Ben you that can cheer those kinds of responses Donald Trump is a highly situational communicator do you find that his usage of the term particularly as a candidate was conscious or was it a calculated strategy. That's a question I don't think we can ever really answer when asked about anybody because we don't know what's inside people's heads some people are just instinctively able to make certain kinds of moves others are highly calculating what you can say and Donald Trump's case is those kinds of moves of him seemed to be highly spontaneous and very situational but they were used in predictable ways across time which could be used to argue that no this is calculated. Politically correct it's such a striking term do you remember the 1st time that you heard it oh no I don't remember the 1st time you heard it I remember sort of the context in which I heard it with sort of debates in the new left back in the 1970 s. But that just tells you that I'm old yeah I mean I remember hearing it in the seventy's and I remember thinking about the term in the seventy's in the eighty's in the context of changing sensitivities about people's right to self identify and a concern that other people don't have a right to impose a label on you you should be able to say this is who I am and so you know the question was what you hear when the slogan became we're queer we're here get used to it I mean queer was used as an aspersion it was something that you would not identify with ordinarily inside that movement but when that movement then said we're going to reclaim the language we're going to use the language you know have a question for someone who's outside the community and the person and this is this context I remember hearing it I remember asking myself is that now language that it's appropriate for others to use is this actually saw fi definition or is this a language that you are able to use if you are inside that community to describe yourself but others should not be using outside that community to describe you and the reason is because that word because words aren't things you know the meaning of the referee not the thing that is out there the self identification appeared to be changing within the community and you saw the same thing the National Association for the. Bassman of colored people was it appropriate to say colored people was it a quote preppy to say African-American Was it appropriate to say black and people who are outside that identification in the context of the civil rights movement were asking what is the self identification that we ought to be honoring and we ought to be adopting because people have a right to self identify in ways linguistically that they want to identify So in this moment of transition that's the 1st time I remember hearing put it that's just politically correct and it was a way of saying you should be getting it right here or you're getting it wrong here or we shouldn't have to worry about whether it's right or wrong here. Kathleen Hall Jamieson professor of communications at the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania thank you very much for your time you're welcome it's good to be with you more from the politically correct edition in just a moment linguist John McWhorter on how the derisive insult politically correct migrated from the left wing fringe of American politics to the mainstream right stay with us it's truth politics and power. Support for k.q.e.d. Comes from Cora offering safety supporting healing for those experiencing domestic violence in San Mateo County Cora on the web at seo are a support dot org And great book summer camp exploring literature in developing critical thinking through Socratic discussion for middle and high school students this summer located at Stanford and. Oxford in Beijing great books Campus dot com Coming up on tech nation at 11 o'clock did you know there's a science behind how to fix a broken heart while psychologist Dr Guy which will tell us all about it and then on technician health you'll learn about pediatric oncology from Dr Daniel Kraft That's ahead with your host Dr Moore redone and that's at 11 o'clock each and every Sunday here on k.q.e.d. Public Radio. Weather wise dropping down to the mid thirty's to mid forty's tonight clear skies kind of windy as well and then tomorrow sunny and warmer temperatures into the mid sixty's even high sixty's from the archives this is a politically correct edition of truth politics and power I'm Neal Conan Well p.c. Can be found in the rhetorical arsenal of conservatives these days it originated on the fringes of the American left in the 1930 s. And forty's American socialists use the sneer to disparage communists for their dogmatic devotion to Joseph Stalin's party line from Moscow as we heard it eventually migrated to take a prominent place on the American right in general and in the Trump campaign into. Peculiar standup comics are close students of p.c. Often crossing the line to make audiences gasp later in the program a conversation on p.c. With comedian Josh Blue but next linguist John McWhorter you can associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University whose books include words on the move and talking back talking black when we spoke in May 2017 I noted that he is considerably younger than I am and wondered if politically correct was already in common usage when he went to college in the 1980 s. No it wasn't in common usage and what I enjoy is that that is a term that I have a relatively adult memory of seeing in a kind of Archaeopteryx stage in its evolution I had a roommate who was no liberal and he made this reference and he was somebody he kind of his look in his mannerisms kind of resembled the Cat In The Hat and I don't mean that as a slam but imagine the cat in the cat without the hat saying it he said and then of course this person has all the views that we know are any kind of artist as I've already said political correctness and everybody kind of get old and then we moved on and what he meant was that all of us had the usual what's considered the normal politics of a college campus liberal and yes everybody believe it or not that was me and it's cool is and it was just assumed that that was the proper way to think now the guy was giving a little hint that all of us know that we can't assume that our political views are exactly truth and current But by calling it a politically correct and then kind of giggling but then moving on he was giving an indication of a kind of smugness that all of us and hating Ronald Reagan or are in some you know platonic Kaante and way correct that was intermediate That was the way it was being used in I Remember That was the fall of 1904 Even then though there's more. That a tinge of irony there yeah and frankly there was a smugness there and I think any group of like minded people live bait themselves together with certain amount of smugness whatever their politics whatever it is that they're into but yeah it had a little bit of attitude to it he wasn't saying it straight and I don't think anybody would have nobody in that time would have used it in the old Communist way that was completely gone how did the term of all from there well it's interesting that's 1984 now fast forward to roughly 1990 by the time I was a grad student at Stanford and for a very fortuitous reasons I wound up eating at a dining hall every night the 1st year with a bunch of guys most of whom were members of the Federalist Society I don't know why there was a tendency among them to eat in the dining hall instead of living off campus I ate in the dining hall for a completely different reason than them but I got a good dunking in right wing politics just from listening to them and I remember that at that point at least in California in certainly 1990 concrete memories I have of that year that politically correct had come to be abbreviated as p.c. And that it was a term being used by them to refer to exactly the kind of sentiment that my roommate had mentioned in 84 when i'm pretty sure there was nobody on the right on campus who was lobbying p.c. Back at people like him so something changed I presume in the late eighty's such that these guys were using p.c. Casually by 1990 among your other interests you host a podcast for Slate called Lexicon Valley I heard one episode you did on the euphemism treadmill and if I heard it right that that's a mechanism that explains how terms evolve and particularly sensitive terms do you think political correctness was on the euphemism tried. Well absolutely and that's a term that actually traces to the dean of public link with Steven Pinker but I think it's extremely useful and yeah it's one of those things where you're going to want to have a term that means well the proper political views and we know that there's not quite any such thing but then again really there is heat Well it's almost to be expected that the people who don't have those views are going to take that term ball it up and start throwing it at you as some kind of slur but you still want to have a term like that and so you could have known it's interesting nobody knew including me but you could have predicted 10 years ago when p.c. Had really become utterly and completely worn out that there was going to emerge another term to refer to the same thing and because of the change in the tenor of the times since the eighty's it was probably going to be a term that arose from Black English because although racism is not dead culturally there's a certain coolness to blackness that has spread to the mainstream culture in a way that makes us live in very different times than 1904 even 1900 and so woke has become p.c. Now and somebody says well this person is woke Nobody's throwing that back at them yet it's a very handy way to say that you are awaken to what we all know are the proper politics and maybe not exactly But still let's just say that under the rug because we know what the wave of the future really is I can guarantee you that 10 years from now Wolk will be worn out in the same way and I'd be interested to know what the next term is going to be I would guess that it too will come from the black street but Wolk will not last forever quote me here I woke then is the street equivalent of being on the right side of history very much so Wolk is the new p.c. It's the new way that you express that term you could say woke today with that same Cat In The Hat arch of the eyebrow that my roommate did it's kind of the point where you don't need to arched eyebrow and that's the sign that we're moving on and we're going. Get to the point where there is a backlash against a wall as one would expect and then we'll come up with a new term for walk one of the terms that you describe the evolution of in that part cast is disabled crippled use a once was a perfectly legitimate acceptable term it became less so we went to disabled and now. Differently able in our next segment really talking with Josh Blue a comedian who has cerebral palsy he says he's disabled but I wonder is p.c. In a way the engine of the euphemism treadmill Well it can be and I mean we have seen that the euphemism Fred mill can be driven by the right as well in terms of what happened to p.c. But what often happens is that we're trying to get rid of negative associations with the word and so we come up with something different but if the thoughts connected to that concept don't change then the thoughts are like gnats and they will settle back down on whatever the new term is eventually so we need to just be used to the euphemism fragment we don't we shouldn't roll our eyes that's just the way it's going to be and so from crippled to disable to Differently Abled and many people don't like Differently Abled now and we're going to need something different you see that rolling euphemism all the time it's interesting I don't usually mention this but I never like African-American because that was part of that the idea being there was something wrong with black and so we need something else I actually talk about me being younger in some ways I am definitely becoming older in that I have always maintained black I don't rail against African-American but I don't write it and I don't say it unless I'm referring to a black was good enough for me as far as I'm concerned whatever the negative associations there were with black are going to stay there and if you make up a new term then you know think about when Trump says the African-Americans he means the exact same thing that somebody meant when they said black in the wrong way in 1973 so I figured let's just stick with the term because until the thoughts are gone we're just talk. About window dressing but that's just me and new terms can nudge the discussion along but I think that we shouldn't roll our eyes that controversial things need new names every 20 years that's just the way language and thought goes. And anyway I've heard that black is back yeah actually I mean told by people a generation or 2 younger than me that black it's becoming Ok again as far as I'm concerned that makes me one want to be young and 2 I just I feel like I've got fellowship in that I say take it back and don't change the word try to change the thought and of course people often do that with what's happened to the n word with what some gay people have done with the f. Word that we know which one I mean that's also happened with that that word that begins with b. In some people's views not say I'm one of them the idea to take the term into recast it but I can completely understand why some people would say no change the term to get people thinking about new ways of thinking in a different way it's just a matter of what your preference is as we will hear crossing back and forth across the p.c. Line to challenge the Iranians is a fundamental element of stand up comedy some comics are now reluctant to play college campuses for fear of prompting very loud protests Yeah that's a problem and it's of a piece with the fact that the tone of protest against right wing speakers has taken such a different pitch lately with the idea being not just a protest but to shut the person down vocally when they try to speak and even to subject the person to physical threat and we've gotten to a point where a certain crowd and I would say it's a college town crowd has a new idea that the way that you indicate your displeasure with something someone is saying is to refuse to let them say it and if someone says Well aren't you interfering with free speech their response although it's usually not very precise but their response seems to be that there are certain things that just don't count as free speech and I think all of us would agree if we were talking about somebody . Who was going to come and articulate Lee call for slavery or genocide or taking the sufferings away from women if anything would be a waste of time to listen to and frankly we have better things to do and so no speech is going to be completely free and there's an issue of where you draw the line but the idea that a person simply cannot say certain things about affirmative action or immigration or what cultural appropriation of supposed to be that goes much further than what I think most reasonable people would think the idea that they can't say it on the pain of being beaten up that has nothing to do with what anybody into it really 10 minutes ago considered higher thought at least for longer than about 10 minutes so some things something's wrong and I think the humor aspect of it is that some people are fashioning a response to certain kinds of jokes where they feign not understanding the layers of humor and so someone is making fun of somebody who's behind the curve of somebody who's not woke so to speak and there's a certain kind of person who laboriously interprets that not putting interpret in quotation marks as if that person is actually sanctioning the backwards views that the comedian thought they were making fun of and this is thought of as some kind of higher reasoning but I think really it's this willful incomprehension and I'm not I'm not with it I think that something's wrong and I think that it has a lot to do with social media and the way it whips people up I think has a lot to do with the imagery that we have an apocalypse all the time and it has begun to frighten me and don't those sorts of attitudes particularly when they fly in the face of something as obvious as free speech does this sort of attitudes expose themselves to the ridicule of big halt they say. That's. Very much do and of course anybody in that side of things who hears that just assumes that the person who is calling them p.c. Is some is either a fascist that's the word of art these days or some sort of pipe smoking borzois named Bob who doesn't understand that things are moving ahead but yet that is the sort of thing that got p.c. Such a bad name and of course it can be turned against I mean one minute you have people doing that from the left next minute you're going to have people doing the same thing from the right and asking why they're not allowed and then you know the response to that is basically going to be a kind of highly articulate buzzword Laden sputtering and I think we can do better than that I think we need to go back to 1982 everybody in my world hated Ronald Reagan but if a Republican came to campus Well golly they were allowed to open their mouths and next thing you knew a black Democratic president was elected to times progress happens slowly but it does happen in this new fashion and frankly has got to go right after the election you wrote a piece for c.n.n. Where you called for a redefinition of p.c. And there was an interesting phrase you used in the tweet you said Out with it we need a new p.c. It said fight injustice but curb utopianism What did you mean by that what I meant by that was that. Certainly we want to make a better world and in a way the issues if not making change were easier 50 years ago because the idea was we want black people to be able to be in mainstream law firms we don't want there to be signs on the water fountains we don't want there to be red lining we want black people to be able to have a fair shot so it was pretty straightforward It didn't look that way to a lot of people at the time but it's pretty straightforward Well now the issues are more abstract and I think that there's room for saying Ok we also don't want the subtler kinds of racism that can infect our interactions and even affect someone's chances even if it isn't as as blunt as a sign on the water fountain or a no colored sign or something like that sure but I think we've gotten to the point where people are wanting to do even a 3rd generation kind of change where we're trying to police what people even think we're trying to police people's lives to the point that never would anybody say anything to anyone that is based on what could be seen as a generalization about people in terms of groups rather than strictly as an individual then you know what no I don't think that that's possible now if I could wave a magic wand and make that happen and I would certainly do it but I don't see how that's going to happen in any life as we know it and more to the point this is crucial I don't see why it needs to I think we're getting to the point where we're claiming that people suffer injury in a way that really makes the people sound pathologically delicate we've gotten way past what you know anybody you know you can go back to you know not not even Frederick Douglass Luckily he's still alive but you can use Susan b. Anthony Jane Adams I had a Wells Martin Luther King Marcus Garvey Adam Clayton Powell none of those people would have recognized this this isn't of the safe space that we're talking about so what I meant was yeah. Politically correct we can move beyond what was considered politically correct even among educated people in 1955 a lot of people be horrified to hear the sorts of things that educated white people said in Upper West Side living rooms in 1955 but it's not going to be perfect and I think that a lot of people are trying to keep the struggle going into have a sense of purpose that the elders had by trying to make a perfect world and one it's not going to happen and 2 it's not necessary I think we're getting too far away from what used to be considered the aim of progressive. More with language John McWhorter when we resume this archive edition after the break plus as advertised a conversation on the street with comics that's true politics and. Its k.q.e.d. Public Radio this is Michael Krasny Monday on form join us for our opening hour we'll have our weekly political round up in that hour and then attend my guest will be Ryan Holliday author of Conspiracy Peter Thiel and Gawker and the anatomy of intrigue for him 9 to 11 here on k.q.e.d. Public radio support for k.q.e.d. Comes from the San Francisco Chronicle presenting a 4th annual vision Assaf visit s.f. Chronicle dot com slash vision s.f. To learn about visionary business leaders in the Bay Area driving social and economic change in the region and beyond and world reader a Bay Area nonprofit that uses low cost technology and free digital books to get 1000000000 people reading worldwide more on how to help at World reader dot org. Chilly tonight driving down to the mid thirty's in the north pane some of the outlying areas in mid forty's near the city and then tomorrow should be sunny with temperatures they're going to creep up a new warming trend on the way for that week. This is truth politics and power I'm Neal Conan and let's return to my conversation with linguist John McWhorter on the evolution and uses of the term politically correct this is from a 2017 McWhorter is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University I asked him about a piece he wrote shortly after the 2016 election for c.n.n. Where he argued that p.c. Needs to be redefined to include white people who don't feel that they're bad people in general and resent constant demands to apologize of course that wealth Yeah it was definitely there and of course the response among many is well they should feel guilty and I say yes to an extent but to the extent that those people are beginning to feel like the white person is eternally Kathe as the enemy no matter what they do no matter what they say then yeah I as a black person understand how they might be getting weary of that and they might be getting weary of that with several higher degrees for example the conception of the microgram I get it to a point that there are things that a person might say to a person of color or a person of something else that could be processed as offensive in that white people might want to hear but a lot of the micro aggression paradigm has it so that a white person really can't say anything you can't ask somebody where they're from if you have any reason to think that they might be from somewhere that would be interesting to talk about in conversation you can't ask about any physical trait they have you can't ask if you can't look at somebody who has a magnificent hairstyle and ask them how they style it because that somehow wrong and of course you can have endless conversation and articles about each one of these things but I can imagine how it would feel to be white at this point to feel that this is a bit too much too much in that it's not justified it's just not fair a white person who's trying to play by all the rules who's trying to purge them so . As much as possible who understands their white privilege finds that somehow they're screwing up every 3rd step they take I get it something has happened over about the past 15 years where I can understand why many white people would ask that question which since about 1968 is considered to be the naive Este and most disgusting thing they would ask which is what more do you people want who there goes one more you people want and the answer has always been racism is this and is institutional etc etc Yeah well that conversation has gone on and on and on but I think there are some people now who are 20 years old who are fully and Dr native with all the things that they need to know including the white privilege and they're still wondering they don't say it too loud usually unless they were publicans but they're wondering what more do they want and I'm at the point where as opposed to 30 years ago when I would hear a white person say that and think Damn you know they have not been educated I think now yeah I can see how that person would be wondering because we're getting to the point where we're making all of it so relentlessly abstract and so impossible to forge any kind of compromise from that all we're doing is creating conflict rather than looking for any kind of healing I think you're asking me to be a linguist today and I'm giving you a lot of my my political opposites sorry about that I took as let me ask you about linguistics I was going to ask you about a person to your right and that's Steve Bannon who of course used to run Breitbart which among other things is a platform for white nationalism e came 1st chief executive of the Trump campaign and then chief strategist of the White House I confess I tried to pay more attention to Breitbart as it became more prominent and I I just don't have a lot of patience with it you know you read it and if so what are you learning from it. Now I don't read it. I very much understand that one doesn't want to be in any illogical bubble and I know I am very. Interested in hearing from the other side but in terms of that other side I think we're we're talking about the Republican Party slash the right wing as it's then since roughly let's call it the year 2000 where there's just too much neglect of facts too much of reflexive tribalism and there certainly that on the left but the left is much more enamored of the facts then and that right wing and also what what you have roiling underneath a lot of that is an extreme version of what I just mentioned to you with the white person who says what more do they want there's a white person who says what more do I want to isn't us asking that question but is thinking we've tried this experiment of helping quote unquote the blacks but it's clear that nothing really helps and they are changing the fabric of our nation with their barbarity and we need white power we need whites to take over so things will be like they were in I guess they're thinking about roughly 1946 again and I don't agree with that thesis I find it one dumb I think that it's dumb social history to have that take on what's going on and to idle because we're not going to go back to 1906 I think that the power such as it is against all of that in theory is just mean you know I think that humanity can do better than that and so no I try to read conservative editorials where I find them and because of my days at the Manhattan Institute conservatives are some of my best friends and so I hear I hear from the other side but no I don't read Breitbart the Drudge Report does not take me where I need to go I no longer appear on Fox News I did the fox read I comedy show because it was more libertarian and I enjoyed being around professional comedians but no I'm just no I don't I don't go that far I've also small kids it cuts into your reading time. And finally it was interesting to me that the term politically correct originated as a putdown Does anyone in throughout its history actually embrace the idea of politically correct that's interesting because what that means is that really it had this brief heyday of being a sort of roast chicken and potatoes positive word which would have been in the seventy's and probably about the 1st half of the eighty's and it had it took that on in a kind of irony but it was a smiling irony but next thing you knew it was an acrid term of abuse once again that little that little term has out a very interesting history hasn't indeed it has John McWhorter thank you very much thank you Neal John McWhorter's most recent books include words on the move and talking back talking black he teaches linguistics among other things at Columbia University and host the pod cast Lexicon Valley. Few are more intimate with political correctness then stand up comics who cross the p.c. Line every night and among stand ups Josh Blue has a unique perspective he has cerebral palsy and uses his disability to get laughs Usually it is an expense but it's an act that requires an exquisite calculation of where the p.c. Line falls that particular night in front of that particular crowd but doesn't you have the physical disability but does it will also assume that you're mentally disabled but I think that as a prize big furry physically disabled person out there. Well it's really annoying. When he was glad to hear your side of right as if you're allowed to assume because of the well Walter the well move but I'm also mentally disabled then I should be allowed to. Retard. Was. Let me tell you I would join at the airport. You know how the security checkpoint there's 3 different lines that go there as a coach line and the next of that is the 1st class line and the next of that is the handicap line. Does the one you want to try to get into. Because nothing beats the handicap. And I gotta tell you guys I take more July in walking by a long line of 1st class people just go whom I was on the. Route all the miles can buy boldly on was Josh to national prominence as the winner of N.B.C.'s Last Comic Standing in 2006 he's done specials on Comedy Central recorded comedy albums made guest appearances on everybody's talk shop and regularly tours clubs and theaters around the country and May 2017 I ask how much of his act centered on his disability I think yes I definitely conscious of what he sees where I think that's what makes me able to talk about is being aware of what's Ok and what's not Ok And you have to push that line some nights and pull it back other nights on. Yes You know it's every show is like a just their church because you try to feel what the audience likes and doesn't like and then I try to present them what I think will work and usually I'm pretty good at finding that line it is a very fine line to as people who have seen you know you have cerebral palsy how much of your act is about your disability Well now that I've been doing it for this many years people that are coming to my show generally know what they're getting into so I don't have as much splaying him to do. But I definitely do talk about it the fact of the matter is everything I think of comes from the perspective of a disable person so I definitely talk about it but it's not the bulk of my act anymore I've read that at one point you used to do pratfalls on stage I did I used to really enjoy falling down on stage because let me tell you nothing takes an audience of guard more than a guy was terrible Paul the falling down even if I tell them I did it on purpose they still don't believe. We spoke when you were on Last Comic Standing after you'd won and I wanted to circle back because I know you're not just a stand up but a student of stand up you studied comedy in college is shocked like you know that the guy was terrible policy falling down on stage is shock an important element of stand up comedy. Yes definitely is I mean I think it's really important. I feel like especially with my topic and with having terrible policy I feel like I can't just come up with a war with me or 2 nobody's going to hear that or enjoy it I have to say something that really driers. Preconceived idea of what disability is it's fun to me and I really enjoy watching people get a little uncomfortable and then the payoff is the laugh that makes everything Ok as you say it's a fine line have you gone across it I'm sure I've gone across a few times but I feel like I've been very fortunate in the fact that I just have a good sense of what's Ok to say and work what not to stay away from and hears if you're going to say something horrible it better be really funny. I said I suspect you're right about that. Do you get love back sometimes do people criticize you I have had some blowback Well I've always been actually pretty surprised on how little has fared and usually if it's blowback what it is is people going you know I have a friend in a wheelchair that or appreciate what you're saying and my general response to that is well did you ask your friend in the wheelchair what they think because I bet against peeking to their soul right now. Some black comedians sometimes use the n word for shock effect is there an equivalent for a disabled comedian. I don't think so I don't think there's anything as horrendous as that word but it's weird because I can say or I can call myself a cripple on stage and that's fine and it takes the power and gives it to me but if you call me that then we're going to fight. So in that sense of the word cripple though not in the same category as the n. Word but it has some of the same effect Sure I mean it's not giving credit to a human you know it's basing how their body moves on just everything I mean you know you put that on someone and it's quite a hurtful word if it's not used in a fun or the right way I guess is and so we're you know it's one of those weird words where I can say and I can call my other fellow disabled people but if an able bodied person that doesn't know me says that then that has crossed the line I've read that some comedians prefer not to work on college campuses these days because political sensitivity can run so high is that your experience Well you know with colleges that just found for a place of higher learning there's just a lot of dumb people. And I mean that may sound harsh and the truth of the matter is they just don't have any experience world experience and I find again with the political correctness that colleges I somehow can make it Ok because it's coming from disabled point of view and I'm only talking about my life and who are feeling as I'm so comfortable with who I am the you don't have a right not to be and a lot of your human is self-deprecating. Yes Definitely I'm happy to throw myself under the bus for your entertainment. Even if it is a short both. From the days of the court jester it's been the job of the fool to tell the king when he's not wearing any clothes and part of that job is to know where the p.c. Line is and be willing to cross it to challenge the audience in a way politicians are performers to the politicians get the same license to cross that p.c. Line that comics have I don't think so I think there's a different level of standards the. Well up till recently has been in place I feel like if you're going to be a representative of an office or a country or state that you should number one Knoller the line is and then try to stay away from it comedy can be. There's an element of cruelty to it sometimes but the real cruelty is what you've experienced in the real world and is that what you mean when you say everything you do comes from the vantage point of being a disabled person right so for me it's like I've experienced so many negative things towards disability and not just my own but other people's and I've heard stories and then I feel like I actually have a place to talk from. And it's interesting every comedy club every theater has a section for people in wheelchairs these days do you play that part of the room you know the allocator not only insists everyone in the audience is this they will be in their own form whether you are in written or not so I try to flee to the greater room. You know there's a special place in my heart if a disabled person will chairs is laughing at a point I'm making my can see that it really has hit home and then I am doing the right thing but overall it's when the laugh comes hopefully everybody's doing it. Have you played venues where the majority or all of the audience was disabled I did I've several times done that the one that comes to mind is I was in the old 4 Paralympics in Athens Greece I used to play soccer and I got to play for the whole u.s. Paralympic delegation and that really was a big moment in my career and my life when I I mean I was more nervous for that show then any other show that I've done just because that is the audience that I'm speaking for and I'm not even the well yeah they all that the most of the left or the right parts. But yeah I feel like. Once I was done with that show and a couple days passed and people kept coming up and were hey that was really cool what you said and you really made a point and I experienced the same thing and and that kind of. Was a let me off the leash for the defeat made me so much more comfortable about the movement and when I was talking about and was it easy after that to make the transition back to general audiences. Yeah I mean once I prove myself to the greater disabled the community then able by the high doing air quotes with that butter. You know that it's easy Iraq because again I'm talking about a topic that really isn't talked about much I mean there's the disabled community so under represented but everyone knows a disabled person everybody has someone in their life that they can relate to these jokes. In a sense I wonder did that performance in a way give you permission to continue doing your act yes exactly let's just say I did a lot better on the stage than on the field in the Olympics. Ok . Well we didn't win any medals let's just say that much thank you very much good to talk to. The executive producer of truth politics and Howard is Sue Goodman our managing producer is Argin Hutchins and our digital manager is Janet our music was composed performed by the red water treat our listener sponsors include Stephen Simran Bill Hubert Jeff Rosenberg chairs I birthday Andrew self and Kathy has the program is a production of mountain radio and is distributed by p.r.s. The Public Radio Exchange. Thanks for listening. And. Support for k.q.e.d. Comes from the Monterey Bay Aquarium inspiring conservation of the ocean fact despite the hype humans are more of a threat to sharks than sharks are to. Coming up next it's technician how to heal a broken heart scientifically speaking that in more is coming up and then an hour from now it's on the media. In this week's On the Media Mark Zuckerberg sounded contrite after being caught red handed giving away Facebook users data promising that if we'd. We're going to do a full. You know what I. Heard before. From. Clear skies as well and then tomorrow in the next few days sunny dry and warm or it's k.q.e.d. 88.5 San Francisco. Maybe 9.3 North Highlands. It's 11 o'clock. That would be. Relatively. The value of having. If you had only one. Until the people that matter to you. And tell everyone. Your phone is. Today. Communications. That. Also the value of the telephone. These days what you text. Video. Or whatever that context and. Genetics. And even a. Limited suited like the only people with. Genetic data has to be put into a greater context that's. The journal Science. University. 220.