We are rounding the curve and coming into the homestretch—as we often do, both as individuals and as a culture—in the race toward what I’ll call SUPERSENSITIVITY rather than its usual and somewhat discredited name, Political Correctness.
That term has been used and abused so often in the last few years that it’s almost impossible to squeeze a drop of freshness out of it.
But SUPERSENSITIVITY, which we often think we see in shy teenagers pained by just about everything (including what pains even hardened adults) still remains to be defined, at least in my context, as the anxious avoidance of all language deemed racist and of all writers from earlier ages who used it. We have already lost both in public schools, in libraries, and our own collections: “outed” masterpieces like Huckleberry Finn, Animal Farm and 1984.
The perfect image for this thin-skinnedness, to my mind, is Crayola’s new “Colors of the World,” 32 crayons in the familiar green and yellow box, carefully labeled “nontoxic.” In place of that one drab, neutral crayon dubbed something like “flesh,” we now have 32 skin colors meant to represent “people of the world….specially formulated.” A sidebar on the box lists “deepest almond, extra deep rose, extra deep golden” and many variations, but no “black” although there is a black crayon in the box. It may be that “black” is now too dangerous to be mentioned.
In spite of the many variations included for all these colors, the manufacturer couldn’t find enough to make up the total needed of 32 in four rows of 8 each. So blue and green crayons are included in the top row, and perhaps a child somewhere will wonder where the blue and green people live.
Knowing about exclusion and injustice is better than not knowing about it, or refusing to know about it, or denying it, but it is still a long way from that realization to any needed action. And while we should applaud all efforts to increase our sensitivity, no matter how blundering, the time is coming when a furious backlash will destroy all our well-meaning but naïve efforts.
“Colors of the World” will be the first item thrown on the bonfire.
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