I just wanted to comment on the term 'politically correct' that has
been thrown around on the list in this conversation about language.
In classes I have taught, my students often want to throw around the
term, PC, to explain something that makes them uncomfortable.  I try
to make it clear that the point in discussing these issues is to
understand the historical and social context.  Saying we use a word
because it is PC ignores the context in which the language we use has
been historically and socially produced.

One of the reasons why we have become so careful about language is the
diversity of ways a story gets told.  Where once the white male
perspective was the only way history was told in this country, now
there are a diversity of voices telling history from a diversity of
perspectives.  It isn't that it is just PC, it is that as others have
noted, history is messy and using a single term like white or slave
only provides a small piece of the story.

Thanks for listening to my little rant,

Jodi

-- 
Jodi Barnes
Doctoral candidate, Anthropology
American University
Washington, DC 20016
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