Please stop politicizing daily American life
Over the weekend, I was shocked to learn that Kathy Zhu, a former Orlando resident, was stripped of the Miss Michigan 2019 title for expressing truthful, but not politically correct (PC) viewpoints. Earlier this month, Nike pulled its “Betsy Ross” American flag shoes after Colin Kaepernick raised racial concerns. In the Women’s World Cup 2019 and NFL games, we saw too many political protests.
Worse yet, even American founding fathers cannot escape PC attacks. Charlottesville, Va., the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson, recently ended Jefferson’s birthday commemoration. In 2017, the Christ Church in Alexandria, Va., the church President Washington used to visit, “relocated” George Washington’s memorial.
Just within a few years, PC activists have spread their political battlefields to almost every corner of American daily life: our beloved sports, churches, our holidays, our shoes and even beauty pageants.
As a first-generation Chinese immigrant, I begin to worry if America will get too deep into the disastrous path China suffered a half-century ago: Red Guards’ politicization of daily life during China’s Cultural Revolution.
Using a “revolutionary” gauge, the Red Guards aggressively searched and banned any nonpolitically correct elements from Chinese people’s daily life, including the books people read, the way people worship, the languages people use, and even the ways people make a living. Most historical temples were destroyed, including those of Confucius, the greatest sage in Chinese history, because they failed to meet modern “revolutionary” standards.
It is true that American PC activists have not committed any atrocities comparable to what Red Guards have done. Based on what we experienced in China, however, I have to warn them not to continue this further into an irreversible course, because silencing your political opponents will destroy the foundation of American democracy. Complex social issues such as income gaps and racial tensions can only be solved through respectful and healthy debates among different viewpoints, not by unifying people’s thoughts. Once different viewpoints are purged, authoritarian dictatorship will surely arrive.
Furthermore, politicizing American daily life will only lead to political and racial divisions, rather than issue resolutions because vilifying your opponents is the quickest way to cut off meaningful dialogs. Sports, fashion, movies, beauty pageants, and holidays are the moments in which Americans come together to enjoy lives and share our commonalities, not to deepen political divisions. Since the PC movement accelerated, our nation has become increasingly polarized. Fewer solutions have been developed through bipartisan cooperation.
The very fact that every day, tens thousands of people of color wait in line in front of American embassies around the world in order to immigrate into the U.S. proves that America overall is not the “evil” or “racist” nation many PC activists claimed. Surely, our nation still has lot of room for improvement. As the greatest democracy in the world, America has provided with ample avenues for political activists to exercise their rights: the freedom of speech, assembly, press, and participation of political elections.
With that, American daily life should be respected, protected and not politicized.
The author lives in Orlando.