Politically Incorrect: Speech In American Politics

BackStory

History, Education

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2016

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

***CONTENT ADVISORY: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS STRONG, UNBLEEPED LANGUAGE*** Donald Trump has clinched the Republican presidential nomination for the 2016 election. On issues including immigration, race, and terrorism, supporters applaud Trump for saying what many Americans think but are afraid to say, while opponents charge him with inciting bigotry and hatred. On this episode of BackStory, the Guys look at how American society and culture has shaped what topics could-- or couldn't-- be talked about, and how Americans have both celebrated and tried to restrict "politically incorrect" speech.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is backstory, I'm Ed Ayers.
0:03.0	If you've been following the news, you've probably heard one phrase a lot, political correctness.
0:08.2	It's been invoked so often about so many issues that in March, one commentator declared
0:13.8	on Fox Business.
0:14.8	I don't even really know given the election campaign if I know what politically correctness
0:19.4	means anymore when you have a lot of these people talking about a campaign of small hands
0:23.6	that attacking each other's wives.
0:26.6	There are plenty of precursors to today's battles over political speech.
0:30.2	During the Civil War, Northern politicians in both parties avoided even saying the word
0:35.6	slavery.
0:36.6	What they're really shining away from is having the final language that's actually about
0:41.0	racial equality.
0:42.6	Today on backstory, we'll explore the power of words and how the term PC went from an inside
0:48.8	joke to an insult.
0:51.3	A history of political correctness coming up on backstory.
1:00.9	Major funding for backstory is provided by the Shia Khan Foundation, the National Endowment
1:05.3	for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining
1:10.4	Davis Foundations.
1:13.7	From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with the American History
1:20.7	Guys.
1:24.3	Welcome to the show.
1:25.3	I'm Brian Bellow, and I'm here with Ed Ayers.
	...

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