Political correctness

Quotes about political correctness (often abbreviated "PC") which is the presence, enforcement or promotion of that which is in accordance with what has been declared acceptable by a political group. To most people, Political correctness is chiefly associated with the use of language or behavior which is intended, or said to be intended, to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to racial, cultural, or other identity groups

Sourced

• "Political correctness has changed everything. People forget that political correctness used to be called spastic gay talk"
  • Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week.

• It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because the kind of people that say "political correctness gone mad" are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with. I'm of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour," and he drove me around saying, "this is where all the niggers and the coons and the jungle bunnies live." And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one asian boy in the class, he would say, "is the black spot in," right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made. It's a complete lie that allows the right, which basically controls media now, and national politics, to make people on the left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys. And I'm sick, I'm really sick-- 84% of you in this room that have agreed with this phrase, you're like those people who turn around and go, "you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men." You're a bunch of idiots.
  • Stewart Lee, from Heresy, BBC Radio 4, 16th May 2007

• Immoral (definition): Obsolete expression meaning "politically incorrect".
  • Richard Summerbell, Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary, 1985

Unsourced

• It is an article of passionate faith among 'politically correct' biologists and anthropologists that brain size has no connection with intelligence; that intelligence has nothing to do with genes; and that genes are probably nasty fascist things anyway.
  • Richard Dawkins

• Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.
  • Charlton Heston

• We'll be right back to the politically correct program called 'The Good, the Bad, and the Beauty Impaired'.
  • Colin Mochrie, in Whose Line Is It Anyway?

• These 'disguises' make us look like those politically-correct, multi-ethnic gangs that only rob people in bad TV shows.
  • Runaways

• Political Correctness: A doctrine... which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
  • Unknown