Being politically correct is hard

The other day we rewatched 42 (the movie about Jackie Robinson.) There was a line I liked--oh lookie! It's on facebook. This is a scene where the pro-integration owner of the team shows one of his southern players that for ever "carpetbagger" reference he gets, Robinson gets 10 death threats. The owner tells the player:

"The world's not so simple anymore. Guess it never was..."

This is a good summary of white privilege--of what it means to open yourself up to someone else's reality. Every time you do, your world becomes more complicated. Which I think in part explains why people resist. Being politically correct is hard.

You can't make a joke anymore. Everyone's too sensitive. You have to think about everyone else's feelings before you open your mouth. Bla bla bla. 

It's easier to bitch that political correctness is the problem, rather than the behavior you grew up with. Meanwhile there are all these people whose lives have already been made complicated by their attempt to survive with the dominant group. They've been accommodating you for perhaps centuries. Wearing a hoodie is more complicated for a black American teenager. Walking alone at night is more complicated for a woman. And so forth.

The world was already complicated--for everyone else outside your privilege group. You just never noticed.