Back in the day, when someone asked me my opinion I gave it freely and without reservation. Sometimes the answer was not what the person wanted to hear and sometimes it was. It was always my honest opinion.

I didn’t think about race, religion, gender or anything else that might factor in to what I saw as the truth when stating my opinion about any subject I was asked to discuss. If you asked me if I liked a particular person I would answer honestly and it wouldn’t have mattered who they were.

If an elected politician did something that I disapproved of I would say so. If someone was rude to me I would say so. I can’t always do that now for fear of being branded a racist or a sexist or something else of a derogatory nature.

As an example; someone that is a long time close friend and highly educated, recently used the word “axe” in place of the word “ask”. This gentleman is an African American with a masters degree in English and a former teacher. He is now a writer. I was called a racist because I corrected an obvious error not because I am racist. I would have corrected the pronunciation no matter who had been speaking.

To me, being politically correct is an excuse for not telling the truth. I’m not sure when all of this nonsense began but I wish that we could go back to the time when we could speak our minds without fear of being labeled something that we are not.

We have butchered our language, changed how we approach people and developed a fear of speaking our minds because it may not be politically correct. How is that teaching our children to be honest? We can certainly teach them to be tactful, kind and tolerant without teaching them to withhold how they view the world and the people they come in contact with. How do you teach a child to communicate when the form of communication they are forced to use is not always truthful? How do you cover up reality because it might hurt someones feelings?

I try to be as honest as possible without hurting someone’s feelings but I refuse to compromise my beliefs or my opinions with fake dialogue that some moron has created to protect the obviously weak and delicate among us. To refrain from confronting someone because of their race or gender is ridiculous. To be less than honest because of someone’s race or gender is also ridiculous. What happened to good old fashioned discourse between human beings?

I am female and have been called a “Broad”. I did not collapse with shame nor did it diminish my self-esteem. I am Jewish and have been called a kike and that did offend me. The reality is that I knew the difference between what was a silly nickname and a racial slur. The whole point is in knowing the difference and not being so overly sensitive that you can’t deal with words. The bottom line is about self-esteem. It’s yours to give away and cannot be taken.