1990s Political Correctness

[Unassuming Local Guy]

And that's a bad thing? at least racism is honest.

I think you misread what I said. I said the media wasn't racist, unlike now.

 

[Sperghetti]

Late to the party here... I was young at the beginning of it, but there was a big emphasis on changing words and verbiage around, even for stuff that wasn't really offensive in the first place. Like making everyone's ethnicity hyphenated, or changing terms for disabilities and such. Hence where you get jokes like "I'm not short, I'm vertically challenged." (Fun fact: Deaf people actually hated the PC term "hearing impaired".)

As others have said, in kid-oriented media, you'd get stuff like having unrealistically diverse casts of characters: The lead might be white, but it was like you were required to have black character, one hispanic character, one generically asian, a girl, and somebody in a wheelchair. Things like math textbooks would use the same formula to incorporate more ethnic names: "Sarah and Julio have three apples..." And like @Ligoskj mentioned, there was a push to ban older media that was seen as racist, like certain Looney Toons shorts, or to censor versions of Tom Sawyer.

Corporate entities would also acknowledge Hanukkah and Kwanzaa (lol) alongside Christmas.

But the 90's kind of had a rebellious, edgy streak to it, too, and being "politically incorrect" was great for shock humor. South Park came into being in '97 and became wildly popular, and by the 00's, I remember seeing more pushback against banning or censoring media for its content.

All in all, the mainstream PC culture of the 90's was more like ham-fisted attempts to make everybody hold hands and sing Kumbaya, while trying to take anything from the past that might be construed as racist and memory hole it. The queer theory, racial grievance culture, and "all sex is rape" feminism all existed in the 90's (and even before), it was just contained within the more incestuous parts of academia where it rarely saw the light of day. Anybody who subscribed to that stuff was pretty much guaranteed to either be a professor who never had any job outside of their little corner academic world, or a student who was heading for that fate. It was only in the late 00's that it started to seep out into other areas (at least that I noticed), and by the mid-10's, it started going mainstream.

 

[queerape]

I’m surprised that the Rodney King Riots, OJ, and Larry Byrd weren’t mentioned yet. Rodney King was the start of the whole Fuck the Police going mainstream. It was the Furhman tapes where America decided nigger is actually a racist word.

 

[moseph.jartelli]

The word 'tolerance' was the norm. Not this new wave of 'you must agree, conform and completely accept what youre told and if you don't youre a Nazi'. Basically don't be an outright dick to people if they are different.

I was in highschool then

 

[The Last Stand]

But we also need to remember that the 90s had a fucking lot of crime. Like, a sixfold increase from before the 60s and about 50% higher than we have now "a lot". Almost every city was a giant no go zone thanks to massive, violent gangs that everybody pretended didn't exist. Hm. Sounds familiar.

Most people here, if they were even born yet, were probably like 4 years old in 1999. The MTV retrospectives and 9gag memes lied to you, kids. It may have been rad, even bitchin', but it was not peaceful.

Rose tinted glasses for nostalgia. As you mentioned, the 90s were looked at fondly at a time because in a societal standpoint, people got along.

People talking about the 90s like they were the bygone years of a utopian society need to settle down.

Things appear so bad now, that we, as a collective society, reminisce about times where things appear stable from our memories and childhood. I can understand why older adults harken back to the "good old days."

All the good parts about our youth or the time period, we should incorporate those into the present and future while learning what didn't work back then. We CAN do that, look at the 2000s as an example of that.

 

[Dom Cruise]

People talking about the 90s like they were the bygone years of a utopian society need to settle down.

Yes, racial and political attitudes as a whole were infinitely better than the absolute garbage that is the modern zeitgeist. PC culture had very little power and was mostly benevolent. This is true, and I miss it. God do I miss it. Most of you probably don't remember a world where open racism wasn't not only practiced by the media and mega corporations, but rewarded. I do. One could say that in the 90s, it was okay to be white.

But we also need to remember that the 90s had a fucking lot of crime. Like, a sixfold increase from before the 60s and about 50% higher than we have now "a lot". Almost every city was a giant no go zone thanks to massive, violent gangs that everybody pretended didn't exist. Hm. Sounds familiar.

Most people here, if they were even born yet, were probably like 4 years old in 1999. The MTV retrospectives and 9gag memes lied to you, kids. It may have been rad, even bitchin', but it was not peaceful.

America has always been a very bifurcated place, so while some areas may have had a lot of crime, some areas really were close to utopian.

I do remember though as a kid, even though I live in a smallish town, you'd often at night time hear a "boom car" off in the distance, I still distinctly remember that "THOOM THOOM THOOM" sound, I think noise pollution laws have since been passed making that illegal.

Still, America's mainstream cultural attitudes were simply better back then and that's what people rightfully miss.

Lol it's hilarious that both of you bring that up because even as a young kid I remember noticing that they had carefully put each catagory into the group. You had a black girl, a cripple kid, a nerd, no fatties IIRC, but even Burger King being proto woke knew to have the white, blonde hair, blue eyed superman as the BK Kids Club leader.

This is a key difference between now and then, white males were always sure to be included as much as any token minority would be, nobody was trying to shun us completely like today.

I've never known an America that wasn't a diverse place and I accepted that, but it was only when people suddenly started getting a bug up their ass about wanting to exclude and vilify white men did I go "wait a minute"

 

[Sea Hag Henderson]

90's PC was a soccer mom wanting to help those poor brown children, current PC is a college undergrad in combat boots wanting the white children to suffer because she hates her dad.

 

[Empty]

But we also need to remember that the 90s had a fucking lot of crime. Like, a sixfold increase from before the 60s and about 50% higher than we have now "a lot".

It is true that the early 90s were an epitome of crime, but in the following years these problems have been resolved very quickly. It was especially noticeable in big cities, NYC of 1990 and 1999 were like two completely different places.

 

[Michael Jacks0n]

As others have said, in kid-oriented media, you'd get stuff like having unrealistically diverse casts of characters: The lead might be white, but it was like you were required to have black character, one hispanic character, one generically asian, a girl, and somebody in a wheelchair. Things like math textbooks would use the same formula to incorporate more ethnic names: "Sarah and Julio have three apples..."

Oh god do I remember this. Being a kid and pre-teen in the 90's, I distinctly remember old textbooks that had math scenarios like "Jim, Bob, and George are picking apples...", then around the mid-90's was when a switch flipped. I remember getting new textbooks in school, and our teacher is reading the math scenario aloud to the class and struggling to pronounce the names, and in some cases outright complaining that the names sound made up. It became a recurring theme in his class to make fun of the absurd ethnic names, since we were a 99% white school in a small town. "Jack, Bob, and P...Prat...Pratyusha? What the hell? Ugh. Okay, Jack, Bob, and Pray-ee-oosha are picking apples...". I also remember when we'd see advertisements and brochures in the mail with at least one token wheelchair person, when prior to that it was rare to see a cripple in any kind of media.

And for the Zoomers who were born after the era of Supersize Me, here's a little treat: wokeness before wokeness was even a thing....

The motherfucking Burger King Kids Club! A black, a tomboy girl, a cripple in a tricked out wheelchair, a smart kid who fucking loved science, an ethnically-ambiguous kid who could either be Latino or Italian, a smart girl with a camera, and a Kool kid with a sideways hat. Oh, and a fucking dog, because why not.

Corporate entities would also acknowledge Hanukkah and Kwanzaa (lol) alongside Christmas.

I remember that too. Growing up in a white town where everyone celebrated Christmas by default, it always baffled me to even hear that other kids didn't celebrate Christmas. I remember originally before holiday break when the teacher would say Merry Christmas to the whole class, then something happened where eventually the teachers would say, "Everyone here celebrates Christmas, right? Well, Merry Christmas to you if you do, and happy Hanukah or Kwanzaa if you don't." And despite no blacks in our class, we still had to read about Kwanzaa celebrations for a day or so. We also didn't have any Jews from what I could remember, but in music class we had to sing a ton of these driedel and menorah songs. The real irony is that later in life I met plenty of real Jews who said they rarely even celebrate Hanukah anyway, and that it's essentially a Hallmark holiday to sell cards and gifts in sync with Christmas.

 

[Empty]

And for the Zoomers who were born after the era of Supersize Me, here's a little treat: wokeness before wokeness was even a thing....

The motherfucking Burger King Kids Club! A black, a tomboy girl, a cripple in a tricked out wheelchair, a smart kid who fucking loved science, an ethnically-ambiguous kid who could either be Latino or Italian, a smart girl with a camera, and a Kool kid with a sideways hat. Oh, and a fucking dog, because why not.

At least this looked creative and unobtrusive. I think I have seen similar cartoon paintings back in the late 80s, so not sure was it really common since the 90s and not earlier.

 

[Sperghetti]

The motherfucking Burger King Kids Club! A black, a tomboy girl, a cripple in a tricked out wheelchair, a smart kid who fucking loved science, an ethnically-ambiguous kid who could either be Latino or Italian, a smart girl with a camera, and a Kool kid with a sideways hat. Oh, and a fucking dog, because why not.

Haha, YES! The Burger King Kids’ Club (and to a lesser extent, Captain Planet) is exactly what I think of with that kind of formulaic diversity.

I remember that too. Growing up in a white town where everyone celebrated Christmas by default, it always baffled me to even hear that other kids didn't celebrate Christmas. I remember originally before holiday break when the teacher would say Merry Christmas to the whole class, then something happened where eventually the teachers would say, "Everyone here celebrates Christmas, right? Well, Merry Christmas to you if you do, and happy Hanukah or Kwanzaa if you don't." And despite no blacks in our class, we still had to read about Kwanzaa celebrations for a day or so. We also didn't have any Jews from what I could remember, but in music class we had to sing a ton of these driedel and menorah songs. The real irony is that later in life I met plenty of real Jews who said they rarely even celebrate Hanukah anyway, and that it's essentially a Hallmark holiday to sell cards and gifts in sync with Christmas.

Yeah, my hometown was and still is overwhelmingly white and predominantly Catholic. To my knowledge, there wasn't anybody in my class who didn't celebrate Christmas in some fashion (but I did have a friend who came from a fundie family that didn't celebrate Halloween), and I don't think the matter of other holidays was ever brought up at school. The Hanukkah/Kwanzaa thing was mostly through pop culture and media.

In retrospect, Kwanzaa is kind of an all-around good summary for 90's political correctness: A literal woke alternative to Christmas that was made up in the mid-60's by a black nationalist, that got pushed as a commonly-celebrated holiday by mindless do-gooders who thought they were being inclusive and sensitive to black people. Meanwhile, in reality, most actual black people just celebrate Christmas like the rest of America. (I also predict it will make a comeback this year on the heels of BLM and the rise of people openly trying to eschew "whiteness".)

 

[Dom Cruise]

The 1990s did it right, if America had stayed in those attitudes everything would be fine today, not perfect, but fine.

Instead people gave into resentment and we have what we have now.

I think it's because we really did come this close to simply moving on past racism, but for certain blacks they just couldn't let the past go, they knew how ugly history was and how little modern whites really knew about it and the idea of just sweeping it all under the rug just didn't sit right with them, so little by little the resentment grew and spread like a virus, until eventually reaching a boiling point.

This is why Christianity puts such an emphasis on forgiveness because while it's not easy to do it, sometimes to get along you have to simply let something go, no mater how hurtful, because giving into a desire for revenge only makes everything worse.

But not coincidently America has only moved further and further away from Christian values and it's no surprise an "eye for an eye" is becoming the law of the land.

 

[Syaoran Li]

The 1990s did it right, if America had stayed in those attitudes everything would be fine today, not perfect, but fine.

Instead people gave into resentment and we have what we have now.

I think it's because we really did come this close to simply moving on past racism, but for certain blacks they just couldn't let the past go, they knew how ugly history was and how little modern whites really knew about it and the idea of just sweeping it all under the rug just didn't sit right with them, so little by little the resentment grew and spread like a virus, until eventually reaching a boiling point.

This is why Christianity puts such an emphasis on forgiveness because while it's not easy to do it, sometimes to get along you have to simply let something go, no mater how hurtful, because giving into a desire for revenge only makes everything worse.

But not coincidently America has only moved further and further away from Christian values and it's no surprise an "eye for an eye" is becoming the law of the land.

I honestly think you might be onto something with the decline of Christianity in the wider culture having a major effect with the vindictiveness of the Woke Left and the rise of black supremacism in the mainstream.

On average, the Millennial generation had a deep-seated resentment towards Christianity thanks to both the antics of the Religious Right moral guardians and the Bush Administration's failures and close ties to said moral guardians.

Unfortunately, our generation threw the baby out with the bathwater and so many Millennials flocked to the New Atheism movement as well as SJW's, radical feminists, black supremacists, neo-communists, and all the other previously fringe groups that would coalesce into the wider Woke Left in the 2010's.

There was a racial detente of sorts in the years after Rodney King but before Trayvon Martin and things had visibly and steadily improved for race relations during the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Not even the mismanaged response to Hurricane Katrina was enough to sink that, but I think the letdown of Obama and the rise of what would become the Woke Left really kicked things into gear.

Obama's comments about Trayvon and the media circus surrounding the Zimmerman trial were both after Occupy Wall Street had collapsed in on itself. Given the fact Obama was part of the neoliberal clique and in league with the corporate bigwigs, I think a lot of the increased racial tensions post-2013 were at least partly intentionally stoked by the powers that be. They didn't want another Occupy to get started and organize before it could be subverted a second time.

Identity Politics are a hell of a drug, and the Millennial generational A-Logging against Christian values made it even easier for the division to be sowed.

 

[Don't Tread on Me]

I seem to remember environmentalism being huge in the 90s. There was a big push for individuals to recycle that you don't really see anymore.

Spoiler: Minor PL

Back when I was a kid, there was a local commercial that used to play all the time: "It's the law in Raleigh! Do not pour cooking oil or grease down the drain!"

 

[Dom Cruise]

Not even the mismanaged response to Hurricane Katrina was enough to sink that,

It came close though, the climate surrounding Katrina was like giving us an early preview of modern race relations.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

There was minor stuff, mostly just black people being black people. Other than that near the mid 90s I remember a Girl Power push but it didn’t seem super PC or anything, in fact I kind of miss it. That’s the kind of feminism I can get behind. It wasn’t complaining that men were holding them back. No. They held their heads high and said they were just as capable as any man. Which I mean.. they were wrong but I admire that drive and aspiration.

 

[Syaoran Li]

It came close though, the climate surrounding Katrina was like giving us an early preview of modern race relations.

True, although I think the fact that you had the infamously corrupt Louisiana state government at the time plus the botched FEMA response and Bush as a scapegoat of sorts did a lot to diffuse it before it could get bad.

Aside from Kanye West and Spike Lee, you didn't have too much tensions once the initial state of emergency ended and a proper relief effort could finally be made.

Of course, Kanye West is mentally ill and Spike Lee was always a race baiter even back in the 90's. You even had jokes on Family Guy and MAD TV that made fun of Spike Lee's obsession with race and black identity politics. That wouldn't fly nowadays.

I seem to remember environmentalism being huge in the 90s. There was a big push for individuals to recycle that you don't really see anymore.

Spoiler: Minor PL

Back when I was a kid, there was a local commercial that used to play all the time: "It's the law in Raleigh! Do not pour cooking oil or grease down the drain!"

Thank God that commercial didn't play where I lived. Mom used to pour used motor oil down the sink in our bathroom every so often back when I was a kid.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Thank God that commercial didn't play where I lived. Mom used to pour used motor oil down the sink in our bathroom every so often back when I was a kid.

How long did it take you to find out that your Mom was sleeping with the plumber?

 

[Syaoran Li]

How long did it take you to find out that your Mom was sleeping with the plumber?

Surprisingly, she wasn't. We couldn't afford a professional plumber

We were just white trash hillbillies and literally didn't give a fuck.

 

[HandsomeDan]

The term "self esteem" was big in elementary school, even as a child I knew something was wrong with that term.

The 90s was also when the first real whiffs of ant-Confederate stuff started.

I will also say that the whole no prayer or anything the least bit religious in schools may have been worse in the 90s. Im sure it is dependent on region, but my kids go to the same public elementary school I did and I certainly notice religion being much more open then when I was there. They still say Christmas and the like.