“You Can’t Ask That” is a great series. Just watched the Indigenous and sex workers episodes, both made me cry and laugh.

It’s interesting because the ABC is often accused of being “politically correct”, but here they deliberately open up discussion to all the questions that are likely to offend people. It’s even good to watch the stupid questions, because we can see how people get exasperated when they are pigeon-holed by ignorant stereotypes.

Watch it over on ABC iView, so you’ll never have to ask these questions again.

It’s also making me think about the term “politically correct”, and why people hate either what they perceive the term represents, or the way the term is used.

1. The Left: Many people think you should go out of your way to be nice to other people. We see oppressed minorities, and think, “How can we build a more inclusive community?” At the very least, if you someone is different from you, don’t offer them verbal abuse or stereotypes.
2. The Right: Many other people see this as an incursion on their “free speech”. How are we going to say anything if we’re always afraid of offending someone, if there’s a grade book hovering above all conversations, waiting to pounce and label any perpetrator “racist” or “sexist”.

There’s a few more layers of complexity in this idea.. not sure i have the brainpower to tease it out right now, but it’s definitely a point of division in Australian political debate. Probably better to just watch the rest of the episodes. I’ve been told to watch especially the ones about Muslim people and Dwarf people.