Young Writers Society

Hello @UriahElroy,

So, I think I just peed a little. I actually really enjoyed this piece.

In today's world, you can't appreciate something tangible without being automatically linked with its cause. While I don't necessarily agree with your opinion, I thought this was a well written and hilarious piece of satire.


"Indigenous Peoples' Day?" Oh, ferchrissake.

1) This goes from changing the name of the holiday to changing the holiday itself. What are we supposed to celebrate now, if not an incompetent sailor's navigational blunder? Tribal warfare and Sun worship?

To be perfectly honest, this was absolutely offensive. You whities engage in war on quite a regular basis (the Civil War, the Cold War, etc.) and some of us minorities chose to celebrate the Fourth of July right along with you. You certainly don't HAVE to celebrate Christmas if you aren't Christian, but some people do any way. This is all a matter of individual choice. No one is going to force indigenous corn and fish down your gullet.

Having said all of that, offending is sort of the point of satire. So I get it.


2) Who exactly is "indigenous" in this context? Native Americans? Mexicans? Aztecs? Paleo-Indians (can I still even say "Indian")? Chimpanzees? Single-celled organisms in the primordial soups of ancient, boiling oceans? Or, do we just lump them all together and hope that nobody accuses it of being "racist" or "generalized?" Because it is.

This was a good point. The same thing goes for african americans. Clearly not all black people are directly from africa. Same goes for Asians (my generalized label).


3) No holiday should need seven syllables to convey its titular meaning. Flowery, eloquent language is usually a tactic used by psychopaths to disguise their intentions, or by anybody when lying. You really think that a name like that came from what's left of Native-Americans?Trust me on this, I spent the entirety of my education mastering this method with astute assiduity.

4) Regardless of your opinion on Columbus himself (or 15th century, genocide-waging, European-Christians in general): Columbus Day has been used to promote nationalism, patriotism, social-progress and citizenship. Indigenous Peoples' Day will be used to promote guilt, shame, social-neutrality and disassociation.

5) For these reasons and more, I believe we've lost our stolen country and culture to "political correctness." Again, we see a flowery, eloquent, seven-syllable way of saying "fascism."

And this is really where you won me over. I think not only our country has been stolen by political correctness, I think our future society will be a little lost, not knowing exactly how to define anybody.


6) All of the aforementioned is bullshit and nobody should ever read anything I write, under any circumstance. This is because I'm an unbaptized, uneducated, unregistered, heterosexual, male, Caucasian-American citizen: which is a 29-syllable way of saying "the Devil incarnate." I also don't care about, nor have any influence upon, any of this. I'm just another contrarian imbecile babbling into the abyss of cyberspace.

7) Enjoy living in The Dark Ages: Part II.

And you end on a funny note, which I apreciated. It takes leaves the reader smiling rather than seathing in a pool of offended irritation.

All in all, nice work, @UriahElroy. I admire your courage to put out your thoughts so freely, though you are somewhat apologetic, given stanza 6. Unless that is yet another jab at the current climate.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a PM.

-mav

Mavis Knightley
http://www.mavisknightley.weebly.com

There's a lot to get into here. Subject matter aside, the tone of this piece screams 'looking for a fight'. Okay, you can have one.
Thankfully, I'm not a cultural American, so the subject matter shall be left to someone with a more nuanced understanding of the issue!

That been said, let's look at this as an argumentative essay against the name change of a holiday.
In that sense, this piece more or less utterly fails.

The thesis point, while never clearly stated in the body of the text, is in the title of the article - 'political correctness is fascism', should be the focal point of the entire essay. Every paragraph (or in this case, numbered bullet point) should relate to the thesis to support it.
Both word 'fascism' and phrase 'political correctness' only appear but once in the body of the text. Furthermore, neither term is ever explained or defined in any way, shape, or form. This is important because both of those terms encompass a broad range of ideologies and meanings, depending on the source. Therefore, to not do so renders the thesis itself meaningless.
A more apt thesis would be 'changing the name of this holiday is dumb', because that appears to be what the argument here is for. However, this is never stated, and even if it were, the point is vague and also left largely unsupported.
On that note, where's the introduction? There's a ghost of one with a problem and an emotion, but no content.

To the arguments.
Almost all of the arguments, if they can be called that, are unsupported and rife with unrelated information and attacks on emotion. Let's look at point 1) in depth, just for fun.

"This goes from changing the name of the holiday to changing the holiday itself."

Okay, this statement is vague and as a first sentence in an essay, doesn't supply the reader with enough information, but it does set up an argument. Honestly, not a bad sentence.

"What are we supposed to celebrate now, if not an incompetent sailor's navigational blunder? "

Acknowledging the flaws in your own side's arguments is a good way to create a sense of objectivity and authority. However, how is this relevant to the argument of this bulletpoint? The argument is 'the holiday will change'. The evidence is 'what will change?' That's... not evidence.

"Tribal warfare and Sun worship?"

I'm sure you've been dying to hear this response, as it is a common response to statements such as the above, but that is, indeed, racist. There are things to celebrate about all populations and cultures. As stated at the beginning of this review, I am not an American, far less a Native American, but I am certain if you did any research into this topic, you would find more things in Native American culture than sun worship and tribal warfare. And more importantly, it's a poor argument, because is the so-called 'incompetent sailor's navigational blunder' more worthy of celebration than 'sun worship'? There's no reason given for that.

Then, the paragraph ends. The initial point is never returned to. There is no argument made for the thesis. In fact, the rest of the point never supported point's argument at all. This whole paragraph added nothing to the conversation outside of dangling threads and a lingering sense of 'maybe this is a racism thing', which is not the feeling you want in someone you're trying to convince.

The bulletpoints that have content are 2) and 4), which have a relevant point buried in them.
2) is almost a good point already! However, it also points to a lack of relevant knowledge on the part of the author that what the definition being used in this context is, because there is almost certainly an official definition being used in this context that would answer the hypothetical question being posited. That's the definition you want to question.
4) brings up a good argument, too. However, there are no sources or evidence offered for the argument - there's no 'why'. If that can be added, this, too, would make for a useful point in the author's argument.
The rest don't have relevant content. That's a lot of dead weight.

(I don't feel inclined to dig into this much further, but a small aside - 'indigenous peoples' and 'Native Americans' both have six syllables - the same amount.)

Oh, and the conclusion is weak, too.

For these reasons, I can't take this piece seriously.
Perhaps some of the above could be excused if this weren't an political argument, but rather a piece of satire or comedy. However, it's not satirizing anything, and there's nothing terribly funny.
Overall, this pseudo-article is unsuited for serious literary consideration, and would be better served posted on Facebook to start fights between distant relatives and internet ideologues.