The Gestapo of Political Correctness

by Madeleine Kando

I met the Gestapo yesterday. I barely had time to sit down at the table in our usual meeting place, ready to share a short essay with my writing group, when, without a word of warning, my hands were cuffed tight to my chair and the Gestapo of Political Correctness came out and started to drill me.

I was drilled for hours. When one member of the crew got tired, another one took over. I started to sweat and my heart was racing. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was being accused of because my essay was about elves and Christmas. Should I have referred to the elves in my story as ‘vertically challenged individuals?’ or called Christmas ‘the winter solstice holiday, practiced with respect for the religious persuasion of others?’

But the Gestapo let those two pecadilloes slide. It was a lot worse, one of the interrogators told me, as he pushed his face into mine. With an accusatory finger he pointed to the third paragraph, where, I confess, I did mention Zwarte Piet, in the context of the Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas.

If you are not familiar with the Sinterklaas tradition, let me explain. Every year, on December 5th, a bishop by the name of Sinterklaas arrives on the beautiful shores of Holland from Spain. He sits on a white horse, a large mitre on his head and a bishop's staff in his white gloved hand, to give out candy to the enthusiastically waving Dutch children. This bishop also has a helper by the name of Zwarte Piet who holds the bulging bag full of candy. Piet is also instructed to clairvoyantly seek out those children who have been naughty and work them over with a birch twig. If they are really really bad, he stuffs the unfortunate ones in a canvas bag that gets shipped back to Spain.

To my surprise, the PC Gestapo didn’t find anything objectionable about Sinterklaas having a slave and a black one at that. Their outrage was over the description of Zwarte Piet as a member of ‘the negroid race’. It was the word ‘negroid’ that had set off the alarm at Gestapo central and made them rush to show up that night. They were out in full force, gun holsters loosened, ready for a major razzia. One especially energetic agent, his red hair clearly classifying him as a descendant of the Irish race (I could have said ‘Celtic people’ but I couldn’t resist stirring up things here) and a fervent defender of the PC faith, was particularly upset by my use of these terribly offensive words. He spat on my essay, his saliva landing exactly between the words ‘negroid’ and ‘race’. I asked him whether he had aimed there on purpose or whether his spitting skills were not fine-tuned and he had meant to spit on only one of the two words, and if so, which one?

But he ignored my question and just said: ‘We ain’t done with you yet, buddy. You better come clean, or else..’

A second agent, this one was heavy set and looked like the leader of the unit, pointed to another paragraph where I had alluded to the possibility that, had Zwarte Piet lived in the States, he would not have gotten away with stuffing very bad children in a canvas bag and send them off to Spain for punishment. He would have ‘dangled from a rope before he could say: 'een, twee, drie’. There was a group gasp coming from all agents present as these lines were read out loud. The energetic, red haired agent, his face turning crimson to match his hair, was slowly un-holstering his gun, but the leader signaled him to stop.

I tried to hide the shaking of my hands as I wiped my glasses. They had become foggy from my profuse perspiration. With extreme effort I tried to appear calm, asking sensible questions that went unanswered: ‘Would Germany be better off if it prohibited talk of the Holocaust? This seemed to be what the PC Gestapo was telling me. ‘Don’t refer to lynching or you’ll be hung out to dry yourself.’

The handcuffs finally came off, once the Gestapo reached the second page of my essay where the real story starts. As an investigative writer, I had discovered the connection between the very bad Dutch children sent off to Spain and the numerous elves on the North Pole, slaving away for no pay for Santa Claus. They were, in fact, one and the same. In my essay, I encourage world governments to indict both Sinterklaas and Santa Claus for human trafficking and for violating numerous child labor laws.

But the story had been emasculated, fallen victim to yet another raid on common sense. I was free to go, they said. But don’t think you can hide from us, we have eyes in the back of our heads. One false move and you are back in the hot seat. I am heeding that advise. I no longer use words like: yid, krout, yank, lesbian, homo, chink, hunk, bum, retarded, chick, gringo, towel head, cracker, honky, redskin, redneck, trailer trash, mick, greaseball and commie. No way, not me. I learned my lesson. leave comment here