Uber-PC University of California: Saying America is the "land of opportunity" is now verboten

(NaturalNews) In a recent piece at The Atlantic, writer Joe Pinsker wrote a short piece that summed up the fears, frustrations and attitudes of many of America's teenagers who opined in a recent survey that, frankly, they don't see much of a future in the land of their birth.

According to the piece:

In 1996, when asked a series of questions about the brightness of her future, one high-school senior in an unnamed Midwestern state said, "There's been extraordinary examples of people that have been poor and stuff that have risen to the top just from their personal hard work ... not everybody can do that, I realize, but I think a lot of people could if they just tried."

In 2011, a survey with identically worded questions was done in the same state, with the same age group. "You can always work hard, but if you aren't given the opportunity or you don't have the funds to be able to continue working hard then you never get the chance to get out of where you are," said one student.

What a difference 15 years makes.

Indeed, 15 years has had a lot of difference. But a look at what has happened to American pop culture, American society and American politics over that timeframe gives one a fairly decent idea of why the attitudes of our youth have soured so significantly:

— The ramping up of political correctness, especially on college campuses: It's no secret that progressives have been using higher education to push their social engineering agenda on America's impressionable youth. But rather than create environments on college and university campuses that encourage the free exchange of all ideas, progressives have instead created environments that are hostile and intolerant of divergent (i.e. not "progressive") points of view.

Case in point: At the University of California, a recent faculty seminar at nine of the 10 UC campuses during the recently concluded school year discussed "microaggressions" and the "[bad] Messages they Send." Microaggressions are defined as "everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership." The solution for these presumed slights? End free speech. One of the phrases deemed a "microaggression"?

America is the land of opportunity, because that's "racist" and "sexist."

— The first lady's "America is bad" high school graduation speech tour: In recent weeks, First Lady Michelle Obama has been traveling around the country on the taxpayer's dime giving high school graduation commencement speeches, in which she focused primarily on one theme: America is racist, and because of that, minorities will never get a fair shake – an ironic statement given a) her status as a minority; b) her status as a graduate from an Ivy League law school; and c) her status as First Lady.

To the graduating class at the mostly black Tuskegee Unversity she shared what she ostensibly has had to "overcome" while at the White House, and how the country is still biased towards "black folks."

"[H]ere's the thing: The road ahead is not going to be easy," she intoned. "It never is, especially for folks like you and me. Because while we've come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn and they haven't fully gone away. So there will be times, just like for those Airmen, when you feel like folks look right past you, or they see just a fraction of who you really are."

Worse, some in the legacy media have not only sanctioned it but perpetuated the myths that somehow, this woman has led an awful, terrible life – the undertone of so many of her graduation speeches (here, here and here). The subtle undertone is, no matter what you do, you probably can't make it in this racist, homophobic, bigoted country.

— President Obama gets his licks in, too: The president has attempted some off-handed praise for the country in some of his speeches, but actions speak louder than words. For instance, during his first campaign when he uttered the memorable line about "fundamentally changing the United States of America," no one in the legacy media bothered to ask him why, if he loved America, he wanted to fundamentally change America.

With so much negativity coming from our leaders and our academic institutions alone, is it any wonder why our kids have no faith in their own country anymore?

Sources:

http://www.theatlantic.com

http://www.frontpagemag.com

http://www.nationalreview.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.bloomberg.com

http://www.nbcnews.com