Cory Booker on political correctness: Is censoring others really the best way? | Big Think

I wrote an article in college where I tried, as a senior or a fifth year student, to talk about my coming to grips with homophobia that I had as a teenager. I was very honest in the article about my just twisted thoughts about gay Americans' discomfort, you know, in that area. In the article, I talked about this man who I still remember; I haven't been in touch with him in years. A guy named Daniel Bao—one of the more beautiful human beings I ever met.

I was working at a 24-hour crisis counseling center, and a lot of the calls we would get would be from men and women who are struggling with coming out. It was devastating to me, as a counselor. I just had no idea of the levels of suicide, physical abuse, and kids that were homeless because of family reactions, the bullying, and intimidation that gay Americans were enduring. It was like I was seeing behind the veil of the realities, and it really called into question my own issues.

I remember some nights I would sit with Daniel and question him in ways that, now I think about it, I’ve experienced questions from people of color who asked me questions that I thought were sometimes just ignorant. If I had a dollar for every time, when I was growing up, kids would ask me to touch my hair, you know, and it got tedious; you know, because I was so different. I was one African-American in an all-white community, my brother and I, and just the comments that were made—innocent comments, but over and over and over again, they became an attack on my self-esteem in many ways.

So now here I was in college, asking the same kind of questions to a gay man—ignorant questions, personal questions. The way he dealt with me didn’t make me feel uncomfortable or shamed, but was so patient, was so loving, was so kind. I'll never forget that. I grew from his love; I grew from his generosity of spirit. I grew from him enduring, in fact accepting and inviting those questions.

I don’t know if I have constructive commentary to give about what's going on on a lot of these college campuses, how people are reacting to what they call an environment of political correctness, but I just know in my life, having been both a minority dealing with folks and their commentary, and having been a guy trying to learn about other cultures, that I just want to always lead with love.

I just want to always be as generous as possible. And even though it's tough, I know if you're gay, or black, or Muslim, I've been there—how tough it is every single day. If you're biracial— I mean, if Irish people, they had a dollar for every time somebody asked you, just walked up and didn’t even know you and said, "What are you?" You know, it's well, "I'm a human being. I'm a person with feelings." You know, you endure that when you're different, and all of us have.

I mean, I had conversations with a female senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, listening to her book right now, just hearing her share that stuff she endured just as a woman in politics where everybody seems to think it's their right to comment on her weight or what she’s wearing. Well, all of us have to indeed endure that, or many of us have to endure that. And whatever side of this you’re on, come back to that idea: “Am I leading with love?”

It's my reflective question of love, of empathy, of compassion. Am I being gentle in how I deal with this? And that doesn’t mean for us activists—it doesn’t mean be less strident in seeking justice; it doesn’t mean be less hard in defending rights. But the people I revere from our history, who were so successful in moving the needle on advancing rights and equality, many of them led with love. And I think that that was their most powerful weapon for transforming hearts and minds.