Recently
the Sierra Club released its “Equity
Language Guide,” to demonstrate its “commitment to equity, justice, and
inclusion" by using "respectful, thoughtful language in all of our
communications”.
Sierra is on paper a ‘grassroots’ environmental organization whose goal is to ‘defend everyone’s right to a healthy world’, yet Sierra’s website refers to diversity, inclusion, equity, race, etc.
Sierra supports reparations for Black people, claiming that it’s “impossible to create a healthy, safe, and sustainable planet without acknowledging and materially addressing the past and present economic, cultural, psychological, and spiritual impacts of racism.”
Sierra’s business model is virtue signaling which enables easy fundraising without any measurable proof of results. This is working in Sierra's favor, currently they have assets worth $79 million
The ‘Equity Language Guide’ is a continuation of the inglorious tradition of shallow virtue signaling.
The guide has recommendations based on various criteria such as ableism, ageism, classism, racial and gender identity, etc.
The Guide
urges people to refrain from words such as ‘stand’, ‘blind’, and even paralyzed
'Stand' is now an ableist slur because not everyone can stand.
Hence
‘I stand with President Trump” could be replaced with “I am with President Trump”.
Perhaps ‘am with’ implies a functioning mind, that too is
ableist and discriminatory against those who suffer from impaired mental
faculties.
Perhaps
Sierra will ban ‘am with’ in their next edition.
Blind
also falls in the same category since it is insulting to the disabled.
Perhaps
‘blindsided’ will be restricted.
Hence
“we got blindsided by our own government" will be replaced by “we were caught
unaware by our own government”.
The guide also rejects the ‘disabled’ in favor of ‘people living with disabilities’ while ‘enslaved person’ has replaced slaves. Sierra is advocating for “people-first language,” where an individual “is first and foremost a person, not their disability or other identities.”
The
guide cautions against using “manmade” and “you guys” and recommends gender-neutral
language such as “human-caused” and “y’all”.
Sierra
recommends that the term “illegal” to describe a person who ‘lacks legal
permission to live or work in the U.S.’ be replaced by “undocumented” immigrant or “someone with a complex immigration status”.
“American” and ‘citizen’ are unacceptable since not everyone living in this country
is a citizen.
Sierra wages war against common nouns and recommends that “native or indigenous” be replaced by a specific tribe name.
“Tribal Nations”
must be replaced by “Comanche land”.
Sierra
recommends that “defining people of color as ‘minorities’ is not recommended
because of changing demographics and “it reinforces ideas of inferiority and
marginalization of a group of people.”
Sierra
even has recommendations regarding ‘visual imagery’
Sierra
recommends that publishers ‘strive to show people as they are” citing mainstream
publications that “photoshop people’s faces, bodies and/or skin color to make
them adhere to narrowly defined, biased and largely Eurocentric tastes.”
They mention
actress Lupita Nyong’s skin being lightened in a 2014 photoshoot for Vanity
Fair.
There
are numerous such ludicrous examples.
The
guide almost read like a parody piece.
Apart
from the content, the real joke here is that the authors of the guide think
they are conferring a great favor upon mankind humankind with their
guide.
So
what does one make of this?
Most
human beings are language conscious, we don’t need guides.
We
may use swear words among friends over drinks on a Friday evening but not with parents and certainly not in the office.
We know
not to use racial or ethnic slurs, we learn every day and improve ourselves
We know that calling an obese friend who is dejected about the size of his girth a ‘fat pig’ is usually hurtful. Instead, we encourage him to lose weight and perhaps gift him membership in a health club.
Some individuals many not be offended by derisive humor,
It is not just spoken language or official documents.
Recently
it was reported that Ian
Fleming’s James Bond Novels and Roald
Dahl's children's books are subjected to “sensitivity” reviews to remove
'offensive' content.
So what does one make of this?
Firstly language is constantly evolving
The
word ‘gorgonize’ from the early 17th century, which means to
have a mesmerizing effect on someone, is never used.
You don’t
say “I was gorgonized by her beauty’ instead you say ‘I was enamored by her
beauty”
The word ‘pundit’ which means expert is a recent addition to the English language, it originates from the Sanskrit word 'pandit'( पण्डित) which means learned.
It is
best to allow language to evolve naturally.
Bigoted language has been used all through history to dehumanize groups of people and it must be confronted.
But if everything is deemed offensive, nothing ever is, Sierra guide trivializes what is a serious matter.
The problem is people who think like the authors of the Sierra language guide are in positions of power.
Recently a Supreme Court Justice during her confirmation struggled to define a woman, despite being one. It wasn’t her ignorance, she was encumbered by the restrictions placed by the self-appointed language and morality police.
In times these restrictions could become part of the law and punishments could be awarded for ‘violations’
Remember how Stallone faced fines in the futuristic comedy Demolition Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIDxWyH8ag
Recently a teacher was
sacked for ‘misgendering’ a trans student. There are myriad other cases of job losses and cancellation for the usage of 'restricted' terms, despite the lack of malice.
How does the woke mob, who want their teachers sacked for misgendering, fare with their language?
Recently during a speech at Stanford Law University, a Trump-appointed federal judge was shouted down by woke student protestors and was supported by an administrator
Why did they shout him down? He was appointed by Trump hence in their minds – he is racist, sexist,
xenophobic, etc.
Ironically
they used foul
language to attack the judge and even wished that the judge’s
daughters be raped. Even the woke brigade cannot seem to abide by their own
rules.
There are already attempts to revise fiction – which must be prevented because art is a reflection of the times during which it was conceived. There could be attempts to revise history to suit the current narrative.
As Orwell observed 'who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'
In the
end, being offended is purely subjective, an obscenity-laden comedy roast could
be hilarious to one while children’s fairy tales could be offensive to
another.
If these attempts to erase all that is offensive continue, will someday result in a blank page.
We simply cannot allow a few to dictate what should be consumed by all.
Comments
Post a Comment