A Person Paper on Purity in Language

[noamnety]

(Thanks to Benevolent Dictator for sending this to me. It's an old essay, but still current.)

It's high time someone blew the whistle on all the silly prattle about revamping our language to suit the purposes of certain political fanatics. You know what I'm talking about-those who accuse speakers of English of what they call "racism." This awkward neologism, constructed by analogy with the well-established term "sexism," does not sit well in the ears, if I may mix my metaphors. But let us grant that in our society there may be injustices here and there in the treatment of either race from time to time, and let us even grant these people their terms "racism" and "racist." How valid, however, are the claims of the self-proclaimed "black libbers," or "negrists"-those who would radically change our language in order to "liberate" us poor dupes from its supposed racist bias?

Most of the clamor,as you certainly know by now, revolves around the age-old usage of the noun "white" and words built from it, such as chairwhite, mailwhite, repairwhite, clergywhite, middlewhite, Frenchwhite, forewhite, whitepower, whiteslaughter, oneupuwhiteship, straw white, whitehandle, and so on. The negrists claim that using the word "white," either on its own or as a component, to talk about all the members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and reinforces racism. Therefore the libbers propose that we substitute "person" everywhere where "white" now occurs. Sensitive speakers of our secretary tongue of course find this preposterous. There is great beauty to a phrase such as "All whites are created equal." Our forebosses who framed the Declaration of Independence well understood the poetry of our language. Think how ugly it would be to say "All persons are created equal," or "All whites and blacks are created equal." Besides, as any schoolwhitey can tell you, such phrases are redundant. In most contexts, it is self-evident when "white" is being used in an inclusive sense, in which case it subsumes members of the darker race just as much as fairskins.

There is nothing denigrating to black people in being subsumed under the rubric "white"-no more than under the rubric "person." After all, white is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow, including black. Used inclusively, the word "white" has no connotations whatsoever of race. Yet many people are hung up on this point. A prime example is Abraham Moses, one of the more vocal spokeswhites for making such a shift. For years, Niss Moses, authoroon of the well-known negrist tracts A Handbook of Nonracist Writing and Words and Blacks, has had nothing better to do than go around the country making speeches advocating the downfall of "racist language" that ble objects to. But when you analyze bler objections, you find they all fall apart at the seams. Niss Moses says that words like "chairwhite" suggest to people-most especially impressionable young whiteys and blackeys-that all chairwhites belong to the white race. How absurd! It's quite obvious, for instance, that the chairwhite of the League of Black Voters is going to be a black, not a white. Nobody need think twice about it. As a matter of fact, the suffix "white" is usually not pronounced with a long "i" as in the noun "white," but like "wit," as in the terms saleswhite, freshwhite, penwhiteship, first basewhite, and so on. It's just a simple and useful component in building race-neutral words.

But Niss Moses would have you sit up and start hollering "Racism!" In fact, Niss Moses sees evidence of racism under every stone. Ble has written a famous article, in which ble vehemently objects to the immortal and poetic words of the first white on the moon, Captain Nellie Strongarm. If you will recall, whis words were: "One small step for a white, a giant step for whitekind." This noble sentiment is anything but racist; it is simply a celebration of a glorious moment in the history of White.

... continued

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

[mrreowwr_kittty]

1. Simply stunning

I laughed the whole way through, too. I think it would piss a lot of people off, because they won't care to have their sexism (which they believe to be natural and justified) conflated with racism (which they know to be unjustified). But if they can put that aside and just read the essay, they will see the point.

[Warpy]

2. I've seen more than one discussion group ruined

by language police. Obvious, hard fighting racist words need to go. So do words that reduce women to one body part, like the "p" word and the "c" word. Still, even though it makes me wince to see them, I'd rather tolerate seeing juvenile males of all ages display their ignorance and sexism than have a board policed to death. It lets me know who to avoid in real life and ignore on the board.

[noamnety]

3. Flipping words here as an experiment

Even though it makes me wince to see them, I'd rather tolerate seeing juvenile males of all ages display their ignorance and racism than have a board policed to death.

I know you and I don't see eye to eye on this, but I don't see any reason to condone misogyny, racism, or homophobia through silence.

Words like "faggot" and "macaca" aren't okay, and it's not because it reduces a person to a body part. It's because it promotes bigotry and discrimination.

I don't care about my personal "wince" factor. I care about the effect on the general population, when we're preaching acceptance of bigotry and stereotypes. I certainly don't want to teach my daughter that she should just accept a certain level of hate speech in her life, because that's part of being female. And I'm not going to teach the students in my class that are women of color that it's better for them to accept a certain level of stereotyping and bigoted speech against them, because if they speak out against it, it might disrupt the conversation other people are having. It's not their job to appease bigots.

[Nobody]

4. What I find truly astounding

is the amount of energy expended by the people who insist on becoming offended when you want to acknowledge that the species comes in two genders. That the human race comes in two sexes is an indisputable proven fact.

Making one's preferences known isn't policing things to death. Language is power. It's how we think, it's how we express ourselves. What is said and what is not said. It makes known what we consider acceptable, what we consider unimportant, what we consider to be a basis for insult or how we express respect.

You can't please everyone. You can't avoid offense to someone. You choose who you are going to offend. And frankly, it's the people who refuse to acknowlege my membership in the species that I don't mind offending.

If you want a really blantant and laughable example of truly sexist language, watch Star Trek V.