No, it's like you're tiptoeing through a field of totally normal flowers thinking they might explode and then getting mad at someone else because of the thing you made up
I know right? The trump administration is being ridiculous refusing to work with news outlets who continue to call it the internationally recognized gulf of Mexico. So much for free speech.
Are you referring to people not wanting others to use the r-slur or when people have done things like politely suggest terms like Latinx, because these are different things. Latinx has only ever been treated as an optional term, and people understand not using other slurs.
Something I do think is too casually tossed out as an excuse is that you can't hold every member of the coalition to the standard of not policing language, but that's just how it works. We don't excuse coalitions with racist factions in the same way, not that they're equivalent, just the mechanism.
but we're in like year ten of trying to "make leftist speech approachable" and it hasn't yielded anything. If anything the right is pushing for even more allowances on outrageous speech. Hitler salutes are now on the table.
At some point either we need to call it or just give up on prog positions all together. Because if asking not to be called tranny is always going to provoke this backlash then we might as well just quit. Because clearly it's an unwinnable fight
Queer was an insult before it wasn’t (eg); and the truth of the success of LGBTQ subversive politics (imo) was embracing the insult, forcing a revaluation of values, and flipping the script.
When and why did that political strategy seem to shift?
Because 99% of the people affected by the slur have to agree to it
A handful of trans women calling themselves the t-slur isn't going to move the needle any more than the handful of gay men calling themselves the f-slur did.
I think you're misunderstanding what/how that happened. Queer wasn't so much reclaimed as it lost its bite and fell out of favor in place of faggot. Queer was also a word with a lot of uses outside of gay people. For example 'Queer Street' in boxing referring to someone standing on shaky legs.
There's that, and there's also the fact that the people who do the most language policing are activists. Like, they have a political agenda, and it's reasonable to ask whether or not they're tactics are achieving their stated goal.
Like if I'm a disability activist and I insist that nobody ever use the word "lunatic" because 50 years ago it was something akin to the r-slur, it's fair for you to ask whether the juice is worth the squeeze on that one
If you're scolding people for using a word that's zero people are offended by to first approximation, that's actually really bad activism. You are harming your cause. If I also care about that cause, reasonable for me to tell you to quit it
How much of this is attributable to the problem that anti-social people are driving an inordinate amount of the conversations on social media? Most of the folks starting the dog pile are genuine maladjusted weirdos with nothing better to do.
Probably some? Though I think you could make the case that gentle admonitions are worse politically. You can always just wave off somebody who's acting like a crazy person
I think this sort of misunderstands this critique (although not everyone makes the point well). It is not language policing, it is a substantive argument when people do this. Much less an issue with the specific words than the idea of casting evil actions as insane.
I think it’s fine to say “I don’t want to have an argument about this” but it’s not about treating specific words as slurs. It’s very different to say “this person is insane” vs “this situation is insane” vs “this situation makes me insane”
It was a significant and visible in some online circles, and it would have been bad if it had crossed over into the real world in a major way. We can acknowledge that without pretending that it ever did.
I’m trying to very gently make the people who put extreme emphasis on language understand that this whole thing is pretty much the only basis for the hysterical lib stereotype. It is the only thing they can effectively make fun of us for. Is it overblown? Extremely. But it sticks to us!
My liberal leaning centrist friend self polices his language around me just because I’m a liberal. I’ll be like “bro you don’t need to do that” and he signs in relief! Me being a liberal somehow takes precedent over our very close relationship! He thinks I’ll get mad at him if he says something…
I feel like most people on the left, even progressives, don't like all the language policing, but know that to speak up about it (especially if you're a straight white guy like me) will bring accusations of "privileged asshole racist sexist homophobe." Word cops are few, but vigilant and loud.
*millennial who actively particpated in History Day because it was fun af, laughs in mla/apa format*
[If you're behind on the new standards, don't worry... there will be new ones tomorrow]
If my rural self with a subpar education can learn, anyone can.
Best to acknowledge that anyone who doesn't personally know you has no business language/tone policing you online.
Parasocial interactions bias more towards performance than actual communications. It's why trolls never pull their shenanigans in person unless they have massive audience to play to.
This. People whine about being "forced" to say something when what they really mean is they saw someone else say it once. (I work in a relatively "woke" institution and have never heard *anyone* in the office use Latinx).
Language policing almost never happens IRL, except to prevent people from being openly bigoted to minorities. It's an invented issue to drive people down the right wing rage pipeline.
Not being able to be openly bigoted garbage and being asked to address someone in their preferred manner absolutely melted the brains of the worst people in our society
I think it goes back to the SJW days, where it was much more acceptable to be openly anti SJW. I think a critical mass of people realized they were just being assholes and ostensibly became "SJWs" themselves, but now those left with anti SJW sentiments are even more angry and defensive.
The mistake some make imho is they recognize that language policing shouldn't be practically significant (because it really doesn't matter much and you can ignore it) and assume it must therefore have no political significance (in fact, it drives people crazy).
I've been accused of language policing when I point out that the concept being communicated is bad, not just the specific words. Such as when people call attacks on trans people and DEI "distractions" when they mean scapegoats. These are actually significantly different. We're meant to ignore...
distractions, but it's actually really bad to ignore attacks on human rights, even though the people being attacked are being used as scapegoats. Words actually do matter, some obviously more than others, but we can't just ignore language.
It strikes me as no more rational or sensible a reason for complaint or political views as the nearly ubiquitous one about “Press 2 for Spanish” of 20 years ago.
It’s fundamentally people looking for a reason to be mad.
Too bad they don't realize "Press 2 for Spanish" is awesome bc you can get a real live human on the phone vs the automated biotch telling you to press even more numbers until you give up
it’s not the reason kamala lost, but it is damaging at the margins. people claim it’s not happening irl but our first dei seminar devolved into a shitshow when the presenter said that asking someone “where are you from?” is a microaggression. (maybe the training we went through isn’t the norm, idk)
maybe… but i think many of the people in the academic circles these changes come from have been marinating in them so long they believe the justifications are self-evident. like genuine shock there’s any pushback at all.
I think it’s myopic and disingenuous to give any credence to the pushback against “woke language” tho. Your training was organized by HR to achieve just 2 things: lower the employer’s labor law liability, and increase their diversity marketing, which was more valuable at that moment in time.
My social circle isn't representative or anything, but fwiw I've never met anyone who wasn't already in full right wing brain melt mode who is upset about trans people or drag queens. But the language policing really does seem to set something off in lots and lots of people.
Hard disagree with this. The only people that actually get upset about language policing, are the people who really want to use the language that is being policed. Normies who aren't looking to use the hard-r are not upset when someone says, "you can't say that. "
The massive right-wing freakout over Bud Light suggests you are wrong here. I know a bunch of people who didn't think about trans people at all before it, & who are fully radicalized against them now. There are a lot of them.
I think what happens is that people hear about internet pile-ons with real-world consequences for fairly innocuous stuff ("cancel culture"), also hear that a bunch of words are forbidden now, and worry that they're one wrong word away from getting fired. It's not true, but it's how they feel.
This is a gd observation. Job security is a big big big deal to most ppl. Esp in a country w little econ security, ppl can stress after hearing abt one or two cases of someone getting fired/boycotted/disciplined at work for innocuous stuff. Gives demagogues a powerful tool.
It's kind of like mass shootings. The odds of any specific person being involved in a mass shooting are vanishingly small. And yet they are sensational events that everyone hears about, and so they occupy a lot of brain space
The difference being that mass shootings are real, albeit rare events, whereas all the panic over language policing comes from a bunch of weirdoes digging up non-compulsory guidance in obscure documents and pretending this means words have been banned.
Not exactly language policing but there was a girl who was piled on so hard for wearing a qipao to prom (she's white) that it ended up in the New York Times.
Interesting analogy. Worth reminding folks that white people have a terror of being called "racist" that approaches their terror of death and dismemberment.
Dems should def publicly excoriate ppl who use chestfeeding, latinx, and other trigger words. In fact, Dems could win overwhelming if they do some messaging bills about banning lefties from social media or really any media altogether!
Yell at Jonathan Chait for making this the topic of every other article, but also if you're an activist and the sum total of your activism is politely scolding people for using the word "lunatic" (this has happened to me), worth asking whether you're doing anyone any favors.
This has nothing to do with the Right. The fact that we gave this nonsense any credibility created the permission structure that leads to equating the "language police" with the actual fascists on the Right.
We should have been pushing back against this narrative, hard, from the start.
I agree. I live in a working class area, among people who mostly vote D, & they complain about it.
The problem, imo, is that Rs acknowledge, indulge, & amplify that feeling & Ds ignore it. If Ds cld find a way to acknowledge it & then defuse it, they might get somewhere.
One pretty relevant difference between a mass shooting and an internet pile-on is that the former results in a large quantity of dead people, often children. The idea that people being mean about an internet person is so sensational seems rather odd in this context.
I knew somebody was going to say this. Why do people have so much trouble comprehending that analogies don't need to line up perfectly? That two things can have similar dynamics with one being dramatically worse in terms of consequences?
Yeah but a big part of the problem is centrists like James Carville keeping "woke" and "defund the police" alive as a subject. Good Lord, Morning Joe did much more to keep both of those terms alive in the discourse than @leftydudenumbersletters on TwitterX.
The difference being that brain space about ‘language policing’ has forced the media, university presidents, etc etc to knuckle under, while brain space dedicated to mass shootings has resulted in fuckall.
there is not an amount you can coddle the right that will stop them from considering you their enemy, friend.
they do not dislike you because of your language. they dislike the suggestion marginalized groups are human beings deserving of basic human rights. very literally ever has it been thus.
I don’t think thats true you have to be more understanding of where these people come from. They’ve had the message that liberals are the reason for all their problems drilled into them from the start. And a large portion of them are in these marginalized groups.
I find it very hard to believe they take this at face value and they're not just claiming "you can't even say words anymore" as an excuse to hate on marginalized people
Historically the average non-chronically-online person hasn't given much mental energy to trans people because they rarely encountered them, but they would still express hate when they did, if only from a lack of understanding. It's why trans panic was such a common comedy trope and legal defense.
It's not that it's not true, but that it's unpredictably and inconsistently true. If it never happened, the anti-woke movement wouldn't have so much juice behind it; if it always happened, we wouldn't be arguing over whether it happens at all.
You said it yourself - it's not true. So why do they feel that way? How an earth do you keep taking an internal impetus (it's how they feel), and with zero explanation turn that into the result of an external impetus?
This is where these types of discussion turn stupid.
Or they fall for the 🐂💩 the folks with the counter narrative put out. They resent having to learn new things.
I've found listening and trying to remember how not to offend people works for me. I've never had anyone "come after me." I have had folks educate me as to why it's important to them.
Yup. It's how my school teacher mother feels. It's annoying as shit and I have to keep talking her off the ledge because someone got canceled. The right and center have done a great job of drumming up terror over a handful of trans kids asking to be called by their preferred pronoun.
The mistake you’re making is thinking the language policing is the politically significant part, and not this process of “people hear about ” => “people now fear a thing that isn’t true”. Why does that keep happening and keep leading to people voting Republican? That’s the significant part!
It's not that I disagree, but I don't think this observation is particularly actionable. For one thing it's relatively obvious; members of any marginalized group will already be familiar with it as marginalized groups were *already*, and still are, one wrong word away from getting fired.
But the bigger problem is what do we do about it? I'm over here going "cis people, please don't say 'tranny'". Right wingers are *making up* things and attributing them to people like me and *that's* what makes people scared. Would right wingers stop making up things if I shut up about "tranny"? No.
(And in between, there's a problem with corporate entities controlled by straight white folks getting overconscious of whether they're perceived as racist/any-"ist" and introducing contrived language style guides they impose on other straight whites. But I don't have any influence over that either.)
This hugely ignores women on the left who have been raising the alarm about the erasure of language used to discuss women's health, reproductive, and sexuality issues. Parallel demands, of course, are not placed on such language referring to men. Dems lost votes over this.
do you think maybe that's because 99% of normal people aren't actually 'language policing' and the people getting brain melted are reading their fellow white supremacists talk about some nonbinding ass 'maybe our store should stop calling Brazil Nuts that even if we used to in the 1800s' shit?
I've been wondering a lot about this lately. Is it possible that there are people who are favor anti-racist and anti-LGBT legislation who still don't want to feel they have to walk on word-eggshells? Like Obama to Trump voters - would they vote Dem if they didn't keep hearing about word cops?
Trans issues and language policing are both things that people have blamed for Dem electoral failures. I'm saying I've never known anyone normal who cares about trans stuff but I've known a lot of people who get annoyed by language policing.
annoyed at the concept or do they have particular examples?
There are certainly cases where people are castigated for using terms now considered improper, but there's also a lot people who just want to be offensive and get mad they might face consequences for it.
These are not edgelords, they're just regular people. By and large I think they're afraid that they're going to say something they *don't know* has become offensive and get in trouble for it.
You're going to say "that doesn't happen", and I agree, but they fear it nonetheless.
being picky about language and pedantic about words also isn't limited to leftwing circles. Most ideologies are big on policing how things are allowed to be said. Like, we have the term shibboleth for a reason.
Maybe, just maybe, people *are* transphobic and use overblown anger about 'language' to express that bigotry 🤯
I know, I know, hard to believe that people complaining about CRT, DEI and 'ethics in gaming journalism', might not actually be concerned with those issues
Oh yeah the language policing is incredibly annoying. Extremely easy to get mad at, and extremely easy to mock too. A bunch of people with no actual power prematurely acting like they're enthusiastically running the reeducation camps
The ability of liberals to unerringly describe people to their left as "running camps", while their own politicians literally run camps (Gitmo) and those to their right are actively trying to put *them* in camps...is amazing.
Newsflash: the people who want camps don't mind your slurs, bud 😂
*Wanting* to put them in camps, not actually running camps now
Obama tried to close Guantanamo Bay, but didn't have enough votes in Congress. He used an executive order to reduce the number of prisoners from about 200 to 40, and Biden reduced it from around 45 to 15. Not exactly "running camps"
I think it comes from the same place that makes people get really into criticising or defending minor grammatical differences between dialects. There's something about language use that feels very personal and leads to a reflexive reaction. Central to in-group signalling too.
Yes! I feel like 99% of leftist rage comes from just refusing to accept that voters are irrational and get hung up on stupid things that shouldn’t matter but do!
it's enforced by soft power rather than hard power, so it "doesn't matter" by the usual metrics (e.g., you can't get arrested for it) but does matter in other ways on a stochastic basis (there's a non-zero chance you get doxxed by an angry mob that DDOS's your employer until they fire you)
I've always felt that getting peoples' employers involved in what is basically online beefs crosses a line, even if they're absolute raging arseholes. Like it's not enough to call some guy who's being a prick a prick, you also have to actually ruin him financially for being a prick.
If they're being a racist asshole, their employers should know. If they're just a dick then whatever. But if they're spouting off about some heinous shit, then sucks to be them
I dunno. Should the punishment for saying heinous shit be poverty for potentially both them and their family? Is it some Internet rando's role to inflict that on them via their employer?
I don't know your leanings but I'd guess that you'd agree with me that a lot of people are probably one missed pay packet away from the breadline. In that context, is weaponising an employer's ability to make that happen a just punishment?
Please give an example of someone who actually lost their job as a result of a DDOS attack because they refused to say "Latinx" or some other bullshit.
There's a non zero chance of anything happening the issue is whether or not it's a significant widespread problem
Have people been wrongly fired for am innocous post? Sure
But that doesn't mean it's widespread or happens that often
"X has social repercussions much larger than its direct effects, here's some insight to how that happens and why our response (denying that X exists) has been counterproductive"
"but have you considered that X basically never happens & anyone worrying about it is wrong?"
The odds of your getting fired for using the n-word are very small. The odds of your being in a school shooting are also very small. Nonzero chances can scare people.
I agree that they scare people but you have to put the risk into prospective not entertain their nueroticisms
This is also a bad analogy for a couple of : school shootings while rare r a signficant problem, getting fired for using the n word? I haven't seen significant evidence that it is
Also they are many cases where using the n word getting u fired is justified but none for being a school shooting victim
If u wanna criticize what u consider scolding or annoying language policing using the most extreme consequences is counterproductive
"the direct impact is very small" is not actually a counterargument to "this phenomenon has ripple effects way larger than its direct impact, we should examine what we're doing about that"
I agree but the OP doesn't really get into why a small direct impact translates into large ripple effects & imo it's because the right & center are presenting this as an apocalyptic attack on free speech
I've addressed that aspect about chuds making a big deal out of nothing. I didn't say it doesn't have ripple effects. I'm saying it's a nonsense argument made by bad actors that have drummed up a new "satanic panic" and people are too worked up by the 24 hr news media needing to sell time slots
Euphemism treadmill kind of stuff, not slurs of course. I think it’s easy to dismiss things if you jump to the least charitable interpretation, but I don’t see how shielding ourselves from self-criticism will help the left as a movement
Just asking bc as a person "on the left" I didn't think I've seen actual policing of language. Maybe one weirdo here and there getting up in arms abt something and everyone makes fun of them but I think it's a non-point when it's ok for me to get called R/F slurs but I can't say "you smell bad" on X
Tbh I don’t think this is like the biggest problem the left has or anything, and I think overt policing in the way you describe is pretty rare. The bigger issue is the way a certain style of speech serves as an in-group cultural signifier for college educated middle class people.
People *say* it drives them crazy then can’t even give a single example of it actually happening to them. You are just a conservative pissing your pants
Here’s an example… my SIL is a hyper-lefty English professor at a small liberal arts college. Over the winter break, we were chatting, and I used the phrase “if god is willing and the creek don’t rise.” She corrected me (politely, because she’s a good person) and told me that the phrase was racist..
Because the original context was a 19th century quote from some US official where the “creek” in question were the Creek Nation, and them “rising” was referring to an uprising…
So, I go to look this up, and it’s an urban legend, created on the internet with no historical evidence at all.
And there is a certain subset of folks on the Left that fall for this stuff, because they get off on the idea that every banal thing is really secretly racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever. And I will never understand the pleasure that brings some people.
Also, the comments here have confirmed my suspicion that my comrades on the Left are neither adequately self aware nor adequately self critical. God help us.
People want to be judged by their intentions and shown grace. And that's what does happen 99.99% of the time in reality. But it's not how people perceive the internet discourse around this stuff.
This perception is correct in my personal experience. In online communities that lean left but aren’t explicitly political, I’ve seen a ton of language policing, including egregious examples of piling on ESL speakers. It had a chilling effect for many people I know IRL.
It's how we perceive risks in general. If you have 9,999 "normal" interactions and then one that ends in ostracization or unemployment, you're going to focus a lot more on that one than the 9,999 others!
Fwiw I do--I'd genuinely rather stop doing something that hurts people than just not know that what I'm doing is making me look like a dick without my knowledge
If I didn't mean to step on your toe and I did I want to say sorry and make sure I don't do it again if I can avoid it
Sure. And I think most people do the same. But if a stranger wishes you a “Merry Christmas,” and you feel like your toe got stepped on… like… I dunno, man…
yeah, and again, if you're not super insecure you can just be like "huh, well, that says more about them than about me, i guess," and move on with your life. like it's pretty fucked up to turn that into the burning coal at the heart of your political animus, people need to just chill the fuck out
But I think that's bc I feel very secure in the prospect of my personal, material and social needs being met, and also I know who I am. A life of uncertainty and insecurity yields a lot of fear
most people have no real world implications from language police (maybe a few online interactions), yet gop AND libs decrying it gives it wings
For Gop its punching bag for base to see other as insane, libs want an easy out instead of fixing Dem party (significant issues and hard work required)
I think it's accurate to say the industry as a whole is less productive and profitable than it could be if construction workers treated each other with dignity.
Some of my co-workers disagree. They refer to the person who does the sensitivity training as, "that communist bitch."
my dude that is one of the most clear cut cases of gross misconduct I've ever heard. even the owner of a business I worked at who had fox news on in his office eight hours a day would have fired someone for that
You may have a different set of experience than I do. It was not the first time I'd seen any of these particular things written on a job site porta-john.
The trainings are being held because construction sites are often hostile work places especially to non-male non- white people.
The idea among management is that if they could get their employees to stop bullying and hazing each other, the only thing left for them to do would be to put up buildings
Your gripe stems from your inability to recognize that language has to adjust to the intended audience, especially public speech; I don’t think anyone really cares how you talk when you are among your Klansmen friends.
John Brown to this type of person isn’t so much a symbol of anti racist resistance and solidarity so much as an avatar for whatever hero complex this dude is rocking with
If it’s trivial and it apparently alienated people, what is the value in it? I don’t understand the left’s attachment to rhetorical tactics that just don’t seem to work well
The intractable problem with this tho is that I'm going to think whatever I want about people, and the language they use will affect that, and many don't want to be careful or considerate and also don't want people to think true but unflattering things about them like "this person is inconsiderate"
Like if you use the f slur in an interview I'm not going to hire you. Not bc you're homophobic, altho that sucks too, but bc you're injudicious and mean and I'm trying to build a staff I can trust to solve more problems than they cause. In service sectors you kind of can't be a dick, tough shit
I'd call you out and tell you to cut the shit if you did it at our poker game and if you kept it up you probably just wouldn't be invited back, but that's just personal, you can find another poker game. But I like literally *can't* hire you if I can't trust you to take care of people
It only has outsized political significance because of how right-wing media operates, and how it exacerbates an already well developed persecution complex in American conservatives. Very little 'language policing' actually happens.
Yes, for newspaper dimwits and as fuel for endless bad faith public discourse, that's why we never stop hearing about it. No ordinary, non-right wing people care about this, no matter how many Atlantic articles they run about it
What I don't quite understand is why it's being formulated as a new or uniquely 21st century issue. I was a child in the 90s but I remember the discourse about "political correctness" very well and it's... barely distinguishable from what we're talking about now?
You'll find of the benefits/curses of getting older is that you start to recognize patterns repeating themselves :)
Yes, it's 'political correctness' for this decade. The thing is political correctness only had legs then because of some of the same minor mistakes our side is making again now.
There’s always been a group saying “hey, don’t be an asshole” and another group of assholes dead set on living up to their name. Which side you identify with says a lot about you.
I've actually posted about this before. My personal recollection is that it genuinely went away for a while, maybe because the goals were largely achieved, or maybe because 9/11 and the Bush admin put it all on the back burner for a while.
Maybe so. But, I find it much easier to reject the thesis that language policing is a specific strategic misstep by the left during the 2010-20s when you recognize that the exact same playbook was being run by conservatives during the Clinton years.
No social media back then. Hearing that a professor got in trouble for using the wrong word on the radio isn't the same as watching it happen to some rando on Twitter.
I was a little kid in the early-mid 90's, but the sense I get is that not very many people thought they were going to get in trouble for using the wrong words. They might have thought the push was annoying, but they didn't feel personally in danger if they said the wrong thing.
I think where this perspective fails, is that it only focuses on the supposed gains reducing support for marginalised people, and not the votes you lose through throwing people under the bus.
I don't really understand this discussion. Personally I think we should prevent hate speech, especially if it's violent in nature. The far-right wouldn't be able to sleep at night with their precious words.
Most people do not run into an issue with speech if they're good people.
Comments
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https://www.wmtc.ca/2020/07/thought-crimes-language-police-and.html
https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/02/you-guys-revisited-further-thoughts-on.html
"I've been policed!!" No, you literally did that to yourself because you were worried about the *idea* of being policed
Queer was an insult before it wasn’t (eg); and the truth of the success of LGBTQ subversive politics (imo) was embracing the insult, forcing a revaluation of values, and flipping the script.
When and why did that political strategy seem to shift?
A handful of trans women calling themselves the t-slur isn't going to move the needle any more than the handful of gay men calling themselves the f-slur did.
[If you're behind on the new standards, don't worry... there will be new ones tomorrow]
If my rural self with a subpar education can learn, anyone can.
Parasocial interactions bias more towards performance than actual communications. It's why trolls never pull their shenanigans in person unless they have massive audience to play to.
Nobody has told me to use pronouns in my email sig or so say Latinx.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/14/chris-rufo-jo-boaler-academics-woke
It’s fundamentally people looking for a reason to be mad.
"oho, I have made you angry, that means you are a foolish churl and I am an enlightened superior being"
If I am insulting someone, that is not a moment to remind me that there are good people who have the specific property I am an insulting someone with.
If the characteristic is used as an identifying attribute, but not the focus of the insult, then it's specifically aimed at the target.
https://bsky.app/profile/daringsteel.bsky.social/post/3lif7bn6wjc2g
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelhobbes.bsky.social/post/3lif7wbhsk22a
We should have been pushing back against this narrative, hard, from the start.
The problem, imo, is that Rs acknowledge, indulge, & amplify that feeling & Ds ignore it. If Ds cld find a way to acknowledge it & then defuse it, they might get somewhere.
they do not dislike you because of your language. they dislike the suggestion marginalized groups are human beings deserving of basic human rights. very literally ever has it been thus.
This is where these types of discussion turn stupid.
I've found listening and trying to remember how not to offend people works for me. I've never had anyone "come after me." I have had folks educate me as to why it's important to them.
"That guy's a real retard"
"Hey, my favorite nephew has Down's Syndrome, that stuff kind of bothers me"
"LANGUAGE COPS LANGUAGE COPS OH MY GOD I GUESS I'M NOT ALLOWED TO SAY ANYTHING AM I OH WOW NOW I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO VOTE FOR ELON"
Is that what you mean? If not, then what?
Maybe you only hang out with assholes?
There are certainly cases where people are castigated for using terms now considered improper, but there's also a lot people who just want to be offensive and get mad they might face consequences for it.
You're going to say "that doesn't happen", and I agree, but they fear it nonetheless.
Maybe, just maybe, people *are* transphobic and use overblown anger about 'language' to express that bigotry 🤯
I know, I know, hard to believe that people complaining about CRT, DEI and 'ethics in gaming journalism', might not actually be concerned with those issues
I'd love to know, specifically, what language you feel is too policed.
Newsflash: the people who want camps don't mind your slurs, bud 😂
Obama tried to close Guantanamo Bay, but didn't have enough votes in Congress. He used an executive order to reduce the number of prisoners from about 200 to 40, and Biden reduced it from around 45 to 15. Not exactly "running camps"
Okay, and it wasn't closed.
It continued to function.
And it was maintained, staffed and funded by Obama and by Biden.
That is *literally* running a fucking concentration camp.
Or do you not know what the word 'running' means?
Well known for moderating his political advocacy to spare the feelings of his contemporaries.
😐
Do y'all ever...pause and reflect?
Folks can dis it all they want but it is what is. Time to acknowledge reality.
Have people been wrongly fired for am innocous post? Sure
But that doesn't mean it's widespread or happens that often
"but have you considered that X basically never happens & anyone worrying about it is wrong?"
kindly read the OP
I read that OP thread & they r parts that I agree with but it's watered down version of reactionary centrist position with alot of the same flaws
This is also a bad analogy for a couple of : school shootings while rare r a signficant problem, getting fired for using the n word? I haven't seen significant evidence that it is
If u wanna criticize what u consider scolding or annoying language policing using the most extreme consequences is counterproductive
But generally this is another form of Stancilism, which of course is fundamentally correct.
Let’s also not forget the “micro-aggressions” saga that was prevalent during the Obama years.
Nobody even encounters it
People *say* it drives them crazy then can’t even give a single example of it actually happening to them. You are just a conservative pissing your pants
So, I go to look this up, and it’s an urban legend, created on the internet with no historical evidence at all.
It’s obviously a small problem in the grand scheme… but the BS surrounding it just makes my head spin.
Those on the left that engage in it enthusiastically, turn around and deny that exists.
And the right complains about it endlessly, while also doing it.
If I didn't mean to step on your toe and I did I want to say sorry and make sure I don't do it again if I can avoid it
For Gop its punching bag for base to see other as insane, libs want an easy out instead of fixing Dem party (significant issues and hard work required)
It is not uncommon to have mandatory sensitivity training alongside safety training as part of job site orientation.
I've seen an entire job closed for days because someone was writing slurs in the porta-john
Some of my co-workers disagree. They refer to the person who does the sensitivity training as, "that communist bitch."
But I'm going to tell you what was written there would not have been unusual in, for example, the Bush era.
The idea among management is that if they could get their employees to stop bullying and hazing each other, the only thing left for them to do would be to put up buildings
Honestly, we need to resurrect the 1990s phrase, "GET A LIFE," for A LOT of adults who are so so so so so so fragile. My lord. Pitiful.
Prime example: 'Merry Christmas'.
On top of that, it's typically classist, with all the implications that come with it.
Yes, it's 'political correctness' for this decade. The thing is political correctness only had legs then because of some of the same minor mistakes our side is making again now.
Sadly, some saw David Spade's character as an aspiration (JD Vance, Stephen Miller, etc)
"The language policing stuff" was always just asking people to treat others who are different from them with respect.
language issues like this - but who genuinely completely flips into siding with racists and Nazis because of it?
Most people do not run into an issue with speech if they're good people.