The Left is triggered by everything, there's no question about that. From animal rights activists pushing for caging on Barnum's Animal Crackers to be removed to sports team logos and names getting the ax to Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's, and Cream of Wheat going through overhauls. Then, of course, there were hordes of statues and memorials across the country last summer that were vandalized and toppled because far-left progressives were offended by them. Another trend along these lines has been the effort to change language.
At Brandeis University, the Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center (PARC) has an "Oppressive Language List" that it describes as a "compilation of words and phrases with roots, histories, and/or current usage that can serve to reinforce systems of oppression." And of course—it's always growing, PARC says.
"We encourage folks to use the list as a learning tool and decide for themselves what words or phrases they want to use or not use," the description adds.
The list is broken into five categories—"violent language, identity-based language, language that doesn't say what we mean, culturally appropriative language, and person-first alternatives."
In the list, we are told "trigger warning" itself, a phrase coined by the woke Left, is now "violent language."
"The word 'trigger' has connections to guns for many people; we can give the same heads-up using language less connected to violence," PARC says.
To use gender-inclusive language, they recommend subbing out "You guys, Ladies and Gentlemen" with "Y'all, folks or folx, friends, loved ones, people." Folx? Really?
Other head-scratchers are the inclusion of "picnic" and "rule of thumb."
"This expression allegedly comes from an old British law allowing men to beat their wives with sticks no wider than their thumb," PARC says of the latter.
"Picnic" has since been removed from the list after getting fact-checked as being false, but PARC initially claimed, "the term is often associated with lynchings of Black people in the United States, during which white spectators were said to have watched while eating, referring to them as picnics of other terms involving racial slurs against Black people."
So, the inclusion of "picnic" on a list of "violent",
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) June 24, 2021
"oppressive" language is based on a falsehood https://t.co/svbqjECdWE
PARC's problem with "Rule of Thumb" is also based on a falsity.
https://t.co/Zr44iuQit1 pic.twitter.com/FUhLcgoPtW
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) June 24, 2021
Makes you wonder why anyone pays to go to schools that sell this nonsense.
Well done to everyone at the University of Utopia for their continuing efforts to perfect human discourse, thought and life by needling over smaller and smaller, obscure, ambiguous language roots and forgotten or disputed connotations. Great work. https://t.co/V9fiCbyoDZ
— Tom Bennett (@tombennett71) June 24, 2021