Race to the Bottom

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

— George Orwell

Realtors can no longer show the "master bedroom."

Developers can no longer add spammers to a "blacklist."

Winners can no longer claim their victory was a "cakewalk."

"America's reckoning with systemic racism is now forcing a more critical look at the language we use," reports CNN. 

"And while the offensive nature of many of these words and phrases has long been documented, some institutions are only now beginning to drop them from the lexicon."

At the risk of offending both Blacks and Asians, I'll go on record to say we're on a slippery slope when "reckoning with systemic racism" means we have to mince words.

We must call off the thought police before it's too late; before, to avoid giving offense, we're reduced to ostension—to pointing to things to describe them. That won't work well on Zoom.

Words alone—divorced from their intent—should never be policed, with the sole exception of slurs and curses; and even those have their place in the "lexicon."

I'll offer three reasons why censoring trigger words is bad:

• It crimps your style

• It beggars language—and impoverishes humanity

• It represents bad history

Take, for example, the supposed trigger word "blacklist."

"Blacklist" came into use in English through 14th century cops, who would enter suspects' names, Columbo style, in a black book, which they often called the "list." By calling the list "black," they were denoting the dreaded book's two covers, and nothing more.

When using "black," no 14th century Englishman had race in mind, as history shows. 

The word "black" in fact was borrowed ten centuries earlier from the German "blak," meaning "burned." Charcoal was black; soot was black; ink was black; coffee was black. But speakers of English at the time never referred to Africans as "black;" they described them instead as"swart," borrowed from the German "schwartz." By the 16th century, speakers of English did indeed begin to call Africans "blackamoors," but Africans—and people of African descent—weren't called "black" until the mid-1960's, when the Black Panther Party popularized that use of the word.

Besides putting us on the slippery slope to ostension, censoring trigger words challenges the censors to find "neutral" replacements, an effort doomed from the start.

Take, for example, "master."

If "master" is banished from their language, what can Realtors call the former "master bedroom?" Their association suggests "primary." That word-choice in turn makes the smaller bedrooms "secondary." Problem solved! 

Not quite. Plan to put guests, your parents or—worse yet—your grandparents in one of the "secondary" bedrooms? Better not, because that word dishonors them by implying, "You're second-rate."

And if "master" is banished from sports, what will the PGA call "the Masters?" "The Apprentices?" I hope not.

I suggest were replace "master"—in every industry—with "biggly."

Then, you can kick off your shoes and tell your wife you're going to lie down in the biggly bedroom and tune into "the Bigglies."

Problem solved—unless a veiled reference to Trump triggers your wife. Then you're safer just pointing to the large bedroom and watching the golf tournament on mute.

Unconditional

Graphic courtesy of juneandteak 

Two Walts

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves.

— Charles Bukowski

The "people's poet" Walt Whitman is about to be unpersoned; so is Walt Disney.

Whitman's sin was to disparage Blacks in several letters and op-eds; Disney's, to stereotype Blacks in several cartoons.

Erasing Whitman won't be hard. There are a handful of statues of him that can be toppled, and a Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia that can be demolished.

Erasing Disney will be harder. There are those dreadful amusement parks bearing his name, for one thing; and his company's stock is on every investor's "watch list." It's probably best to bulldoze the parks and shutter the company. 

Then, thank god, we won't have to watch Hamilton.

Apple Pie

Oppression is as American as apple pie.

― Audre Lorde

With July 4th as the time and Mt. Rushmore the place, Donald Trump has made clear he's on the warpath and wants you to join him.

"This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly," Trump said. "We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life."

"Demagogues tend to be narcissistic and authoritarian," says psychiatrist Saul Levine. "Their vitriol appeals to the vulnerable and darker places in psyches and hearts."

But of course Trump didn't write his bombastic speech.

Who did? Stephen Miller; the same Stephen Miller responsible for Trump's inaugural address, the speech George W. Bush could only describe as "some weird shit.”

Part of the Breitbart pack that helped elect Trump, Miller is a white nationalist from Southern California and the power behind the migrant children's camps strung along the the US-Mexico border.

For a Jew, he's awfully fond of camps. 

Working with Trump, of German descent, they make a truly odd couple.

Miller is only 35, but has been a right-wing spokesman for nearly 20 years.

A graduate of Duke, he is a proponent of eugenics, a defender of the Confederacy, an advocate for segregation, and a hater of liberalism, socialism, communism, Muslims, Latinos and Blacks.

Miller also believes that "diversity"―which he calls America's "national religion"―is a veil for the "great replacement," a plot by large multinational corporations whose aim is to wipe out Whites worldwide.

No president since Harding has written his own speeches. They've all had to find their voices in others.

The liberal FDR found his voice in Samuel Rosenman; the moderate JFK, in Ted Sorensen; the conservative Reagan, in Peggy Noonan.

The demagogue Trump has found his voice in the bigot Stephen Miller.

A match made in heaven.

Or elsewhere.

Anthem

No nation has a single history, no people a single song.

― Jill Lepore

Activists are calling for "Imagine" to replace "The Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem, a move I can get behind, although my first choice is the ripsnorting "Born to Run."

But if we want a timeless national anthem―a tune that's perennially PC―one without lyrics makes the most sense.

In which case, my vote goes to the majestic "Fanfare for the Common Man."

With that decision, the US would be join the coterie of five other countries whose national anthem has no lyrics: Spain, Kosovo, San Marino and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For years, Bob Dylan skipped a warm-up act and, before taking the stage, instead played a recording of "Fanfare for the Common Man" (along with other Aaron Copland favorites like "Hoe Down," "Simple Gifts," "Quiet City" and "Lincoln Portrait").

Historian Sean Wilentz was the first Dylanologist to point out that Daylan and Copland, both American Jews of Lithuanian descent, are culturally linked by way of their roots in the Popular Front.

The Popular Front was an anti-racist, anti-fascist movement in the arts promoted by the Communist party during the 1930's and '40's. 

The movement held sway over hundreds of "fellow travelers," including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, W.E.B. DuBois, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Miller, John Dos Passos, Orson Welles, Frank Capra, Dalton Trumbo, Rita Hayworth, Edward G. Robinson, Dorothea Lange, Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn and Mark Rothko.

Copland composed "Fanfare for the Common Man" on commission during World War II after hearing then-Vice President Henry Wallace give a speech in which he said, “The century that will come out of this war, can be and must be the century of the common man.”

It's high time to replace Francis Scott Key's ditty with something more rousing.

If it can't be "Born to Run," nothing would please me better than a song composed by an anti-racist, anti-fascist fellow traveler.

What's your pick for a replacement?

Painting "Homeland" by Bo Bartlett