By: Tom Tancredo
A professor at a Virginia university has been placed on administrative leave because his research and advocacy on the language used in studying pedophilia have raised security concerns at the school.
Out in Colorado, the state’s Sex Offender Management Board has voted 10-6 to drop the term “sex offender” from its lexicon of client services by substituting a new terminology as its replacement: “adults who commit sexual offenses.”
This repackaging of crime-related terminology is more than a fashion among the Woke cultural elite in universities and government. It now permeates our culture including our legislatures, our courts, public schools, professional sports, and entertainment. What other “language reforms” can we expect to see in order to avoid giving unnecessary offense through “inappropriate” language?
The word “gender” now means something quite different than any dictionary definition of a mere decade ago. Through no act of Congress or scientific discovery, gender is ordained by our cultural elites to be a whole spectrum of “gender choices.”
There is no scientific basis for this redefinition of gender; it is purely political in character. Children in elementary school are now being taught about “gender fluidity” as though it is unnatural – or possibly bigoted – to not examine and consider all possible “gender choices.”
Something similar happened after “gay marriage” was proclaimed to be a constitutionally protected civil right in the 2015 Obergefell decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Since that court proclamation, the meaning and legal framework of “marriage” have become totally incoherent and its direction in the future unpredictable.
If all “LGBTQ+” “marriages” are now protected by the U.S. Constitution, how soon will we see polygamy declared to be a similar matter of “equity” and thereby legal in every state? Can you “marry” your dog or your horse?
But folks, the new plasticity of language is no joking matter.
The centuries-old legal term “equity” has its origins in medieval English common law, but it has recently taken on a new, radicalized dimension. That term is increasingly employed in legislation as a mandate for equal results, equal funding, “equal access,” and equal outcomes to public benefits of all kinds, including public education.
If the graduation rate for black students in a particular high school is not as high as the rate for white students, it is often declared a matter of “equity” to bring all graduation rates into harmony.
A change in the language used to describe any category of social activity is only the tip of a very large cultural iceberg. The language we use to talk about – and think about – crime and criminals is just as important as the criminal justice processes and the penalties assigned to convicted criminals.
It is likely inevitable that any de-escalation or “humanizing” of the terminology used in studying criminal psychology will have consequences in the world of criminal activity.
Our civilization sends messages of moral approval and disapproval in the words and language used to describe not only sexual crimes but all crimes. It doesn’t take much effort to think of many common examples.
A person is rightly called a terrorist if he joins an organization openly dedicated to terrorism even if he has not yet planted a bomb or poisoned a municipal water supply. Should we instead call the would-be terrorist “a person who is attracted to mass murder for political purposes?”
Should a person convicted of arson not be called an arsonist but instead called, “a person attracted to flames and property destruction by fire”?
Should rioters who loot and burn buildings to the ground not be arrested and prosecuted as criminals but rather be seen as “social justice warriors” or “urban renewal pioneers?” Oh, wait! That was yesterday!
Should migrants from countries 5,000 and 10,000 miles distant not be called “illegal aliens” but simply “immigrants” when they cross the border unlawfully? Oh, wait; that’s already in the Associated Press Style Manual.
Should mass shoplifting in retail shops across San Francisco not be called theft and prosecuted accordingly but instead decriminalized by “progressive” prosecutors to such a degree that merchants are fleeing the city?
Should political indoctrination replace education in our public schools under the rubric of “anti-racism,” as defined and designed by “experts” unaccountable to parents?
We are on a very slippery road when we start “renaming” things in favor of more “fashionable” language or language that hides or disguises criminality. Theft is theft, even if renamed “community appropriation.”
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Remember when they said all they wanted is to be allowed to live their lives in peace? Does the term incrementalism mean anything to you. Favored tactic of socialists and unions. Communist want revolution, but rest assured all of them want complete control, and not for the betterment of the citizens.
There seems to be an enormous amount of mental illness among the citizenry these days. Gender? Well, if you were born without a penis you are a girl, otherwise you are a boy. How difficult is that to understand? If “someone” ‘out there’ is offended by this statement that is THEIR problem, not mine.
Why are there so many people so easily ‘offended’ these days, and WHY is the general public expected to cater to those misfits? GET REAL, people.
The “Woke” are hereby otherwise known as underworld reptiles: snakes!
I’m speechless they are trying to find a perfect language for child molesters
and find it inappropriate to call them what they are, (that they might be offended??)
That’s insane
One of the things the Chinese Communists did when they took over China after WW2 was to start a program to unify, standardize, and simplify the Chinese spoken and written language. At the time, one could often travel a hundred miles and then not be able to communicate well with other Chinese.
While this was ostensibly a good idea, the Communists had other plans in mind. Like the WOKE socialists of today, they changed the meaning of words and eliminated many words from their written language all with the communist political propaganda in mind, particularly to eliminate concepts of freedom.
Before we allow this in America, sane sensible people with commonsense need to put a stop to it. FIRST, declare standard American English the OFFICIAL language for all government documents and proceedings, with other languages allowed ONLY through interpreters. For those unable to complete documents in English for citizenship or work that should be a disqualification and grounds for deportation except for tourists and diplomats. Furthermore, ALL VOTING ballots should be in English ONLY.
From there we need to deal with WOKE academics.
woke means trash loose on street
Stop calling liberals progressives which implies people making progress, but they really hinder it by not recognizing objective truth.
Changing the definition of words has been the MO of the left for decades. I first recognized this in the 80s when the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) started changing the definition of “hate groups”. Just a couple hundred they reported in the late 80s. And now it is well over a thousand “hate groups” now.