During the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, people of that court replaced saying the word “nigger”(as used by former LA police detective Mark Fuhrman) with “the ‘N’-word.” Last year, Merriam-Webster was asked by certain people to omit the said racial epithet from their updated dictionary. And in January, David Howard, the now resigned head of Washington D.C.’s Office of Public Advocate, offended people by using the word “niggardly.” These cases signified how the “politically correct” thought-police are dragging Americans exceedingly further into their corrupt world of multiculturalism.
In a law court, any evidence deemed relevant to the trial is permissible no matter how offensive or gruesome. At O.J.’s trial, however, uttering “nigger” as an evidentiary word within the trial was rendered impermissible, since the PC thought-police regard it as “offensive” always. For this reason, publishers are now expected to omit “nigger” from their dictionaries despite that word is included in them solely to provide its definitions. After Kathryn Williams, curator of the Museum of Afrikan American History in Flint, Michigan, suggested this omission to Merriam-Webster, the publisher received about 2,000 letters, notes, and phone calls objecting to either the order in which the word’s definitions appeared, the definitions themselves, or the word’s inclusion in the dictionary.
The illogic committed by multiculturalists in these two cases is that the contexts in which the epithet were used are dismissed as irrelevant. The case of David Howard’s use of the word “niggardly,” however, involves a corruption even lower than that.
When he used that word (which means “stingy” and has no racial connotations) while discussing financial management with fellow employees, Mr. Howard realized that several members of his staff, who are black, believed he’d used a racial epithet and were offended. After he explained himself and apologized for their confusion, rumors nevertheless spread throughout Washington that he’d used such an epithet. Thereafter, he resigned.
This case demonstrates that to multiculturalists, not only is the context in which a word is used dismissed as irrelevant, but if the word merely resembles (in sight or sound) a racial epithet — despite its definitions — one may always take offense to its use.
And what each of these cases fundamentally demonstrates is the level of emotionalism by which multiculturalists operate and the thought-control they seek to wield over others.
They’ve raised emotions as primary or exclusive evaluative tools to such a level above facts and reason, that anyone who claims they are “offended” by anything deserves some form of reparation.
Thus, because the PC thought-police have rendered people so “sensitive” to — i.e., fearful of, offending anyone, people wouldn’t dare say “nigger” even if uttered as a demonstration of evidence within a trial.
Because the thought-police established “speech codes” on college campuses, Merriam-Webster for the first time in its 150 year history assigned a task force to consider the suggestions made by multiculturalists such as Mrs. Williams, who, when the publisher declined to omit “nigger” from its updated dictionary, said “They haven’t changed anything. . . . I call it perpetuating racism.” 1
Because the though-police had arbitrary “hate speech” laws enacted, David Howard felt compelled to apologize for using the word “niggardly” and resigned from his job — even though the people he “offended” didn’t know or dismissed the word’s meaning and focused instead on the its resemblance to a racial epithet.
To multiculturalists of every stripe, be they advocates of race-, sex-, gender-“consciousness,” what matters most or entirely is not the facts of a circumstance — such as the context in which words are used or their definitions — but the “feelings” one attaches to the circumstance. Moreover, these emotionalist tactics that intimidate others are a means to the multiculturalists’ more fundamental purpose: To stifle opposing voices to their ideology, which crumbles into irrationalism when put under the microscope of reason. (One such irrational idea they propagate, which underscores their need to stifle reason, is expressed by leading “Afrocentrist” Marimba Ani: “What is contradictory in Euro-American logic is not contradictory in African thought.”) 2
If people can be intimidated by multiculturalists from using a word that merely resembles a racial epithet, then clearly they can be discouraged from voicing any criticism — no matter how rational — of, say, affirmative action, gay studies programs, or feminism, for fear of being smeared as a “racist,” “homophobe,” or “misogynist.”
The multiculturalists sense or know their ideology cannot withstand their rational critics, so they shamelessly employ any emotionalist absurdities to oppose them. And with each new absurdity, they further resemble Nazi propagandist and censors.
References:
1. Shannon Tangonan, “Slurs to be labeled as such in dictionary, but not deleted,” USA Today, May 7, 1998.
2. Dinesh D’Souza, The End of Racism, Free Press, 1995, p. 378.
