You Don't Say

John McWhorter has a rather snarky column in The Atlantic that takes aim at the Brandeis University Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center’s "Oppressive Language List." And I agree with his overall dismissive tone, as I myself find the list ridiculous. In no small part because one can see how it would spiral wildly out of control (after all, I've already used at least one idiom that could reasonably be placed on the list, and possibly two, and this is only the third sentence of the post) and the explanations that they give speak to specific people's specific sensitivities.

For example, according to the "Identity based language" sub-list, "African-American" can be oppressive because:

For Black folks born in the United States, hyphenating their identity can be interpreted as othering. Some folks do prefer to use African-American, particularly in connection to their ancestral roots, while others may identify with other ethnicities. We recommend using Black as a default, but being open to adjusting if asked to.

I don't at all relate to this. I use "Black" instead of "African-American" because in American English, the term African-American is, first and foremost, a descriptor of appearance, rather than place of (presumed) origin. Despite the fact that Tunisia and Egypt are both in Africa, Tunisians and Egyptians living in the United States are not considered African-Americans. The term is reserved for people from Sub-Saharan Africa, or, as they used to say, Black Africans. So if the term groups by visible characteristics, why not use a visual indicator?

One of the things that Mr. McWhorter points out, in the service of describing the entire exercise as more or less a fool's errand, is the "euphemism treadmill," coined by Steven Pinker. The basic gist of the treadmill, if it isn't obvious, is that negative connotations of words are not actually attached to the words themselves, and so when one term, like "moron," is replaced with another, like "retarded," the negative connotation follows, and becomes attached to the new term. In this way, terms that were once neutral, or even embraced, like "having special needs," acquire the same negative connotations of the terms they replaced.

So here (some four paragraphs in) is where I get to the point. Words become loaded by mutual consent. If someone calls me an African-American with the intent to "other" me, and I then feel set apart from other Americans, we've both agreed on that usage of language. If I shrug it off, and work to prevent myself from internalizing the supposed difference, then the speakers intent no longer carries any weight. If they don't intent to set me apart, then how I feel about their words relies on what I believe about what they've said.

There is nothing inherent to the term African-American that makes it oppressive. It's not a riot baton or water cannon wielded in anger. The Oppressive Language List says as much. "Can be interpreted as" does a lot of the heavy lifting. There will be people that tell me that an interpretation as "othering" is the correct one, there is a different group of people who will say otherwise. How I will feel about that word rests on which group of people I choose to believe. And it's that choice that imbues language with power. If someone intends to use language to oppress me, and I refuse to cooperate, what error have I made? What responsibility am I shirking when I decline to be offended?

And this is the genuine failure of projects like the Oppressive Language List. The PARC claims to recognize "that language is a powerful tool that can be used to perpetrate and perpetuate oppression." But what other "powerful tool" can operate only with the consent and cooperation, tacit or express, of the subject it is used on? If wood were able to say "yeah, I'm not feeling it today," and render saws impotent, would we still regard them as worthwhile? The power of language comes from the way we are taught to interact with it. Education and emotion, not linguistics, are what drives the euphemism treadmill. If "fetch" can be prevented from happening, "rule of thumb" can have its bogus folk etymology ignored.