Monday, July 12, 2021

Words that must never be spoken

Goes without saying, top 'o the list has got to go to the much-feared "N-word."

Look what happened to Wendy Mesley. She used to be a marquee name at the CBC. I had the misfortune of reading her weepy apologia in the Globe and Mail the other day. Seems a couple of highly-educated Black professionals were struck down with PTSD when they heard Mesley say you-know-what instead of "N-word" at a team meeting.

I guess I'll never have a political career, because if someone were to comb through my 6000+ posts, they'd discover oh, maybe a dozen or so actual N-words. Like Mesley, I never used the word with malice, but that doesn't matter anymore.

Also like Mesley, I don't consider myself a white supremacist, although today denial is largely considered a proof. The kind of Black people struck down by PTSD at the sound of the N-word strike me as the kind of people who wallow in the turgid pool of micro-aggressions.

Wonder what Alvin Ailey would have to say about micro-aggressions? Wonder how many of the recently woke even recognize that name?



According to the CBC, the "S-word" has joined the list of words that must never be spoken. 

Squaw.

An intrepid CBC reporter found a few Indigenous females who were totally crushed when some racist redneck referred to them with the S-word. The Indigenous cohort referenced in the story skewed heavily towards poets and community activists. 


The Indigenous women I know, a cohort skewed heavily to the gals who work at the gas station and the smoke shop, would just bust my nose and kick my ass if such idiocy ever slipped past my lips!


That strikes me as a far healthier response than a lifetime of PTSD. 





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