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Edited on Wed Mar-26-08 01:20 PM by Pamela Troy
The war on language continues. Today the word of the week is “racism.” I popped off an essay on racism over the weekend. It wasn’t anything I considered especially insightful or ground-breaking, just a reminder that racism is primarily defined as:
“A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.”
I pointed out that it doesn’t matter how sincerely you believe it, or how convinced you are that your belief is backed up by personal experience or science. It doesn’t matter how good your diction is, how much you liked the movie Mississippi Burning, or how assiduously you avoid using the “N” word or wearing white hoods or brown shirts. If you believe the above, even if you defend it by offering cites from The Bell Curve with a Boston accent, you are a racist.
Not rocket science. Not even basic bottle-rocket construction. And since I posted it to liberal websites, I expected maybe a few chuckles and a tepid compliment or two, but not much more.
The outrage! The horror! Oh, oh, oh, that icky “R” word! I should be ashamed! I was the one who was the bigot. What about all those white people who are afraid of walking through black neighborhoods? What about the Hispanics? What about the disabled? What about obnoxious black people who play their music too loud and wear baggy pants? What about black anti-Semitism? Black people can be racist too! Did I ever think of that? Huh? Well, did I?
A couple of helpful souls told me that the whole issue could be solved by avoiding those awful “R” words and thinking up something else. That way, people wouldn’t get all upset and the lines of communication would stay open. In fact, let’s get rid of the whole concept of “race” altogether! Don’t use it in any form at all.
Okay everybody, listen up, let’s all agree to not use words like “race” or “racist” or “racism,” or for that matter, “white” or “black!” Why, within a year or two (a decade, tops) the entire concept of race will fade from our collective consciousness and peace and brotherhood would reign forevermore on this earth!
The word I suggest is “Igglepop.” It’s neutral, it’s cheerful, it’s unthreatening. For instance, if someone announces that, as much as it pains them to say so, and while there are certainly exceptions among their black friends, the simple fact is that science shows people of African descent to have an unchangeable and significant intellectual deficit when compared to Europeans, they won’t be upset by being called a “racist.”
Instead, they’ll be called “Igglepopians,” a brand spanking new word that doesn’t conjure up images from the Nazi or the Jim Crow era, which really would be awfully unfair because people just don’t wear their hair like that anymore. The lines of communication would stay open, and they could proudly affirm that they are not “racists” advocating “racism” but “Igglepopians” advocating “Igglepop.” They could even put it in the title of books without their main sales being conducted at gun shows or the Stormfront website. I picture a thousand blossoms blooming: How I Became an Igglepopian, In Defense of Igglepop, Igglepop and Reason, The Myth of the 21st Century…
And if some bigoted person said “Hey, that’s racism,” everyone could laughingly set them straight. “Racism” is a long dead twentieth-century, pre-911 phenomenon that often proved to have a deceptive veneer of benevolent paternalism overlaying a foundation of violence and sometimes, even genocide. “Igglepop” would not have that kind of history.
Pretty soon, “racism” will be no more. In its place will be the truly new form of thinking known as “Igglepop.”
The only problem I foresee is that as new paradigms like “Igglepop” become widespread and put into practice, other new words have to be invented.
We’ll have to come up with some new word for “discrimination.”
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