A longstanding interest of mine is how the language we use when talking about politics can frame the discussion in ways that tend to skew the discourse in one way or another. In posts over the course of the years, I’ve criticized the common usages of terms like “national security,” “entitlements” and “conservative.” The right has been particularly effective in loading our political language to its advantage: consider charged expressions like “pro-life,” “unborn child,” and “death tax.”

So, I am inclined to be sympathetic to social justice advocates, mainly on the left, who seek to alert us to objectionable messages that may be embedded in some of our everyday speech.  But sometimes I think that efforts to fix our political language lead to problematic cures, especially when advocates insist on the necessity of the changes they seek to promote.  Such insistence opens the left to charges of intolerance, rigidity and even racism.  Right wingers delight in mocking “woke” language and behavior.  “Woke” was coined originally to signify alertness to injustice, particularly racial discrimination.  I’m reluctant to use the term since it has become mostly a pejorative aimed at the left. That said, here are some examples I see of problematic woke language.

“Disabled” vs. “Handicapped”—It is no longer politically correct to refer to physically impaired people as “handicapped.”  You’re supposed to say “disabled.”  The motivation for this change lies in the apparent origins of the term “handicapped”: impaired individuals were known to doff  their caps and hold them bottom up in the hope of receiving coins from benevolent passersby.  The association of physical impairment with begging supposedly makes the “handicap” term demeaning.  I’m sorry, but I think this is just silly.  “Handicap” has entered our language in ways that render its origins irrelevant.  People play with handicaps in golf and other sports.  I might consider myself handicapped in any activity in which I think of myself as less capable than others.  No one was conscious of the origins of “handicap” until disability advocates started bringing it up.  To my mind, “disabled” is actually a more negative term than “handicapped.” In our everyday speech, a handicap suggests a limitation in one’s ability to perform some activity.  Disabled is more extreme: it suggests an actual inability to perform.  I have no objection to “disabled.” Depending on context I use it on occasion. I also use “handicapped.”  But if someone corrects my usage of the latter, I will politely reject the correction.

Latinx—This is an alternative to the Spanish words “Latino” and “Latina.” Words in Spanish do not normally end in x; this innovation is motivated by a desire to make language more gender neutral—both on grounds of fostering gender equality and in recognition of individuals of Hispanic origin who don’t identify as binary.  The first motivation is praiseworthy.  The second is not, given the small minority of the population accounted for by non-binaries.  (If non-binaries want to identify as Latinx, fine, but that’s no reason to apply the term to the whole population.) But the main problem is that most Latinos (aka Hispanics) in the United States don’t use the term or want to see it used. According to a recent poll, just 2% of US Latinos identify as Latinx.  Fully 40% find the term objectionable in some degree.  And 30% say they would be less likely to vote for a politician who uses the term “Latinx.” So, the advocacy of “Latinx” is politically tone-deaf. In any case, people’s choice of identifier for themselves should be respected; it is arrogant and presumptuous to in effect tell them that they are not appropriately identifying themselves.  Unless and until there is a groundswell in the Latino community in favor of using Latinx, it should be avoided by people outside of that community.

Capitalizing race (or not)—A number of respected organizations, including the New York Times, have adopted as standard usage the capitalization of the word “Black” when referring to a racial identity while using the small case for similar references to “white.” The rationale for this usage is that “Black” reflects recognition of a people’s sense of shared identity, experience and community, a sharing that cannot reasonably be attributed to the historically dominant majority white population. In particular, capitalizing Black acknowledges the unique experience of oppression that American Black people share. This is reasonable, and decently motivated, but it still bothers me.  I just don’t see how you can avoid the invidious implications of capitalizing the name of one racial group but not the other.  We capitalize words to indicate some kind of importance.  Capitalizing “Black” but not “white” suggests that Black people are somehow more important, or more deserving of recognition, than white. You can explain that that is not the intent, but that explanation will fall flat with the overwhelming majority of the white population, who are not ideologically committed to an anti-racist agenda. I don’t believe in pandering to white racism, but neither do I believe in gratuitously provoking it, especially in  the age of Trump. The woke capitalization mandate is such a provocation.

So, either Black and White should both be capitalized, or neither.  Which should it be?  I think I can go along with the style guide of the National Association of Black Journalists, which holds that “…whenever a color is used to appropriately describe race then it should be capitalized, including White and Brown.” So, Black and White it is.