As with any religion, the p.c. folks make it up as they go along. A self-appointed expert decides that yet another word – in this case “looting” – may cause offense, and the cancer of political correctness advances, one word at a time.
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
The broad and brazen efforts of the left to politicize language are ongoing and never-ending. The latest example perfectly illustrates the language- and thought-control process that they’re trying to impose on us.
Step 1
The language-colonization process begins when somebody with letters after his name decides that as of today, a new word or phrase is under scrutiny and has racist, sexist, or other -ist connotations.
In this case , it’s Lorenzo Boyd, PhD, Professor of Criminal Justice & Community Policing at the University of New Haven, and a retired veteran police officer, who “emphasized that words matter.”
Note: Be on guard when someone sanctimoniously announces that “words matter.” They mean “MY words matter.”
Step 2
…is to creatively manufacture perceived offense and present it as truth, which Dr. Boyd proceeds to do by doing what no PhD should: opining outside your area of expertise. He says:
“Looting is a term that we typically use when people of color or urban dwellers are doing something. We tend not to use that term for other people when they do the exact same thing.”
Making it up as they go along
Dr. Boyd is making global generalizations about the language behavior of large numbers of people.
To be sure, his pronouncements can be verified by research. It would take a lot of research. And that would be too tedious and might prove them wrong.
So liberals just make it up as they go along, this political and quasi-religious narrative of ubiquitous oppression and victimization, of color defining worth, a story for which there is no empirical support whatsoever.
Huge research project
It would take months, if not years of sociolinguistic research into what “we typically say” and whether it refers to “urban dwellers and people of color” and whether “we” don’t use that term when “other people” (= White people?) do the same thing.
But the facts don’t support that. As far as I can see, the looters do include White people, but so many are wearing masks that it’s hard to tell.
It’s gotta sound virtuous
But the creeping advance of political correctness does not happen because of anything empirical. (Certainly not with “critical race theory,” whose absurd claims are impossible to verify.)
All that’s necessary is that it sound nice and virtuous and provide another reason to hate White people.
Obvious idiocy
The idiocy of Boyd’s pronouncements is evident on the face of it.
Looting (and the criminal definition does in fact include “riot” as one of the causes of criminal looting) is not an implied racial slur. It has been going on since we were bands of hominids. The Old Testament provides the Israelites with instructions for looting defeated tribes (Numbers, Chapters 31 and 33).
Boyd’s other pronouncement —
These types of massive, organized smash and grabs were happening before the Rittenhouse situation, because it happens cyclically.. . .It’s a false equivalency. It’s people trying to politicize crime.
— is a meaningless string of buzzwords — happens cyclically, false equivalency, politicize.
First of all, it does not happen cyclically.
Evidence: in over seven decades on this planet, while I have sometimes seen looting accompany riots, I have never seen anything like this free-form yet well-organized, systematic, broad-daylight, high-end property confiscation, and I’ll bet that millions of other people will say the same thing.
It’s not cyclical; it’s unprecedented.
Something is different today, and all of us who have not drunk the liberal Kool-Aid know what it is: It has become politically fashionable to exonerate criminals. It’s not their fault they commit crimes. It’s the fault of White supremacy.
No, it’s the result of ridiculously low bail amounts, insanely high limits on punishment-free shoplifting, scarce police resources, and the truly demented belief that the police are the problem and in the socialist paradise, everybody would behave well on their own. How has that worked out?
No, Dr. Boyd, this is different.
As for “false equivalency”…between what? The looting before Rittenhouse and (going back to 2020) and after? What relevance does that have, if that’s what he means? We’re talking about the definition of looting.
As for “people trying to politicize crime,” what people? And how does using the word looting “politicize crime”?
Sloppy sentences
You can’t just string approved words together, have them sound good, and expect meaning to emerge. But you can bet that in this techno-narcotized society, few will say, “What…what the hell does that even mean/”
There have indeed been political crimes – e.g., the destruction of statues – but the rampant looting is not one of them, and no one pretends that it is.
It is the logical result of the failed policies mentioned above.
It is a crime of opportunity, fueled by intolerable wealth gaps. Of course they’re going to loot high-end shops. The rich bastards deserve it.
The last time we had such a wealth-gaps-plus-monopolistic-corporate-power combo, the end of the 19th century, we didn’t have looting.
What’s different?
Well, just on a technical level, smartphones enable people to organize their attacks as never before.
More importantly, what’s new this time around is that millions of people are afflicted with a mental virus – have subscribed to a belief system — that puts them on a path of retribution, reparations, and revenge. Criminals are “victims” and must be exonerated and compensated.
Many (not all) liberals live for the ideology baldly but accurately expressed in the previous paragraph, and they thrive on finding new “examples” of it.
We cannot have a cohesive society under these circumstances.
When does it end?
Will there be no satisfaction until White people are disenfranchised and subjugated, police forces are disbanded, huge quantities of wealth are transferred to “people of color,” in the name of reparations, and America is ruled by diversity, inclusiveness, and equity in every corner of the land?
As far as the functioning of business, the sciences, the military, and other institutions (universities are already too far gone), I can’t imagine what happens next, when everybody is evaluated and rewarded solely on the basis of the color of their skin.
Already, huge quantities of resources are diverted from the organization’s core purpose and wasted on imposing ideological purity: creating bloated diversity departments, recruiting, indoctrinating, churning out tons of material to support the brainwashing.
Idiocracy, here we come
Incompetence will rule, as it already does with the country’s most visible diversity hire, @Kamala Harris. Incompetence everywhere, just as in the USSR, where Party loyalty trumped competence, and the result was a poor, failed state.
Well, not quite everywhere. They’re not going to fire all the Blacks but 13% in the NBA and re-populate the league so that there’s “proportional representation.” Merit is more important than color in some places.
American Marxism
Mark Levin calls the program “American Marxism.” The content is different from original Marxism (it’s not the workers but people of color who are the imagined victims), but the format is the same: One Party, one truth, one narrative, and one way of talking about it.
Language control is a key piece of the program, and, unless the creeping cancer of political correctness and American Marxism is vigorously opposed and stopped, it will never end.
- PS. Smash-and-grab is an inaccurate substitute, but politically correct announcers have indeed started to use it. Note that much of the theft does not involve smashing, just grabbing. Still, I’m starting to see smash and grab on news chyrons and hear it in the copy. It looks as if looting, which implies grabbing with or without smashing, has suffered immediate banishment. Commentator Douglas Murray suggested shopping with violence.