'There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language'
George Orwell
Welcome To Kindergarten
Let's call it like it is: I feel kinda stupid for I didn't even know
how ignorant and offensive I've supposedly been.
His goodbye, a soft echo at the time of my hello: my grandfather,
who just lost his title to 'legacy', a wise man ––uneducated but a
source of wisdom, hungry for knowledge with a desire to teach.
Lost in translation, put in the naughty-corner, we are no longer
to be trusted, allowed to use language freely or the abilities
of our own mind. Safeguards put in place in excess, there's
no room left to be. Like a knife ––to some a weapon while most
pick it up to create a meal feeding our bodies and senses ––banned
for safety for the difference only the very young may not understand.
While the ones deliberately using it to hurt or worse, not sensitive
to rules anyway; or making them, to always be the ones in control.
To be so unspecific no one feels left out, leaves everyone overlooked in a
blob of nothingness while being treated like children. Trying to be inclusive
by cancelling distinction is missing the point; not by a landslide but an entire galaxy.
It becomes the boring sound of the same tone while music is the art of unifying notes
of varying height and length: a fusion of opposites in a creation of captivating harmony.
It's not the words, it's meaning and context. We never needed to go to
Stanford for that: everyone with basic education or just common sense knows;
but the intellectuals would now be telling us that's all wrong ––I don't buy it.
But just in case: confined to a wheelchair, I'm fine with that term, or disabled person;
not defined by it while focused on my talents and strengths, as always. And is a 'person
with disabilities' such an improvement when it comes to acknowledging my competence?
I just want to be treated with respect and for things to be called by their name, instead
of blending them into a rainbow of definitions and meaningless diplomacy. That's not inclusion,
that's insane ––pardon my French, as it's one of the many words on the naughty list.
A cunning tactic to increase division, the decline of intelligence or a divine wake-up call?
To what has been crashing under the radar for ages, now made so obvious we'd all look
foolish if we continue to ignore it. Common sense has become an endangered species:
forced off-planet, alienated by those who fear it may upset the imbalance of the status quo.
And where does it end? Am I soon no longer allowed to use any color?
When I marvel over a cerulean sky, have I offended the birds and trees?
Or even the oceans, for they may be blue yet watered down;
not in the elevated range the heavens are known for.
A janitor in the marines ––kind and soft-spoken, not one to be noticed; still,
brave in his own right: a voice of calmness in the chaos of loud minds ––my
grandfather someone I wish I could have met. Yet his legacy lives on in me;
practically as uneducated, I too, am thirsty for knowledge and truth.
A royal warrior in freedom, a lion is unlikely to fight unprovoked; it's
when confined or forced inside a cage it becomes unpredictable and
demonstrates behavior never seen in the wild. Only a beast will lock up
that which is meant to be free: unable to handle the responsibility that comes
with the wielding of a sword, whether in language or power.
Much more harmful than any vocabulary, is an unused mind. For it is bound
to follow, blindly, anyone who guides: into fields of heaven or the vast canyons
of fear and restriction. Damn, I never thought higher education could mean
so much bullshit to be fed; to fuck with our minds in surrender to ideology. And yes,
I have allowed myself some profanities in a streak of rebellion ––strike me
if you must but it won't take me down or make the value of my words any less.
What's next? Will certain birth names be cancelled for not being inclusive enough
or 'harmful' in some way? Call me crazy but that no longer seems too far-fetched.
No twist of reality will ever make me a grandfather but I hope to leave a legacy: the
words I use to create a variety of linguistic meals; trusting those who matter to know
the difference between a healthy spicy snack and a fluffy cake laced with poison.
A bit lame at times, not a basket case, an addict or Karen: just a random person
who has a wholesome sense of humor. Like you do, because this insult to our intelligence
has to be some kind of joke, like a hazing prank gone public. Right?
I may not always speak like a lady, but I certainly am a woman: a ballsy feminine,
who proudly stands in her right to think for herself and to make up her own caring
and peaceful mind about the insanity thrown at our feet, sold as reality.
––Monique de Koning
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'We have sunk so low it has become the obligation of every decent, thinking individual to re-state the obvious'
George Orwell
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This poem is my response to the 'Index of Forbidden Words' Stanford University released in May 2022 as part of what they call the 'Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative'. It made the news late December '22 and this, as well as the list itself, was made public. For example by the Wall Street Journal | Opinion on December 20, 2022 (published online December 19th) in the article 'The Stanford Guide to Acceptable Words. Behold the school’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative.'
The words in bold in my poem are on this index.