How George Carlin’s 'Words You Can't Say' exposes Trump’s language-policing agenda

03 May

By Alex Lozupone - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44271636

Right-wing media pundits often accuse liberals and progressives of excessive language-policing, and some people who vote for Democrats have the same complaint — mostly notably, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville and "Real Time" host Bill Maher. Carville and Maher both argue that it's counterproductive for the left to promote the use of "Latinx," for example, when the vast majority of Latinos don't use that term.

Maher, who leans liberal but is a scathing critic of "political correctness" and "wokeness," contends that rather than worrying about whether people say "homeless" or "unhoused," liberals need to invest their time and energy in "getting s--- done."

But language-policing isn't exclusive to the left, and the Trump Administration has a long list of terms that it wants federal government workers to quit using.

In an article published by Salon on May 3, marketing consultant Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk stresses that the late comedian George Carlin's famous "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Television" monologue from 1972 easily applies to Trump's language-policing 53 years later.

"It was a profanity-laced masterclass in satire, pointing out the absurdity of a society obsessed with policing language," Ruszczyk says of Carlin's iconic monologue. "The words in question were crass, sure, and some people undoubtedly found them offensive — but they weren't dangerous, by any reasonable standard. Banning them from the airwaves, as Carlin observed, gave them power they wouldn't have had otherwise."

Ruszczyk continues, "Fast-forward to today, and the list of forbidden words has changed, but the game hasn't. The U.S. government is once again policing language, this time on the websites of federal agencies. But the new 'dirty words' aren't profane. They're words like 'diversity,' 'equity' and 'inclusion.' Words like 'women,' 'LGBTQ,' 'immigrants' and 'disability.' They are basic, real-world terms used every single day by ordinary people, in everything from education to health care to workplace policy. Now, suddenly, they are deemed too controversial to say out loud."

According to Ruszczyk, the "most ridiculous" examples of words "being targeted" by the Trump Administration include "women," "immigrants," "tribal" and "disability."

Language that "challenges the status quo" and is under attack by Trump officials, Ruszczyk notes, includes "LGBTQ," "diversity" and "anti-racism."

"This isn't a conspiracy theory; it's a tactic," Ruszczyk explains. "If you remove the words that describe injustice, you are attempting to make injustice invisible. If you silence the terms used to advocate for equity, then the concept itself becomes suspect. If you erase identity from public policy, then the people who hold those identities lose visibility — and power."

Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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