When “inclusive” language excludes
Don’t say “Americans”
Jeffrey Denny
“Democratic troubles revive debate over left-wing buzzwords,” goes a May 27 front-page Washington Post headline. “From ‘intersectionality’ to ‘equity,’ many say jargon is alienating key voters.”
“Maybe it’s using the word ‘oligarchs’ instead of rich people,” the Post story goes. “Or referring to ‘people experiencing food insecurity’ rather than Americans going hungry. Or ‘equity’ in place of ‘equality,’ or ‘justice-involved populations’ instead of prisoners.”
Moderate Democratic leaders, like Arizona U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Michigan U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, say “liberal candidates too often use language from elite, highly educated circles that suggests the speakers consider themselves smart and virtuous, while casting implied judgment on those who speak more plainly — hardly a formula for winning people over.”
Wool-dyed Democrats in my midst — after furtively scanning the room like 1950s communists for any tatted Gen Zs they’re putting through college who will call them out — snort sotto voce at the latest inclusive words we’re supposed to use as they change virtually every day.
Purveyors of progressive lexicon are fighting back.
“Inclusive language is vital,” Daria Hall, executive vice president of Fenton Communications, a progressive communications firm, told the Post.
“We are simply asking people to consider the language they are using as we move toward shared goals,” Hall said. “It is important to acknowledge the human element within populations and to recognize how they identify themselves. Language evolves; it always has.”
But this is revolution (see Mao, Cultural), not evolution. Political rules righteously imposed by a Pecksniffian moral minority that’s poised to pounce on infidels. Usually Democrats, since the language diktats bounce off Trumpublicans. Indeed, they use progressive patois as weapons to mock and defeat Democrats, as in “Kamala is for they/them,” and smear us as snooty ninnies who don’t get America. Like George H.W. Bush not knowing the price of milk.
When progressives either can’t or refuse to read the American room, they’re doing Democrats, the mortal battle to save America from Trump, and themselves a gross disservice by doubling down on purported “shared goals” language. Even setting back progress (see Election 2024).
If you think Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak was only about right-wing authoritarians like Trump controlling words, see Fenton’s “People & Identity Style Guide — A Progressive Approach to Inclusive Language.”
The Guide “explores language connected to how people identify and examines how their identities are shaped by their environment, their positions in the world, and by historical and current forms of oppression. It was created in consultation with trusted progressive resources and colleagues with lived experience who do this work every day.”
To everyday Americans — if progressives care about winning rather than schooling the poor dears — this statement likely comes across as a big, beautiful buzzword salad with a savory dressing of bureaucratic bullshit.
And what precisely is someone’s “lived experience” that we need to put first, and unquestioningly? How is this different from Lewis Carroll/Humpty Dumpty’s “words mean what I want them to mean,” i.e., the speaker’s intention is more important than shared understanding or conventional usage, as Oxford University Press put it?
Do we need to respect everyone’s lived experience? What if they’re suss, like MAGA bigots whose lived experience makes them love Trump and hate progressives?
We can all respect Fenton’s call for people- and identity-first language, like “person with diabetes” instead of diabetic. Even though a friend with Type 1 would roll her (not “their”) eyes.
She may wonder if I had an icepick lobotomy at a Vermont progressive reeducation camp that made me talk like AI trained by Russian speechwriters scripting hostages to say they love raw beets because they’re good and good for the planet.
Wait — there’s more.
Fenton advises “asset-based framing” that “defines people by their aspirations and contributions before exploring their deficits.” And, “authentic language” that is “culturally competent and takes into account the lived experiences of the communities we are describing and how they talk about themselves.”
For instance, I should be identified as “neurotypical” if I’m not diagnosed as neurodivergent. I need to call my fellow Americans “U.S. residents” or “people in the U.S.” rather than “Americans.”
And never call “an immigrant without permission to live in the U.S. as ‘illegal’. … a person by definition cannot be ‘illegal,’ which implies that a person does not have a right to exist.” I’ll use that the next time a Person of Parking Enforcement tickets me for illegal parking.
Also, be careful when referring to persons who steal, rape, murder or commit crimes and misdemeanors both low and high, are caught, convicted and sentenced. Don’t call them “convicted felons” — it “dehumanizes” them. For instance, have some respect for Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, the J6 rioters, and President Trump by calling them “justice-impacted individuals.”
Don’t say “criminal justice system” — say “criminal legal system” because it’s unjust for some. Jail is a “carceral setting.” Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” should be “Crime and Restorative Justice,” which “shifts the focus of discipline from punishment to consequences and from the individual to the community.”
Mind you, “restorative approaches should be an option for any case in which the responsible and harmed parties feel [it] would be helpful to their own healing journeys and the process can be carried out safely with the support of well-prepared facilitators.”
It’s not fair to dump on Fenton particularly.
Their heart is in the right place; basic respect for one another, especially the “marginalized,” is endangered in the Trump Reich.
But it’s fair to “interrogate”: Are left-wing buzzwords by elite, highly educated circles really “inclusive”? Do they “change hearts and minds, and advance policy shifts,” as Fenton claims, and help with “engaging with different people and communities?” Or does their intellectualistic jargon exclude most “people in the U.S.,” turn off hearts and minds, and set back progress?
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
