On Wednesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles discusses Colorado State University’s new speech code and how it will impact freedom of speech on college campuses. Video and partial transcript below:
Colorado State University has published something called an “Inclusive language guide.” How Orwellian is that? It was from the inclusive language committee, or something. It’s hosted on the Women and Gender Collaborative website.
I read through this guide, and I counted 131 words that you’re not allowed to say. In the original draft of this, two of the words were “American” and “America.” This is at a public, state-funded American university, in which they said “America” is offensive and “American” is offensive. If they find it so offensive, maybe they shouldn’t take any taxpayer funding from America. Maybe they shouldn’t take government-subsidized and guaranteed loans from America. No, they’re not willing to do that.
Fortunately, there was such a backlash to that, in October they took that out of the final version. But there are a lot of other crazy things in this guide. I mean obviously we don’t have time for 131, but here’s an example. They say the word “colored” to refer to black people is offensive. Fair enough, [but] people [haven’t] even used that word in a while. They say “colored” is a highly offensive racial slur that was often used during segregation to separate “people of color.” Wait, what? “Colored” is bad, “color” is good, and if you use anything else it’s bad. I think. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? But it’s just a euphemism cycle. You had colored, that was the term that everyone was supposed to use. Then that fell out of favor, and it became black. Then it became African-American, and then it went back to black again.
Now it’s people of color, which is exactly the same as saying “colored people.” Except if you say “colored people,” [then] you are a racial bigot. And if you say “people of color,” you are super-woke, for now. Obviously, it’s going to change. Another phrase that you’re not allowed to say is “Hip hip hooray.” This is true. They said [this] because “Hip hip hooray” developed from the German “Hep hep,” which they write was: a “Harmless, adorable call” shepherds would use when herding their sheep. And they go on and say during the Holocaust, German citizens started using it as a rallying cry when they would hunt down Jewish citizens living in the ghettos.
So, if you use the phrase “Hip hip hooray,” you are a Nazi, according to Colorado State University. They say you’re not allowed to use the expression “long time no see” because that’s offensive to Native Americans. How? I have no idea. They say that you’re not allowed to say, “no can do.” That apparently is offensive to Chinese people. Again why? Couldn’t possibly tell you.
What’s wilder though than all of this, what you can say, [and] what you can’t say, [are] the innocuous expressions that now, I guess, are now evil and bigoted. What’s more interesting than that is how “woke” expressions fall out of fashion and are quickly deemed hateful. One example of this, is they say you’re no longer allowed to say “homosexual.” I thought homosexual was totally a clinical PC term. No, they say you’re not allowed to say homosexual, but you can say and what you should say is: gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual or queer. Do you remember, like five minutes ago, when we were told the word queer is the new N-word. That queer is a horrible racial slur, which is why Carlos Maza, that little bigoted leftist at Vox.com, tried to get Steven Crowder and a lot of other conservatives kicked off of YouTube?
I went on a television show and when the word queer was used in a video, they bleeped it out because we were now told queer is the new N-word. Except then we’re told from Colorado State, actually queer is the right word and homosexual is the wrong word. So if Crowder had said homosexual in his podcast or on his show, they’d go after him for that. And then if he says queer, they’re going to go after him for that. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
What all of this shows, is that these language guides are not about helping an aggrieved class. The left moves past their grief classes and ditches them as soon as it becomes politically useful. They used to prattle on about women’s rights and feminism, now they ditch all those women for the transgender so-called “community.” Now they force women out of business, if they won’t wax the genitals of grown men wearing a dress. Now they won’t let girls win high school scholarships to college, because they force them to compete against men in women’s sports. So that’s over, they always ditch those groups. It’s also not about civility, it’s not about making a nicer community.
The Left is as vindictive and scolding as any when it comes to these words. It’s not about charity or civility. It’s not even about the particular words because the words change all the time. What it’s about is shutting you up. What it’s about is forcing you to check in with the committee, check in with your overlords at Colorado State or Twitter or YouTube or wherever, before you say anything. Because it’s not about the words, it’s about the opinions that you’re expressing.
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