Words Mean Something

If you've read much of my blog, you know this is a concept near and dear to my heart. If you've looked around our society today, you'll also know that I'm not winning this discussion.

I've talked about Critical Race Theory multiple times. Without delving into it or its sister, Intersectionality, the basic idea is to discover and identify the "oppressor" and the "oppressed." This, then, becomes your identity (and in today's world "I identify as" is sacrosanct), whichever you fall into. For instance, "white" is classified as "oppressor," so if you are caucasian, you must identify as "oppressor" regardless of whether or not you oppress anyone actively or passively. If you are not white -- say, a "person of color" (POC) -- then you are, by definition, oppressed. That is now your identity.

If it stopped there, it would be bad enough. Assuring those who aren't actually oppressing anyone that they are and those who are not actually oppressed that they are doesn't really help. Put another way, it's not actually true, what ancient theologians used to refer to as "a lie." But it doesn't stop there. Now it serves to make new definitions. As it turns out, only "oppressors" can hate and only "oppressors" can be racist or sexist. In this new "reality" we find that those who are among the oppressed cannot commit a hate crime because only oppressors can do that. Racism is only found in oppressors. A person of color that hates people of other races is neither hating nor racist because they fall in the "oppressed" category and it is neither hate nor racist. We've redefined them.

In a previous existence (maybe 10 years ago at most) if a theoretical black man set out to kill as many white people as he could because he'd like to extinguish the white race, he will have committed a crime, but not a hate crime. It would have been predicated entirely on race, but he wouldn't be racist. In this new system, if a white guy killed a couple of owners of businesses that are predominantly owned by women of a particular ethnicity, it doesn't matter why he did it; it is, by definition, a racist and sexixt hate crime.

Now, I understand why we've done this. There has been a great deal of injustice in terms of race and in terms of hate, etc. One cannot rationally deny that. But the solution to this real injustice has become ... injustice. "If injustice has been done to these people, then the right response is injustice to the others." So we hear people saying that rioting and theft is justice because of the injustice done to those who are rioting and looting. Perpetuating the problem is considered the solution to the problem.

These days it is possible to hate someone because they belong to a group they hate and to commit a crime based on that hate, but it's not a hate crime because that someone is not classified as "oppressed." Today it is possible to despise a group of people because they are of a particular race but it is not racism because it is white people who are despised. "You can't be racist if you're not in power," they tell us. (Is that true? If we were in a place where black people were in power and white people were a powerless minority, would they be justified in the same way?) We've stripped "racism" and "hate crime" and "sexism" and even "hate" of their original meaning, reapplied our own, and now made sure that whatever they mean we are not culpable for the evils we protest and perpetrate. If you are of the properly hated "oppressor" variety and try to raise these kinds of questions, it is simply proof that you are an oppressor and guilty of hate. If you stand up for someone in the oppressor category, you're only guilty of being an oppressor. If you point out the double standard and sheer irrationality, you prove your guilt. Facts are irrelevant. Truth is beside the point. Words don't mean what they mean. That's how it's done.