We begin with Enola Gay. You probably know the story already, but here’s a recap for those who don’t. Enola Gay was the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Its refurbished body is on display at the Smithsonian and is back in the news thanks to the comically misdirected effort to purge government records and documents of words deemed “offensive” for whatever reason. As a result, all mentions of the plane, including photographs featuring it, have been expunged from the archives, thus protecting future young minds from being led astray sexually. It’s not clear whether this is the work of some faceless AI process or that of some wildly misdirected and badly educated DOGEer doing the bidding of his bosses.
The Enola Gay affair has been a source of amusement to many of us, but it reflects something that, on closer inspection, is no laughing matter. In fact, it is deeply disturbing. Those of us who treat words with reverence, believe in their power and beauty, and see them as the basic building blocks of our thinking and of everything we know and believe about the world have got to be terrified by the government’s frontal assault on language. Yesterday, the New York Times published a comprehensive list of words that cannot be used in official communication. What is the fallout from eliminating the word “race” from our discourse? What basic distortion of reality must we accept with the disappearance of that word? How does the loss of access to it affect our identities, particularly when the word “Black” is also now taboo? We can ask the same question of all 200+ words and phrases on the banned list.
These new restrictions don’t come out of the blue. We’ve had warnings in recent years from states and school districts that have been banning books containing words or ideas that may be upsetting or corrupting for young readers. A while back we published a piece about a list similar to the one issued by the government that the publisher Pearson sent to its authors about words that should be taboo in their manuscripts: Words like “mother” because some people don’t have one; ditto “house” presumably because homeless people might be offended that some have one and they don’t. At least these examples reflect some compassion for the less fortunate. The current list has no such redeeming feature. I suppose we should feel pleased that words are thought to be powerful enough to pose a danger to the powers that be, but the resulting repression is too heavy a price to pay for that compliment.
Back to the government list. I decided to see what it would look and feel like to try to describe the current political climate without access to the words and phrases on that list. I’ll try a few paragraphs without looking at the list and then see where I stepped on the designated land mines.
Every evening my wife and I engage in the same act of masochism. We watch the reports of the latest atrocities perpetrated by our current authoritarian leadership. Where does one begin? The firings of thousands of hard-working employees, disproportionately women, Blacks and other people of color? The elevation of diversity, equity and inclusion as the source of all that ails us? The draconian budgets that elevate the interests of the wealthy over the needs of our most vulnerable citizens – those with disabilities, LGBTQ people, those who are trans? The negation of all the progress the previous administration made toward controlling climate change? The trauma experienced by our immigrant population so critical to our economic well-being in so many areas? The international alignment with dictators and strongmen, at the expense of democratic leaders and their governments?
All of these sweeping actions are backward looking returns to a mythical past when issues of identity were not highlighted, where there were only two sexes and women knew their place, where 1984 was only a work of fiction. What we have instead is a world of chaos, overseen by oligarchs. I don’t think that this is what most Trump voters signed up for.
The bolded words are the landmines I stepped on. The loss of access to them would have made my statement read very differently. My statement would have been rendered more toothless and the more detailed my account of our current situation the more landmines I would have exploded. Words matter. I wish I had room to share the entire list. Deleting its contents from our vocabulary would grant the owners of that list license to reshape our past history and our present reality. That process is underway already and the losses may never be recovered.
