The Moral Case Against Equity Language
theatlantic.com
The words [Equity-language] guides recommend or reject are sometimes exactly the same, justified in nearly identical language.
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Although the guides refer to language “evolving,” these changes are a revolution from above. They haven’t emerged organically from the shifting linguistic habits of large numbers of people.
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Prison does not become a less brutal place by calling someone locked up in one a person experiencing the criminal-justice system.
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The whole tendency of equity language is to blur the contours of hard, often unpleasant facts. This aversion to reality is its main appeal. Once you acquire the vocabulary, it’s actually easier to say people with limited financial resources than the poor.
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Okay, but it is actually doing anything? Do people with negative biases (i.e. the people who need the most convincing) respond positively to this type of language? I really can't imagine that they would. Especially when you admit that it ends up unclear. Are you actually helping people in prison when you refer to them as "experiencing the criminal-justice system" or is it like the article says:
Furthermore, why should this drain the positivity from existing language? "Experiencing the criminal-justice system" does draw focus to the fact of the wider experience, but that's not always what you need or want to express. If you're focusing on people who have been wrongfully convicted then shouldn't go with "wrongfully imprisoned" since it's a more power phrasing? I don't see how milquetoast corporate-speak like "experiencing the criminal-justice system due to systemic bias" does anything aside from protecting those biases by making them sound unworthy of outrage.
I think equity language is well intended but won't be successful because complex topics require discussion and understanding that most people don't want to spend the time on.
There is no "culture where symbolic gestures are preferable to concrete actions". Every single person carefully framing their speech about the criminal justice system wants prisons to be better and prosecution and punishment to be more fair.
That's just the author doing the boring old trick of pretending activists only care about perception so they can disregard the entire message. "Oh, you say you're a climate activist, then you should have spend the $2.41 on planting trees rather than buying sign materials made by cutting down trees! And standing in the road making me idle in my car means you're only interested in symbolic gestures, not cutting fossil fuel usage!" In the 90s he'd be complaining about PC language while explaining that when they say "f*g" it's just habit and they're not intending it in a negative way so get off their case already.
So if a criminal justice department adopts the style guide and language but keeps the exact same practices, that makes a difference for reform somehow?
I framed that imprecisely. The people developing/advocating for the style guides are trying to promote criminal justice. Malignant entities can adopt them as a misdirection, but they're not part of a culture, they're just using it as a deception. The author is complaining about the people telling them to use better language that's a chore for them to integrate/remember, not the people adopting it to avoid accountability.