Posted on February 20, 2018

Liberals Demand We Stop Using the Word ‘Slave’ to Describe Slavery

Ed Straker, American Thinker, February 20, 2018

The New York Times had an article about the kinds of rice slaves used to grow and eat. The most interesting part was the comments by readers. A number of readers took offense at the use of the word “slaves” to describe people who were enslaved.

Evy San Francisco February 14, 2018

When will the _New York Times_ change it stylesheet so writers stop using the word “Slave,” and instead write about “enslaved people.”

NormBC British Columbia February 14, 2018

I can’t more strongly concur. “Slave” is demeaning and seems to shift the blame for what is not a person, but a condition. Use “enslaved people” always.

This is not word play!

Laurence Maine February 14, 2018

While I appreciate this article, it’s time for the New York Times to give up the word “slave” and refer to the human beings who were enslaved as “enslaved people”. Check Michael Twitty’s writings and you’ll find him making this point. Africans were forcibly brought to this country and enslaved, but notwithstanding the US Constitution, they were fully human, even when enslaved. Enslavement puts the onus where it belongs – on those doing the enslaving, while “slave” characterizes the human beings enslaved by acts out of their control. Come on Times, you can do better.

What?

Here is the classic problem with liberalism: they want to simultaneously have their victims and eat them, too.

On the one hand, liberals like talking about slavery because it shows how evil white people were (are) and how virtuous minorities were (are). But on the other hand, slavery makes black people look weak. You can’t imagine a Black Panther being a slave, can you? So liberals are torn by the desire to portray blacks as victims, 150 years after slavery was abolished, and the desire to portray them as strong and bold (at all times in history). Hence the cognitive dissonance over “slave.”

I guess “slave” will soon join other banned terms like

“retarded” (even if used in no relation to learning-disabled people)

“negro” (except if you work for the United Negro College Fund)

“colored people” (except if you work for the NAACP)

“fat” (instead, you have to say, “I’d like the plus-size chicken breast, please”)

“homosexual” (but “heterosexual” is as good as always)

Exit question: I’m sure that before long, even the phrase “enslaved people” will become unacceptable in the constantly shifting liberal lexicon. Do you think that before long, we’ll have to start calling slaves “people of captivity”? Or something else?