Columbia’s Newest Villain: Grandpa and Uncle Joe
Thank God for the Ivy League!
Seriously.
Columbia Law School, a bastion of serious learning, examined our society's real danger and discovered it isn't crime in New York City or even constitutional decay. Instead, the most serious threats are three words: "grandfathering" and "crazy uncle."
In case you missed it, let me repeat it: Grandfathering and crazy uncle are the latest in a line of trigger words that we all need to be wary of to protect our snowflakes before they sit and enjoy their lattes.
After reading this, I made no noise; instead, I sat in my chair waiting for the sweet embrace of death because I checked both those boxes: I'm a grandfather and an uncle. Depending on which niece or nephew you ask, I'm a crazy one.
Now, I'm probably on a list somewhere because I am a walking trigger warning. Perhaps I can negotiate a likeness deal with Columbia so they feature my image on the cover of their new report.
The Thanksgiving Safe Space
In a previous column, txmumbler, a commentator, suggested I drink less caffeine for reasons best found here:
See Also: The Foul Pole Isn’t Foul and Other Things People Get Wrong
Well, that suggestion applies here, too, because I picture the family table in late November, sitting around a carved turkey, waiting. Although the kids are ready when I walk in, the room quiets down, and I hear, "Don't call him Grandpa," someone whispers. "Part of that word is problematic."
That's when the Columbia-trained lawyer in the family rises (every family has one) and announces: "Attention! From now on, Manney is Male Parental Ancestor Two Generations Removed. Please make a note of it."
I learned the hard way that the title doesn't fit nicely on a coffee mug.
And what about Crazy Uncle Dean? The one who shows up with day-old deli potato salad from the gas station, wearing socks with sandals despite the early winter in Wisconsin, telling stories about a UFO he swears followed him from the deer stand.
Here is where Columbia's bookworms deviate from everyday life: They call me and Dean microaggressions, while our family ignores us.
The Grandfathering Clause Nobody Laughed At
Columbia argues that "grandfathering" is offensive because it originated out of Jim Crow laws. The Washington Free Beacon reports.
When one student mentioned complimenting a foreign person’s English, Fletcher launched into a diatribe against Trump, who in July had praised Liberia’s president, Joseph Boakai, for speaking better English than his own cabinet.
"I know I shouldn't go political, but our president did that recently to an African president, [the] president of Liberia," (Marguerite) Fletcher said. "‘You speak English better than the people in my office.’ Hmmm… yes, he does."
Elsewhere in the training, Fletcher argued that lawyers should avoid the term "grandfathering" because of its "racist origins" in the Jim Crow South. And she described how, at a "lawyer well-being group" in Massachusetts, she had been chided for using the term "crazy uncle" because it could stigmatize those with mental health issues.
"I learned from it," Fletcher recalled. "I’ve never said it again. … If you said something that landed on somebody badly or was inappropriate in some way, wouldn't you want to know?"
Yes, the origins of grandfathering are ugly, but like living and breathing creatures, language evolves. Everybody today knows grandfathering means an exception to a new rule. For example, "When my neighbor bought his old pickup, it belched smoke like a campfire, but the muffler was grandfathered under old rules, so he still drives it legally, while anyone buying the same truck today would get ticketed."
Using their logic, Columbia's decision renders half the dictionary void. "Czar" would have vanished because Russia had long had tsars. "Crusade" would be gone because the Middle Ages happened. Before long, we'll be grunting, using rudimentary sign language just to order a turkey sandwich.
Meanwhile, on the Subway…
Once we step outside Columbia's gates and onto the subway, we find people packed, shoulder to shoulder, clutching their bags while a guy in the corner yells something about Hunter's laptop.
Subway riders aren't trembling over the word grandfathering; they're hoping to get home safely.
People in the real world don't give a lick about word lists.
A Courtroom Isn’t a Safe Space
Pick a courtroom on a crazy day: Judges bark, lawyers spar, witnesses unravel. It's messy, very human, and sometimes brutal. If a snowflake law student melts at "crazy uncle," what's going to happen when they face heartrending victim's testimony over an egregious crime?
No judge stops a trial to offer a tissue for a witness over grandfathering clauses. Well, no judge to the left side of Judge Arthur Engoron would.
Final Thoughts
There are excellent schools, and then there's Columbia Law School, which turned itself into a parody. Instead of teaching students how to argue, they're teaching them to whimper. In areas that the left don't talk about late at night when the demons come, families still gather around tables with grandfathers and their crazy uncles. There isn't a single case of the vapors.
Families laugh, eat, and live.
What is evident to us but not the "educated left" is a simple truth: Words such as grandfathering and phrases such as "crazy uncle" aren't hateful acts; they're part of family life, and family love isn't illegal.
The only real joke in this entire topic is that an $80,000-a-year law school has become so fragile that it mistakes my brother Dean and me for villains.
