Monkeying With Language, Part II: The One Word Libs Mangled Even Worse Than ‘Racism’ Is…

AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis

The Boomers lived through the civil rights turmoil of the 1960s. GenXers (such as yours truly) were the first generation raised in the aftermath. We were morally compelled to “judge others by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.” 

Advertisement

And we truly believed it, too. (I still do.) 

Growing up, being a racist was just about the worst thing you could call someone. Along with child predation, it was the one societal sin that was irredeemable. You’d rather be labeled a thief, a slob, a liar, a bum, a snob, or a dumbass, because being labeled as a racist would instantly kill your social life.

Plus, racists were the doofuses and dolts — the losers and the outcasts. No serious-minded person believed that nonsense! Growing up, we treated actual racists like flat-earthers — only with a helluva lot more gusto.

Racism was so unpopular, social activists coopted the word, repurposing it for political reasons.

It’s a story we covered earlier this weekend: In 2020 — after George Floyd’s death and with the Black Lives Matter movement in full swing — a college student named Kennedy Mitchum wrote a letter to Merriam-Webster, imploring them to change the actual dictionary definition of the word “racism.”

And Mitchum wasn’t coy about her motive: She wanted to expand the definition to include “racial inequalities.”

From the BBC:

Ms Mitchum had encountered people pointing to the dictionary to prove that they were not racist because of the way they felt towards people of colour. She felt the definition needed to reflect broader issues of racial inequality in society.

Ms Mitchum told the BBC that she first became aware of the shortcomings of the current definition around four years ago.

"I was just speaking on my social media about racism and just about how the things I was experiencing in my own school and my own college," she said. "There were a lot of things that were racist but it wasn't as blatant."

Ms Mitchum says the dictionary definition was being used by people attempting to tell her she was wrong.

"Some troll was messaging me trying to say 'You don't understand what racism truly is,'" she said.

People were copy-and-pasting the definition to her in an attempt to prove racism could only exist if you believe your race to be superior to another.

Advertisement

So when someone "trolled" her by daring to show her the dictionary definition, Mitchum did the logical thing: She lobbied the dictionary to change its definition.

Because until that time, the traditional usage of “racism” necessarily included — at an absolute minimum — the belief in one race’s situational superiority over another. That was the common denominator — much more so than hatred or animosity.

As we discussed earlier:

The superiority — and thus, the inferiority — of one race/ethnicity versus another had always been a key component of how we define racism. Which actually made sense, because that’s how all other “isms” work:

A capitalist necessarily believes in the superiority of capitalism as an economic system. A monotheist necessarily believes in the superiority of monotheism as an ideology. An atheist necessarily believes in the superiority of atheism; a conservative necessarily believes in the superiority of conservatism; a liberal necessarily believes in the superiority of liberalism; so on and so forth.

Hatred could be a driving factor — but not always. 

Not anymore. Because “racism” became such a powerful, career-ending epithet, political activists couldn’t resist appropriating the word for their own benefit. And now, here are just a few of the items that left-wing activists have redefined as racist:

Climate Change

Capitalism

Border Control

Milk

Peppa Pig

White Christians

Tax Code

The Electoral College

The 4th of July

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Band-Aids

The Pro-Life Movement

The MAGA Movement

Red hats

Mathematics

Eating meat

Shakespeare

Pumpkins & Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Being on time

Advertisement

It ranges from the silly to the serious. (By the way, I’m with ‘em on the pumpkin spice lattes.) With one simple word, left-wing activists can marginalize whomever they want — no matter the context — and the other side has little recourse.

Even though it has precious little to do with the color of anyone’s skin — or the content of anyone’s character!

If you’re a political activist, it’s a splendid weapon of terror: By labeling your opponent as a “racist,” your side gets to piggyback off of all the collective hatred we have for racists. 

Neat trick, huh?

It’s “stolen valor” — but instead of stealing from military veterans, you’re stealing from the pain, blood, heartache, and misery of the real, actual victims of racism.

But it’s more than that: It also dilutes what “racism” means. By expanding it to include red hats, climate change, and border control, you’re stripped the word of the vile, loathsome menace it deserves.

That’s great if you’re an actual racist, such as Nick Fuentes. In an earlier age, he would’ve been booted to the curb long ago.

But today, he skates by — because political activists have overused the word so damn much, people don’t believe it when they hear it. They’ve created a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” dynamic, and the biggest beneficiaries are the REAL racists.

Because instead of being lumped in with David Duke, Nick Fuentes is being lumped in with Peppa Pig.

Yet there’s one other word that political activists have bastardized even worse than racism. It’s a word they’ve so thoroughly redefined, nobody knows what the hell it means anymore.

Advertisement

And that word is genocide.

It’s a new word, too: Wasn’t invented until World War II — when we learned of the Holocaust.

About six million Jews were exterminated, including 66% of all the Jews in Europe.

Until recently, its definition was beyond dispute: “-cide” meant kill (pesticide, herbicide, homicide, fungicide, regicide, etc.), and “geno-” meant genome (gene).

Therefore, genocide was the attempt to exterminate an entire genome of people — every member of its gene pool — and render it extinct.

The reason why we needed a new word was because it was meant to describe a very rare situation: Battles and bloodshed between warring ethnicities were common in history. Since the dawn of time, one ethnic group had battled another. Populations migrated and came into conflict; alliances arose and fell. And sometimes, shocking numbers of people perished — their cities razed and destroyed.

But that’s not genocide. That’s war.

And war was already ugly, abominable, and evil. It didn’t need further embellishments.

Yet embellish they did, especially in Israel’s war in Gaza. Because left-wingers sympathized with the Palestinians, they denounced Israel’s actions as “genocide.”

Even though there’s absolutely no evidence of any plan or action to exterminate the Palestinian “gene” — nor is there a Palestinian “gene” that’s distinguishable in any meaningful way from, say, a Jordanian “gene.”

After Hamas (the elected representatives of the Gazan people) attacked Israel and slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped over a thousand Jews, Israel battled back, demanding the recovery of its hostages.

Advertisement

Hamas refused. Their operatives hid in hospitals, behind schools, and in civilian areas. They burrowed in tunnels, beneath the homes of innocent people.

And by the time Hamas finally agreed to surrender its hostages, roughly 70,000 Palestinians died. (Hamas makes no distinction between civilian deaths and military deaths.)

Undoubtedly, some civilians did die. (Prewar, Hamas has 25,000 to 30,000 fighters. Israel claimed to have killed 17,000 by the end of the first year.)

So let’s assume there were 50,000 Gazan civilians who died. That’s an awful, terrible tragedy, because ALL lives matter. Each of us is a child of God.

And it’s still 120 times smaller than the number of Jews who died in that “other” Holocaust. (Y’know, the one with organized concentration camps, gas chambers, and a “Final Solution.”)

Furthermore, this was the first “genocide” in world history where the victim’s population increased! Because of the Palestinian birthrate, there were more Palestinians born than died!

It’s something we’ve noted before:

Meanwhile, at any given time in Gaza, there are about 60,000 pregnant women. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) spokeswoman Tess Ingram claimed that 20,000 Palestinian babies were born over the first 105 days, with a Gazan baby born every 10 minutes. After 720+ days, that’s approximately 140,000 new Gazans.

This is the only “genocide” in world history where the birthrate is DOUBLE the deathrate!

So how was this a genocide?!

Advertisement

It wasn’t. It was simply a war with civilian casualties, as most wars have.

Just last week, the mullahs' stormtroopers massacred up to 36,500 Iranian civilians. Was that a genocide? Half of a genocide? 

Or do Palestinian lives matter more than Persian lives?

How the heck does this math work?

During World War II, 25,000 civilians were killed in a single bombing campaign. Most of these civilians were of the same ethnicity: They were German. It was a dedicated, militarized attempt by the Allies to smash the city and destroy their Germanic “traditions.” 

Are we REALLY going to contort the definition of genocide, so it means the Allied forces were guilty of committing genocide against the Germans?!

In the Second Congo War, three million people died (mostly civilians). The Syrian Civil War killed 300,000 civilians. The Boko Haram massacres in Nigeria killed over 300,000 children. Roughly 375,000 died in Yemen’s war. And in the Russian-Ukrainian War, where Russia is attempting to erase Ukraine as an independent country with an independent culture, there are already over a million casualties.

All of these terrible, brutal wars took place over the past 25 years. Some are still ongoing. The death tolls are staggering.

So why is Israel being singled out?

The answer is simple: For historic reasons, it’s a devastating line of attack against Israel. Accusing Israel of genocide undermines its very basis for existence — and that’s not all. 

It also absolves left-wing activists of their own guilt, too. Such is the power of the word “genocide.”

Advertisement

They’re weaponizing the pain of the Holocaust against its descendants.

Racism and genocide. Two words that earned their menace, which the left has rendered utterly meaningless.

One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.

Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.

We need your help to succeed! 

As a PJ Media VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commentating privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you the same level of “insider access” across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms). That means: More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING! 

And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT you’ll receive a Trumpian 60% discount! 

Thank you for your consideration.

Recommended

Trending on PJ Media Videos

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Advertisement
Advertisement