Words do have power, but this sort of thing misunderstands the type of power they have. Words have power when used for persuasion. Banning the words does nothing to change the persuasive power of people who would use language to convince other people to do evil things. It only takes away the power of ordinary people to transmit the truths they see and hear. Stripping language is, in itself, evil; and juxtaposing words like "inferior blacklist" - a phrase that never existed - as if it were a brilliant example proving the racism of the second word in the phrase, shows only a misunderstanding of both the nature of racism and the nature of language.
Words used for persuasion on a large enough scale become imbued with a default associated meaning.
> Banning the words does nothing to change the persuasive power of people who would use language to convince other people to do evil things.
Do you really believe there is no power in words being repeated? Do you not believe that the real racists are bothered by not being able to espouse their usual rhetoric freely?
Much more annoyed than the free- speech advocates in this thread whose group definitely has no overlap with the real racists.
I don't think they're particularly bothered; they espouse their rhetoric either way. And if you take away some words, they quickly find others. I haven't seen the changing of the language in the past 40 years to be particularly effective at stemming their racism or their ability to persuade. If anything, the US has become more racist in my lifetime, despite the many many iterations of politically correct revisionist speech. Again, it's a form of hubris and foolishness to believe that you can change thoughts by changing words.
> Words used for persuasion on a large enough scale become imbued with a default associated meaning.
This is the definition of a racist way of thinking. If you watched Hitler's speeches and heard him say that Jews are dirty enough times, would you believe it? Would you associate "Jew" with "dirt"? Because many people heard those words thousands of times and didn't believe it. If you're afraid you would believe it, then you are the problem, not the word "Jew" or the word "dirt".
No, they are. They complain about censorship all the time.
They made an entire strategy because of their annoyance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
> they espouse their rhetoric either way.
Yes, but then they get fired and complain
> The real problem isn't I called my coworker the N-word, it's that '"Forbidden-Word” Lists Are a Symptom of Administrative Bloat.
Without the list to point to, they may not be fired. Less repercussions to bad actions, mean they feel more free to spew their racist rhetoric.
> I haven't seen the changing of the language in the past 40 years to be particularly effective at stemming their racism or their ability to persuade.
See the usage of "boy" when referring to Black men diminishing over the years because it became less acceptable.
> If you watched Hitler's speeches and heard him say that Jews are dirty enough times
If you are a 12 year old in school learning about the holocaust, the anti-wokeness educators are neutrally presenting hitler, and you don't personally know any Jews... you don't have effective tools in your environment to hedge against making that association.
There's nothing inferior about a blacklist. Often, it's way more useful than a whitelist.
Words do matter, which is why my statement above seems so off.
Words convince people to join cults and go to war. Words shape and direct the formation of new ideas.
Words have and help preserve power.