These days, wherein college indoctrinated, “woke” commissars run amok erasing the past and renaming and redefining words to “reimagine reality,” while it has been a boon to hyperactive etymologists, for the rest of us it has become a fraught endeavor to refer to a dictionary definition of any word, such as say, “woman.”
The Left’s redefinitions occur as a means of advancing its totalitarian agenda. Should such redefinitions prove insufficient to attain its aim, the Left resorts to censoring a word as “harmful” and/or “hate speech,” such as say, “groomer.” In either event, by the time one employs a word, the Left has unilaterally refashioned its meaning and demanded the public comply with its new usage (or omission) – or else.
Realizing how continually branding every bit of disliked information as “harmful” and “hate speech” may dull the barb’s sting, the Left began declaring disfavored speech as “disinformation.” Presently, Merriam-Webster defines “disinformation” as “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” (As an aside, according to the entry the Nazis created disinformation, which would come as a surprise to Vladimir Lenin.) Thus, the objective of vast swaths of disinformation is to become “systemic” – defined as “of, relating to, or common to a system: such as…affecting the body generally” – within the targeted polity.
Presently, in addition to trying to censor what it deems “systemic disinformation” (i.e., speech Left disagrees with), they denounce the United States as “systemically racist” (i.e., any act the Left disagrees with, ineluctably committed by alleged white supremacists). To accommodate this view, as noted above the Merriam-Webster redefined the word “ racism ” to include the following:
“a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race; the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another; [and/or] a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles.” [Emphasis mine.]
It is this latter definition that was included to accommodate the Left’s divisive accusation America is a systemically racist nation. Per the Cambridge Dictionary , “systemic racism” is defined as policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.”
Thus, while the United States no longer has any racist laws, the definition allows for “practices” to be deemed racist if they result in “unfair or harmful” treatment of others. One wonders if the dictionary will cut and paste part of their definition of systemic racism into its definition of “white privilege.” Regardless, if one doesn’t see the convenient subjectivity (for the conniving Left, anyway) in this definition, hold on. It gets worse.
Historically, systemic racism is the second iteration of the slur against Americans. Initially, it was called “institutional racism,” but apparently the Left felt that wasn’t encompassing enough to indict the entire country. And, just to buttress the calumny, the Left cribbed from Mao’s Cultural Revolution to promote their pseudo-social scientific claims of “implicit” and “unconscious” bias, in which a stranger (i.e., the government or the corporation’s thought commissars) know you better than you know yourself – or at least of your adherence to Leftist ideological dictates.
Fittingly, their Leftist friends across the pond, the Council of Europe (COE), reared its smugly head to help salt the wounds of a deliberately divided America by chiming in with their succinct definition of “systemic discrimination”:
“Systemic discrimination involves the procedures, routines and organisational culture of any organisation that, often without intent, contribute to less favourable outcomes for minority groups than for the majority of the population, from the organisation’s policies, programmes, employment, and services.” [Emphasis mine; odd spellings theirs.]
Thus, in the delusional Left’s subjective and deceptive assessment, America is a systemically racist nation. The fact it has and continues to make enormous strides to fulfill its foundational promise of liberty and equality for all citizens is ignored. Only the sins of the past are recalled, and then ascribed to the sinners’ sons and daughters. Unless one is a favored Leftist constituency, to protest one isn’t racist merely confirms one’s implicit or unconscious bias and/or “white privilege.”
It is quite the rhetorical trick bag, but it cannot mask the fact that the accusation is not based upon evidence, merely presumptions. Stock disclaimer: there is racism in America, and there are incidents in which it manifests itself. But these are exceptions that prove the rule: America is not a systemic nation. As Andrew McCarthy has noted, if this were the case, the lawyers would be busy around the clock suing every institution, corporation, entity, and individual on behalf of clients who had experienced racial bias. Further, there is the irony that, if America is systemically racist, no one would be upset by being called racist. For example, the segregationist, degenerate racist, and Democrat Bull Connor wore being a white supremacist as a badge of honor, as did other supporters of Jim Crow. They have rightly been dumped in the outhouse of history.
Obviously, in casting this accusation without evidence, one can see the Left’s aims, none of them new. The DIE cult is really the refashioning of the Left’s demands for affirmative action, which had been previously rejected by Americans; and, with equity in particular, an installment plan of “reparations” for slavery and other past societal sins. And, of course, for the Left the siren song remains the same: the uprooting and eradicating of America’s political and social institutions and relations in the pursuit of a socialist paradise.
Recall the aforementioned definition of disinformation: “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” The Left’s traducing of America as systemically racist is systemic disinformation.
Spreading their big lie, the Left is treating America as the allies did Nazi Germany – imposing collective guilt upon a people for the crimes against humanity that occurred in their nation. (The “white privilege” canard is a textbook attempt to affix collective guilt upon a targeted group.) The goal is to ensure the destruction of that criminal state; and to erect a civilized state in its place.
This is why the systemic disinformation that is the systemic racism lie is pushed to promote Americans’ submission to the ideological dictates of the Left’s D.I.E. cult’s (diversity, inclusion, and equity). The cult is but a Trojan horse of racist identity politics and socialism, all of which seek to replace our God-given, constitutionally recognized and protected rights – including our freedom of conscience. In the Left’s fantasy, “liberty, equality, and unity,” are replaced with “diversity, inclusion, and equity.” Individual rights are subsumed and suffocated within the collective. And our pluralistic free republic is divided and destroyed and devolved into a totalitarian socialist hellscape.
True, some may consider calling the Left “totalitarian” is over the top. Okay. But what do you call an ideology that believes the state can and should “transition” you child without your knowledge or consent; won’t let you define what constitutes a “woman”; and demands you believe men can menstruate and give birth – or else? What do you think will happen to your employment and social prospects if you dissent to the Left’s systemic disinformation that America is systemically racist? After all, damn near every institution – public and private – and a large swath of the public only believes (or at least cynically pretends to believe) it, they promote the Left’s big lie.
In the end, the Left knows that, if it can convince or simply coerce you to acquiesce in such insanity, the fate of our free republic is hangs by a thread, which is why it’s honing its “systemic racism” disinformation and sharpening its scissors.
A Human Events contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) represented Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012, and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.
