Diligent consumers of the news (God help us) might recall a pseudo-scandal a few weeks back when Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) referred to “color people” on the House floor in the context of an amendment he was offering while debating this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.
“My amendment has nothing to do with whether or not colored people or Black people or anybody can serve,” Crane said. “It has nothing to do with any of that stuff.”
PJ Media’s Robert Spencer covered the melodrama at the time.
Here’s the video of the alleged hate crime:
Ironically, Crane’s amendment would have specifically barred the DoD from using race as a recruiting, promotional, or retention criterion in decision-making. In other words, Crane was offering an amendment that would ban racism. “I’m going to tell you guys this right now,” said Crane. “You can, you can keep playing around these games with diversity, equity, and inclusion. But there are some real threats out there. And if we keep messing around and we keep lowering our standards, it’s not going to be good.”
But the obvious non-racist nature of Crane’s remarks didn’t stop an immediate firestorm from his Congressional colleagues and the corporate state media.
Via NBC News:
Immediately after Crane finished his remarks, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked that the derogatory phrase he used be stricken from the record.
“I find it offensive and very inappropriate,” said Beatty, who was the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in the previous Congress. “I am asking for unanimous consent to take down the words of referring to me or any of my colleagues as colored people.”
Crane interjected with a request to amend his comments to “people of color.” Beatty insisted, however, that the words be stricken from the record. They were removed by unanimous consent.
The corporate state media, led by MSNBC, piled on with the pearl-clutching.
What’s strange about the histrionics is that Social Justice™ ideologues themselves frequently use the term “persons of color” to refer to what were once non-derogatorily called “colored people” just a few years ago. They even have a nifty acronym for it: POC.
“Colored people” was never, until very recently, considered a slur. Even NPR acknowledges its widespread use in polite society until sometime late last century when it morphed, virtually overnight, into an unutterable phrase.
Via NPR:
A Google Ngram search comparing the frequency of the use of “colored people,” “minorities” and “people of color” delivers interesting results. The use of the phrase “colored people” peaked in books published in 1970. For “minorities,” the top-ranked year was 1997. Since then, the term has steadily declined but continues to significantly outstrip the use of “people of color,” which reached its apex in 2003 (although it is important to note that 2008 is the latest year for which results are available).
Who writes these rules and who elected them culture minister?
The obvious goal of this sort of language policing, of course, is not to combat racism. It is, rather, to continually move the goalposts so as to keep white people perpetually on their toes, walking on eggshells, scared to death that they might innocently let slip a verboten word or phrase, at which time they will be immediately branded an irredeemable deplorable and excommunicated from society.