We recently discussed the decision of schools to stop using the gender-neutral term “alumni” to combat sexist language. That controversy came to mind yesterday when Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., altered the traditional ending of “amen” for a prayer before the House of Representatives. Instead, he ended with “Amen and awoman.” This minor controversy raises a broader point as we change or bar common terms that are not gender specific.
First for the obvious. Amen is not a reference to males. Originating in Hebrew texts, it means “So be it.” Presumably, as an ordained United Methodist pastor, Cleaver knows that. Nevertheless, the importance of making the correction seemed greater than being right.
This is precisely what we have been encountering on campuses. In the controversy over the term “alumni”, the same logic controlled. One of the schools,Vermont, first stated that it wou;ld only tolerate “non-binary, gender-neutral” terms. It then admits that “alumni” is gender neutral and is “inclusive of male and female.” Yet, it still states categorically that it “adheres to an outdated, limited concept of gender.” No explanation was given how it adheres to gender bias as a gender neutral term. The school simply declared “we see you. We value you. With this change, we recognize the importance of language and its ability to empower those who have come through our VCFA programs.” Yet, it ignored the actual language and only empowers to the degree that it replaces a gender neutral term with a gender neutral term.
As discussed earlier, the language changes is is reminiscent of our own debate at George Washington over the use of the Colonials as a moniker. The student organizers asked “When we talk about the Colonial in history, what does it mean? And is that really what we want our school identity to be?” The emphasis however is the history of colonialism in the world, not the Colonial as a term in the United States. Just as we strive to understand the meaning and traditions of other countries, there should be a modicum of effort to recognize our own meanings and traditions. The Colonials fought against foreign rule. They were not advocates of colonialism. For those interested in GW, that is part of understanding our history and our values. It simply does not matter that the Colonials were anti-colonialism. The victory is pretending that they are something that they were not and then changing the term to reject a falsely claimed meaning.
It is not clear if Cleaver thought he was complying with new House rules under Speaker Nancy Pelosi on sexist language but those rules address gender-specific pronouns and terms such as “man,” “woman,” “mother” and “son.”
Trump won!
President Trump asked Georgia’s Raffensperger for his election fraud investigation reports.
Raffensperger refused to provide President Trump with the actual results of official state inquiries into election corruption and vote tampering; their “work product.”
Trump lost Georgia, which recounted the votes 3 times, and one of these times, they did a complete signature match to confirm the results. Trump was given the results. His massive ego wouldn’t allow him to accept it, so he tried charm, bullying and threats, which didn’t work. Trump lost in 2016, but that anomaly known as the Electoral College allowed the will of the American people to be defeated. He was impeached by the House of Representatives, and 48 U.S. Senators voted to remove him from office. Trump lost every opinion poll on his performance, which is a record in the history of presidential polling. Every poll predicted he would lose again in 2020, and they were right, too.
It’s time to get over it, George. Americans don’t want Trump. America is better than Trump.
Georgia repeated the same criminal enterprise it conducted on November 3. No signature rematch was done. Raffensperger refused to provide President Trump with the actual results of official state inquiries into election corruption and vote tampering; their “work product.” Parasites and failures in life, such as yourself, are terrified of freedom and demand the artificial supports of communism. The entitlements you so dearly love, affirmative action privilege, generational welfare, etc., are distinctly non-American, anti-American, unconstitutional and completely communistic. You have no grasp of American freedom. You lose in freedom. You are not now and, likely, will never be an American. The American thesis is freedom and self-reliance. All you’ve experienced is rejection and failure in that environment so you demand artificial status created by a communist dictatorship. Your existence is unconstitutional.
“’Awomen’: Rep. Cleaver’s Prayer Captures Broader Controversy Over “Degenderizing” Language”
– Professor Turley
______________
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
– George Orwell, 1984
I received this from a dear friend who voted for his first time for President Truman.
Civilization in 2020 ——— *Our Phones-Wireless *Cooking-Fireless *Cars-Keyless *Food-Fatless *Tires-Tubeless *Dress-Sleeveless *Youth-Jobless *Leaders-Shameless *Relationships-Meaningless *Attitudes-Careless *Babies-Fatherless *Feelings-Heartless *Education-Valueless *Children-Mannerless *We Are-Speechless *Government-is Clueless *And our Politicians-are Worthless *I’m scared-Sh__tless!———- I’ll add ======There could be a lot more added to this as every day more insanity arrives in some form or another.
Leftists are just plain dumb…and yet…they’re winning.
Look no further than your leader Donald Corleone’s recent phone call (which shockingly still has no article here) as evidence for why you’re losing and his complicit stooges silence for why you will continue to lose.
Awoman? Nonsense. To me, it is additional proof that we are regressing as human beings.
You’re right Alex, what with the lynchings, public be-headings, whippings, and drawing and quartering, constant warfare, slavery, strong men running cities like Boss Tweed or Penderghast, running countries like Mussolini and Hitler, sale of tainted products, child labor, you name it and we are so much worse now.
Yep. They’re bringing back segregation as well.
Just one comment on this presently unimportant subject: This “movement” will go nowhere and he/she will remain common usage for decades if not centuries, though who knows about filling out forms created by those under legal – meaning a law is involved or someone may sue your a.s – pressure. Yes, it is annoying and both unfaithful to actual facts – we are all biologically male/female or a mixture and identifiable as such down to the cellular level – and, did I say it was annoying?
As the Harvard linguist Steven Pinker commented, Ms worked and is now common because it both made sense and was an easy transformation of the language. I say in a few years we will all be saying what black people are saying now – you feel me?
Say what?
Right? I mean, we are the country where white parents have been quite okay with their country club blocking potential black members while their white children adopted hip hop as their chosen form of music. Or R& B before that. Or blues. I’m sensing a pattern.
Elvis Bug
I’m old enough that when I heard Ray Charles “What’d I Say” blasting in the gym after school for those waiting on their bus and the girls – no boys – dancing to it in their tight skirts, it stirred something “How Much Is That Doggy In the Window” didn’t. And my picture is in the dictionary for “white boy”.
+10!!!
Elvis Bug
“when I heard Ray Charles “What’d I Say” blasting in the gym after school for those waiting on their bus”
Who wrote “Waitin’ on the Bus & “Jesus Just Left Chicago”?
Hint: The same guy who Jimi Hendrix said was “the best guitar player around”.
Jimbo didn’t care if you were white, black, yellow, red, or brown, as long as you were a Freak, like him.
frank bear billy gibbons and dusty hill aka ZZ TOP
Saloth Sar
I didn’t realize that we were still living in the 1940s and 1950s, Elvis Bug and Joe Friday.
DV, you’re showing your (lack of) age – What’ I Say was ’59, Doggie in the Window probably mid 50’s (not really a fair comparison – Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White has a beat), and also ignoring the timeless funk of Ray Charles.
You know, if someone – no matter how ham handedly – wasn’t trying to light the match to burn down the country, like in two days, this would be a compelling issue.
They are.
It isn’t.
Joe, did you say what happened there? Estovir attacked you with an entire puppet brigade: Diogenes, Sandy, Alex, Gray Anonymous and DV.
This exchange illustrates how our troll impacts these threads.
A first time reader might think that a whole group of commenters all chimed in to dispute your points. In reality it was just ‘one’, creepy loser operating with Turley’s full knowledge and consent.
January, February June and July!
Yes, a lame sort of joke, for sure. But nothing to hop up on your Christian high horse about. Certainly not the most pressing challenging of norms going on today, no? Trump just repeated his Ukraine extortion call *and got taped doing it*. Just like Adam Schiff said he would and you’ve chortled and harrumphed about on your blog here, Turley.
Elvis Bug
Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.
It’s safe to come back now.
Awesome joke, Diogenes! I’d laugh if it wasn’t so idiotic.
Elvis Bug
This is supposed to be a legal blog.
This column is not about a legal issue.
All while JT ignores serious legal issues, like Trump’s phone call this weekend with Raffensperger.
He could be discussing whether this is a crime by Trump. Arguably, Trump tried to induce and procure Georgia election officials to give faulty election results; induce and procure = crimes under 18 USC 2. Or try 52 USC 20511 (2)(B), which makes it illegal to attempt to intimidate someone into fraudulent tabulation of ballots. Likely also breaks GA law.
And now Trump is threatening to have Raffensperger investigated for releasing the tape of the call.
Turley, act like a law professor and discuss this serious legal issue!!
Er … Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. is a lawmaker. As in legal; as in pertinent. You musta had a rough New Years.
According to your bizarre reasoning, if a lawyer takes a sh1t, it’s a legal matter, simply because the person is a lawyer.
If he does it publically — yeah (as Cleaver just did). Good analogy
Oh, you think the key issue is that it’s done publicly? So according to you, public breathing by a lawyer is a legal matter too?
What a wanker you are.
“So according to you, public breathing by a lawyer is a legal matter too?”
**********************
You oughta leave wit to the witty and brains to the brainy. Just stick with bizarre non-sequiturs. You’ve got expertise there.
In other words, you can’t admit to the clear implication of your claim that “If he does it publically,” it’s a legal matter simply because Cleaver “is a lawmaker.”
I have more wit and brains than you do, though admittedly that’s not the a particularly high bar.
Sure you do.
Anon the Ninny:
Only you would equate breathing out air in public and defecating in public. Well, on second thought, maybe there’s a revelation about you there somewhere!
Mesbloviator, unfortunately, you’re not alone in pretending that someone has done something they didn’t do. Did you take lessons from Allan? He’s quite experienced at that, it’s one of his go-to trolling strategies.
that is Rep. Ewomanuel Cleaver from now on
Ha! Good one!
Nothing to see here anonymous, not even squirrels.
Wait! There goes one now – he danced right across Times Square! Did you see that?
Turley knows he risks alienating his loyal Trump supporting base if he starts talking about Trump & his attorneys pressuring Raffensperger to invalidate enough Biden votes to overturn Georgia’s certified election results.
JT clearly sees the writing on the wall. He knows why Trump supporters abandoned Fox News for Newsmax & OANN. That’s why he is desperately trying to make Cleaver, de Blasio & Hunter Biden the biggest threats our country faces right now.
Joe Biden is senile. His corrupt family is for sale and owned by the Chinese Communist Party, among others. He is staffing up Obama 3.0 retreads and incompetents who f’d this country and abused government powers for eight years. The complicit, biased media is doing puff pieces on all of them just as they refuse to criticize Biden, or even press Joe Biden to answer some press questions! But yeah, Trump is the greatest threat our country faces? Holy mackerel, get a grip.
What, no mention that 5 of Trump’s hand-picked cabinet members & advisers who worked closely with him at the White House now call him unfit for office? The Drudge Report’s headline today is “Commander in Thief.” The National Review editorial board says “the sitting president of the United States is amplifying such allegations voter fraud every day, without regard to their truthfulness or connection to reality.” Andrew McCarthy says Trump’s allies in his voter fraud claims have now become the swamp.
Dick Cheney & 9 other former Defense secretaries said “Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.”
I’ll give you bonus points for nailing all the conservative media talking points.
The National Review? The Drudge Report? Dick Cheney? Holy macerel, get a grip.
“The time for questioning the results has passed…” Excuse us, but do telll when the Left, the media, the Democrats in Congress, have EVER STOPPED QUESTIONING the results of 2016 election by sabotaging Trump at every turn? Trump is allowing the constitutional process to play out and he has every right to do it. Recall when Democrats did the same thing in yester years? Of course not, because the media won’t talk about THAT “threat to our Democracy” because it was Democrats doing it!
Seems you are confusing “facts” with preferred Establishment/Media/Democrat “narrative.”
Obama talks about the need to have one set of “facts” we operate under. What he means by that is the Democrat “narrative” is the one set of so-called “facts” they want everyone “agreeing to.” Ain’t gonna happen. People are waking up to the bullsh*t.
The election was stolen. Period. Even the Democrats know it.
The election wasn’t stolen. Unfortunately, many deluded Republicans believe it was because Trump keeps lying to them in an attempt to convince them of it.
You mean like the lie that most Dems believe Russia cheated Hillary from her throne and coronation? The election was clearly stolen by way of massive cheating, chaos, and election interference from the left.
We watched social media and big tech companies censor in favor to Biden. We watched big media blackouts and bias in favor to Biden. We watched Dems change state election laws willy nilly to favor Biden. We watched Antifa/BLM rioters burning down our cities and assaulting Trump supporters as cops stood down. We watched clear debate moderator bias in favor to Biden. We watched key swing states mysteriously stop counting in the middle of the night on election day. And we watched and we watched all the ways the election was stolen in all the ways the Dems and their allies are known to do. You “win” an election by “means” of cheating, stealing, lying, censoring, bias, and thwarting, then call for “unity” and “healing”? Snap your fingers and tell us to get over it? Time to heal? Newsflash: It is not going to happen.
Joe Biden is illegitmate. He will never be accepted as legit by more than half the country.
Amen Amen Amen.
And…if you say Awomen after Amen you are Amoron.
So was Cleaver just being cute?
“So was Cleaver just being cute?”
***
Stupid.
Jacobinism. It’s been done. Didn’t end well. Of course, France was never the same after Napoleon and the Jacobins. I wonder if something short of war and terror would be enough to break the fever. I hope we are luckier than the French.
Jacobin levellers! Extirpate them
Sal Sar
DONALD Trump is engaging in behavior that is nothing short of criminal but this is your outrage. Really.
Trump fights like a Democrat. You know deep down you admire him for it.
Trump acts like a mob boss. No ethical person should admire him.
Have you seen the Swamp that is Washington DC? It takes a mob boss like Trump to manage that mess of graft and corruption. He and Lady Melania have our full appreciation and admiration.
Name one “ethical” person who survives in the Swamp of DC. If you believe say, John McCain was ethical, or Bill Clinton was ethical or Barack Obama was “ethical” you are deaf, dumb and blind. Joe Biden? Ethical? Holy smokes, man, try again.
The difference is that Trump is out front about it; he is the same man behind closed doors as he is in front of the press cameras. There is only one ‘version’ of Trump. The others? Different personas in front of cameras and another when wheeling and dealing behind closed doors. And not one of them could be called “ethical.” Especially not Joe ‘the big guy’ Biden. But in front of cameras and the voters? Total fakers and frauds.
Yep, it’s ‘worse than Watergate’ right? Here we go again…
Many on the left claim there is upwards of 57 or more genders in existence. By adding only one additional gender to the prayer closing is the left now claiming only two of those genders are important enough to be mentioned? What happened to intolerance and inclusivity? It is said if you bend over far enough in an attempt to please everyone (a mathematical impossibility just like the 2020 election results) you will eventually come face to face with your own keister.
Pandering as the statement may have been, I can’t help but think that there is a far more pertinent and pressing issue, ripe for discussion today. It’s one Turley noted in the last tweet he made before his tweet on this. Guess I’ll check back when I take lunch to see if he’s decided how to address it with his blog followers.
Reminds me of the attempt to use “herstory” instead of history back in the 70’s. I knew some latin and found that historia not only refers to a scientific account but also that it is feminine gender. The early 70’s had an extraordinary amount of silliness of this type.
Yeah, I’ve heard the same silliness with the word history often. Or the word Bible. Usually from Evangelists saying things like “it’s not history- it’s his story” as in the greater God. Or “Bible means Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” knowing full well it comes from great and Latin Biblia for holy scripture/book. Don’t think there’s much to say about this in comparison to some other issues of the day but I’m sure he’ll address those too.
*Greek. Not great.
Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
George Orwell
“It is Latin for “So be it.”
If by Latin you mean Ecclesiastical Latin (from 4th century onwards) I guess you are correct, but “amen” comes from Hebrew (via Greek, in the Septuagint and New Testament). As far as I am aware, no non-Christian Roman would ever have used it.
ʔmn
West Semitic, to be firm, confirmed, reliable, faithful, have faith, believe.
a. amen, from Hebrew ʔāmēn, truly, certainly;;
b. Mammon, from Aramaic māmonā, probably from Mishnaic Hebrew māmôn, probably from earlier *maʔmōn (? “security, deposit”). Both a and b from Hebrew ʔāman, to be firm.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/roots.aspx?type=Semitic&root=ʔmn
no so be it would be “Fiat” or “ita sit”
Koine Greek used it, same word, of Hebrew origin, ἀμήν
Saloth Sar
As you point out, being more gender specific, creating a new more gender specific word, to fight being gender specific….it’s the perfect languaging to begin 2021, demonstrating the foolishness of these virtue signaling, biology denying efforts. It’s unfortunate that Cleaver didn’t do this as satire. Now he’ll be the target of satire.
Rep. Cleaver is a retard.
A pandering, self important retard.
He can’t get needy Americans what they need, but he can vote to give Pakistani money for gender studies and butcher a prayer.
Demand have what they deserve.
Dems have what they deserve.
The perils of trusting auto-correct.