Recently, Zeke Reed wrote an article in response to backlash to The Cavalier Daily’s April Fools’ edition. To my understanding, Reed’s argument rested upon the idea that liberals police one another’s language to the point of paralysis. For most part I would agree with his claim. We, the assumed left, should not be afraid to make mistakes when debating issues that matter to all of us. That said, members of the dominant left must be ready to admit what they do not know and open themselves to criticism. In the case of “excessive political correctness” in the April Fools’ issue, Reed’s argument is just plain wrong. His social location allows him to perceive people’s well-articulated outrage as a matter of “political correctness.” Reducing real intellectual criticisms to matters of hurt feelings underlies what many of us on the margins see as an insult to our intelligence.
Reed’s characterization of the articles’ language minimizes racism, a function of power and prejudice to diminish mere “puns” and “quips.” He calls statements like “Trail of Schmears” and presumably minor racial epithets like “Dances with Wolves,” “unfortunate” and “unnecessary” attempts at “cutesiness.” What the few students who took it upon themselves to produce this piece published cannot be viewed as a slight infraction on the part of some poorly spoken liberals. Words are particularly powerful. When those in power use language to ridicule and delegitimize the experiences of others it is not just “unfortunate,” it is systemic. It is not a matter of “semantics” but performative power.
Questioning this language is not “oversensitivity” by the “illiberal liberals” but an exercise in speaking truth to power. The University has a language problem. Part of our socialization into “University culture” hinges upon control of language. Upon my acceptance into this school, I was sent a pamphlet instructing me as to how to construct myself. I become a “first year” while my peers were off being freshmen, and I would become a part of “Grounds” while others had the misfortune of attending campuses. This control of language becomes more insidious when we begin to refer to some as “townies,” clearly not a part of “our” University community. From the margins, I can see what Reed calls “semantics” to be part of the liberal debate on the “ideological underpinning” we are assumed to hold in common, not a “misguided and overbearing attempt to police language.” I guess I missed that convention.
My next criticism is over Reed’s conception of the “illiberal liberal.” Who exactly are most “severe and sensitive among us?” I assume it is not Reed, a self-described “straight white male,” because he clearly is not too hurt about the articles’ blatant racism. The “illiberal liberals” seem to be those of us on the margins of liberal culture. Just because we can agree that climate change is real and the United States went to the moon does not mean “liberalism” advocates for me. We’ve seen this argument made before by bourgeois (white middle-class) feminists in “the” feminist movement. Taking a “one-dimensional perspective on women’s reality” could only be afforded to women like Betty Friedan. In “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,” bell hooks says “these women were able to make their interests the primary focus of [the] feminist movement by employing a rhetoric of commonality.” Reed assumes a commonality in the left that either does not exist or at its worst assumes that whatever Reed describes as “real controversy and material issues” are the issues we should focus on.
Reed, as your “fellow liberal,” I am not dismissing your argument because of your sociopolitical position. I’m asking you to examine your silencing of those on the margins of the leftist movement, still trying to have our issues put on the party docket. In voicing my concern I hope not to discourage you from “combating the reality of systematic injustice.” My hope is that you understand that those “illiberal liberals” whose outrage and dialogue you describe as “excessive political correctness” are those on the margins of liberalism hoping to be treated better by our “allies.” This is the problem we have yet to name. I’ve spoken to many peers wondering and they often ask how to be good “allies.” I do not have any definitive answers, but I can tell you what not to do. For those of you who are allies, please do not tell me what issues should matter most. Please, do not tell me when I can and cannot have legitimate feelings about an issue. In doing so, you add to the long rap sheet of imposing bourgeois ideals on my person.
Jacqueline Akunda is a second-year in the College.
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