“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” If George Orwell had seen ahead to today’s scramble to make black—but not white—a proper noun when referring to racial groups, he might have cited capitalization, too, as a corruptor of thought. Jennifer Harvey, evangelist for the anti-racist gospel of Ibram X Kendi, never capitalizes white but always capitalizes Black. She explains why in the introduction to Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America (2020), her child-raising manual for white parents:

This may seem to be either an unfair, or at least a grammatically inappropriate nonparallel use of racial terms.

Pronouns As Weapons

Maureen Mullarkey

May 24, 2022

Biden’s new appointment to the Department of Energy is a strutting, non-binary drag queen. He is also a packmate in the leather subset of “pup handlers.” You can bone up on the culture of puppy love later. For now, pay attention to Sam Brinton holding forth on the ethical necessity of role-playing of another kind: genderqueer pronouns for the newly discovered constellation of gender identities. A link to his three and a half minute video is in the previous post. Still, it is better to have the libretto in front of you. Continue Reading

Transgenderism & Politically Correct Psychosis

Maureen Mullarkey

May 29, 2021

It did not take long for California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner to evolve in a politically correct way about transgenderism on the playing field. And he is not even in office yet. The Federalist reports his recent evolution on the “non-issue” of biological males competing against biological women in sports:

I’m not running as a trans activist, I’m running as a California citizen that has lived there for 48 years,” said Jenner. “What I would do as governor is I would put together a commission.

On Loving Popes and Other Strangers, part 1

Maureen Mullarkey

March 6, 2020

This post will keep its titular promise. But first, a personal note. My blog has been silent for a while. Crisis in a family shutters engagement with the world outside. It blocks the view of everything foreign to the suffering of our beloveds. The news cycle evaporates; external claims on our attention shrivel. Neither national politics, cultural disintegration, nor Vatican intrigues count a whit. No matter whether the ones we love are endangered by illness, accident, or the incoherences of their own souls, nothing counts except their well-being. Continue Reading

Confusion of Tongues: Language of Sin vs Bureaucracy

Maureen Mullarkey

November 23, 2018

To religious minds, the language of sin, its vocabulary and syntax, cuts closer to the heart of things than its secular replacement: the language of bureaucracy. In a religious lexicon, the word sin describes violation of the inalienable rights of the God Who commands. Bureauspeak, by contrast, is a secular rhetorical practice adept at describing violations of standard procedure. Or, if you prefer, offenses against decorum. The sinner says, “Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.” The bureau-rhetor says whatever is needed to minimize negative reaction to slippage among personnel or, perhaps, one’s own. Continue Reading

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Mixed Race

Pronouns As Weapons

Transgenderism & Politically Correct Psychosis

On Loving Popes and Other Strangers, part 1

Confusion of Tongues: Language of Sin vs Bureaucracy

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