Time Magazine's Katy Steinmetz wrote their
fourth annual word banishment poll. The word
choices were all words that women, teen girls,
feminists, and black people use. So let's
talk about how the words people reject exposes
their character.
[music]
Happy Thursday, PaulTalkers! I am not an expert
in American Vernacular. I'm not an expert
in feminist terminology or social activism
terminology. I'm not an expert in women or
teen girls. And I'm definitely not an expert
in African-American Vernacular English. I
am pretty good at spotting misogyny, classism,
and racism, though. Thanks, Tumblr! So, in
my opinion, you can just throw away the reasons
Time Magazine gave for why they included the
words that it did in their word banishment
poll. Here's what I think are the reasons:
Let's talk about the racism first. Bae, basic,
turnt, yaaasssss are all terms used in African-American
Vernacular English or AAVE. Now if Steinmetz
and Time had presented an argument that non-black
people should stop using those phrases, I
would be all supportive of that. White people,
in particular, stop effing taking stuff from
black Americans! Stop taking their words,
their freedom, and their lives! And I know
exactly why those words were included on the
poll and it's some white people bullshit.
And the staff of Time Magazine aren't the
only people in America trying to shame black
people for speaking how they choose to speak.
Stay ... awake to it.
Then there are the phrases that are most commonly
used by women and teen girls: I can't even,
kale, literally, om nom nom nom, obvi, said
no one ever, sorry not sorry. None of those
phrases are confusing and kale is an actual
thing! These words are included on the word
banishment poll to shame women and teen girls
into speaking the way that old white men want
them to speak. It makes them uncomfortable
when you don't stick to the words in the dictionary
that they approved. Eff that! As a woman or
teen girl, the very best hobby you could have
is to hammer into the heads of old white men
that they do not own you, they do not control
you, you do not belong to them! Keep using
those phrases, make up more! And if someone
tries to tell you that you shouldn't use such
language, I encourage you to use the universal
language of gestures!
Then there are the phrases and words associated
with social progress, particularly feminism,
like: bossy, disrupt, feminist, influencer.
Intersectional feminism continues to be vitally
important to destroying the misogynistic systems
that encourage things like an internationally
recognized magazine to pull such sexist fuckery
as this poll! If you think that words like
feminism aren't necessary, it's because you
haven't been fighting for them. Which means
that you are part of the system that we are
fighting against.
Words are power at a distance. There's nothing
else, not photos, not videos, that can alter
the way that people think as widely nor for
as long as words. When someone tells you to
stop using words, not because they're oppressive,
but because they make people in privileged
positions feel uncomfortable, you tell them
to fuck right off and you keep using those
words. And if you're a member of the oppressive
group, we know what you're doing when you're
using marginalizing language, but you're not
going to stop those of us fighting you. You're
just helping us recognize what side you're
on, and that's not the side of progress.
MarinaShutup is right now doing a fantastic
series on youtube that she calls Feminist
Fridays. I'm going to link to her in the doobly-do.
Because what I encourage you to do is listen
to a woman talk about the vital need for feminism,
every week. It's important.
So, those are my opinions about those words.
Let me tell you how I've done with my own
words today. For NaNoWriMo, I wrote 1257 words,
bringing my total word count up to 14,101
words. I'm never going to catch up, but it's
okay! Story wise, I set up the soon-to-happen
meeting between Bradyn and another teammate
of hers. This teammate is going to be the
Social Justice Berserker, kind of the Hulk
of the group, as it were. This should be fun
to write.
And the reason why I'm vlogging every day
of NaNoWriMo is because of that. I am doing
a fundraiser, which that banner will take
you to, for the YWCA. That is a charitable
organization that helps over half a million
women and children annually leave from and
recover from situations of domestic violence,
sexual assault, harassment, abuse, stalking--
they do great work, but like all such organizations,
they could always use a little bit more money.
So I'm vlogging every day to raise them some
money. Please click through if you have not
yet clicked through and take a look at the
video that I made there with some of my 1000+
subscribers, and if you can donate $1, that
would be great! If you can share the page,
that would be great. If you can retweet this
video or reblog this video or share this on
facebook, those would all be great! We only
have until Thanksgiving and then the fundraiser's
over and I'm gonna give all the money to the
YWCA! And i'm excited to do it and I want
you to be a part of this, if you can.
My tiredness is catching up to me today, you
can probably tell. But if you like my video,
please give me a thumbs up. If you've not
yet subscribed, please subscribe below, and
also leave me your questions and comments
about this video. What did you think of Time's
Word Banishment Poll? If nothing else, tell
me something that matters to you, because
I want to know what matters to you.
If you click on the thumbnail over there,
you can still go take a look at that fundraiser
page, watch the video, it's a very cool video,
I like the music, I like the people. As always,
thanks for watching, and tomorrow will be
even better!
