Don’t Leave These Words Alone!

There are some words right now that I think should always be accompanied by the following qualifiers, to avoid the risk of misinterpretation, or of unwanted connotations:

USAID, which is the Agency for International Development”

Entitlements, by which we mean things to which we are actually entitled, rather than things people feel entitled to when they’re not”*

DEI(A), by which we mean programs to make sure qualified members of marginalized groups aren’t passed over in favor of white male Christian able-bodied cisgender people, as they have often been, regardless of merit, throughout US history. And not the right-wing racist dogwhistle of the day, which falsely presumes that members of these marginalized groups are by definition unqualified for the jobs they want. Or the jobs they’ve been in for years.”

Tax cuts to billionaires, which means letting billionaires pay less in taxes, while others pay more (and lose long-standing government services, programs, and infrastructure) to fill the gap”

This is slightly different, but when asking people to “Call your representatives” for a particular issue, please clarify which representatives: US House, US Senate, state senate or assembly (and which state), and so on. When there’s a vote in the Senate and people are still calling their House reps, that seems inefficient to me.

There may be more…

* May also be accompanied by examples:
“Entitlements, by which we mean things to which we are actually entitled (such as Social Security after paying into it) rather than things people feel entitled to when they’re not (such as absolute power in the executive branch).”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *