Now, uber-fringe left Goebbels substitute Joel Connelly wrote this for the PI, so take it with a grain of salt. He's a lying slimeball not unlike Lefty Lou or the pit yorkie. The comments are a hoot as well.
Public affairs officers at Seattle city agencies were advised in a recent memo that use of the phrases “brown bag” and “citizens” are potentially offensive, and that the words must be chosen.
“Luckily, we’ve got options,” Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in a missive entitled “On ‘brown bags, ‘citizens’ and language”.
“For ‘brown bag,’ try ‘lunch-and-learn’ or ‘sack lunch,’” wrote Bronstein. “For ‘citizens,’ how about ‘residents?’ (Our Citizens Service Bureau became the Customer Service Bureau a few years ago.) Just thought I’d bring this up. Language matters, and the city has entrusted us with the keyboards.”
What could be the offense of using “brown bag” or “citizens,” especially having witness Mayor Mike McGinn’s special pleasure at the swearing in of new U.S. citizens at the Seattle Center on Independence Day.
“This issue came up in one of the departments and I thought I’d send it around as an fyi for your consideration. We often use the expression ‘brown bag’ to designate a bring-your-own lunch time event. We also use the word ‘citizens’ as a synonym for ‘residents.’
“Innocuous phrases, right? Mm, not so much for. For some people, the phrase ‘brown bag’ calls up ugly associations with use of the expression ‘brown bag’ to determine if people’s skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event, a home, etc.
“‘Citizens’ is a different case: We sometimes use it as another way of saying ‘members of the public’ — except for all the members of the public who aren’t actually citizens but who live and work here.”
Asked on Wednesday how the issue of ‘”brown bag” and “citizens” came up, Bronstein answered: “Boy, I don’t remember who raised it. It has come up now and again in the past.”
“The term ‘brown bag’ doesn’t bother everybody, but . . . there is a history behind use of it,” he added. “It is something easy to correct because there are alternatives.”More:
1 comment:
Idiots!
What sort of moron can assign racial meaning to the term "Brown Bag?"
I'll soon be 65 years old and in all of my life, the term has consistently meant to carry your lunch to work or to try to hide a bottle of liquor (in dry states) inside a brown paper bag.
What next, rid our language of mention of "White" or "Red" Blood cells because it might offend someone hung up on color?
Pure idiocy.
It's as ridiculous as when that D.C. staffer was asked to resign years ago for using the term "niggardly" in a financial report.
Aide Resigns in Language Dispute
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