Startling but positive recommendations from the special elimination of Discriminatory Terms and Phraseology Committee, appointed in April last year by President Thabo Mbeki, have been published and will be approved in Parliament during its next session. The recommendations are that the words ‘black” and ‘white”, where used in a negative, insulting or racially discriminative or snobbish manner, be expunged from all official communications, educational material, public debate, written communications and during sexual intercourse.
‘As an example: the widespread and socially capricious use of terms such as ‘blackmail’, with its connotations of being criminal, can be extremely hurtful to black people,” says part of the committee’s findings, arguing that such usage carries both a preceptual, conceptual and postceptual inferential libel against black people. ‘It also tempts the formation in people’s minds of baleful verbal interplay between, say, ‘blackmail’ and ‘black male’.”
The South African Institute for Verbal Equality and Chainsaw Political Correctness (SAIFVEACPC) has come out strongly in favour of the proposed limitations on what it termed ‘intrinsically abusive” language. The institute said it would be a progressive move if all newspaper editors, novelists, advertising copywriters, broadcasters, educators, playwrights and stand-up comedians were served with detailed lists of ‘racially and democratically offensive” words.
SAIFVEACPC was joined in this call by the Human Rights Commission, the African National Congress Youth League, Friends of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Humans Right for Lawyers, the Greenpark Home for Elderly Mullahs and a Professor G Berger of the Rhodes University School of Journalism.
A proposed interim list of ‘unnecessary, derisive and slighting words” has been appended to the committee’s report. The list includes phrases and words it believes are ‘loaded with negative aspersions”. These include Black Leg, Black Maria, Black Prince, Black Sheep, Black Hole of Calcutta; Blackjack; Black as the Ace of Spades; Black Books; Blackball; Black Death; Black Friday or any other days, weeks or months such as Black September; Black Holes in space; Black Art; Black South-Easter; Black Shirt; Black Eye; and, in particular, the phrase As Black as the Earl of Hell’s Riding Boots (or waistcoat).
The committee continues with its findings on the irresponsible use of ‘white”. ‘Inasmuch, the use of ‘white’ in the sense that implies that the colour is associated with the better and/or desirable things in life, such as in ‘a White Christmas’ or ‘Snow White’, ‘the White Cliffs of Dover’, which can have the effect of making ‘non-white’ people feel inferior and unable to connect with or participate in these advantages.”
Asked whether, therefore, popular Yuletide songs like ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” would be banned, the spokesfemale said ‘that awful song will be at the top of our list”. Asked for comment, the President’s Office said that the committee’s report was being studied and that Mbeki would issue his total approval in due course.
The leader of the Democratic Alliance, Tony Leon, described the Elimination of Discriminatory Terms and Phraseology Committee as a bunch of binge-wankers. —