Seattle officials call for ban on 'potentially offensive' language
Published August 02, 2013

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"

In an interview with Seattle's KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.

"For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

According to the memo, city employees should use the terms "lunch-and-learn" or "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

"They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said.

Seattle, however, isn't the only city with an eye on potentially disruptive words.

The New York Post reported in March 2012 that the city’s Department of Education avoids references to words like “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests because they could evoke “unpleasant emotions” among the students.

Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism.

Officials said such exclusions are normal procedure, insisting it’s not censorship.

“This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction,” a Department of Education spokeswoman told the newspaper last year



Film at 11.... 🤐 🤐 🤐


🐴 🐴 🐴

Of course "citizen" is a bad word under the Obama regime. "Subject" is the proper term.

Oh, and did you Snopes this? Never mind, Victor will be along shortly.

no need to snopes this.. it came from Fox News... 👍

Once again, you just gift wrapped this one for Victor. Can you make it any easier?

but Fox News is Fair & Balanced.... 😟

Screw Fox News. Everybody knows they are raciss and biased. I'm waiting for Chris Matthews to verify that news item.

Nothing there sounds unreasonable honestly. Citizen has too much ambiguity, or at least unintentionally excludes people, so they use resident instead. Brown bag has negative connotations so they use sack lunch instead. They make sure tests use words without strong associations so kids can focus on taking them. Big deal.

Honestly I couldn't care less, but I am amazed that people are getting outraged at other people trying to be considerate and thoughtful.

^Where do you see any "outrage" in this thread?

Here's some outrage...

Regarding #8...are you serious?! Are you saying kids take a test and see something with a color associated to it and freeze up or something?

I'm not saying they freeze up, but who knows how negative feelings brought up by connotations will affect someone taking on a test. It might only affect a small percentage of children with parents that have drilled in something about Halloween being the devil's holiday, or how Dinosaurs were never real, etc. It's not unreasonable to just avoid a possible issue (a student refusing to answer a question on religious beliefs, for instance) by omitting that language from a state-wide standardized test.

Sorry dp, I didn't mean to imply that this thread was full of outrage- only that, in general, people are overly concerned about political correctiveness. The euphemism treadmill affects every generation; it is not a new problem, if you can even call it that.

Well the title does sort of express outrage unless drafter has the flu or something.

I'm not pc but I also don't know everything. If I use a word or phrase that seems benign to me but someone tells me it bothers them for whatever reason I tend to quit using it around them and if I know them fairly well try to understand why. You may learn something. I find it easier than saying eff you and using it more.

If you are dealing with the masses you'd better learn that very quickly and it's worse in larger companies trying to sell or market to a large varied customer base. It's just a fact of life. You don't have to like it but it has always been like that. New words get added etc but its no different than it has ever been.

It doesn't make me sick or outraged but it is amusing. Now get on wif yo bad self you smoke breathing wiggers.

I don't use isom following a conversation with docrks. That's pc too. I quit using it out of respect and a new understanding.

Trying to be considerate and thoughtful?

LOL!

There's a difference between being considerate, and having your language mandated to conform.

In a related story, a generation of American young adults are in for a big freakin surprise when they first encounter a word that could potentially be deemed mildly offensive.

Film at 11.


You can say "film", right?

I mean, maybe I should have said video. Or visual documentation.
A little help please.

#-o Obviously you DO care

Le HockeyDad has not expressed outrage due to concern for all you people's feelings.

Certain organizations are being considerate- nobody mandated they do this, and nobody is restricting the words you're allowed to use.



There is a difference between having strong feelings about something and stating an observation about something you find interesting.

What the hell do you mean by "observation"? Are you saying he's some sort of mental patient? ****.

I'm grossed out by the replacement term "sack lunch".