Arkansas has just banned "woke" words. Will your state or your job do the same?

If you work for the Sate of Arkansas there's certain words you can no longer use.

On October governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders19th the former Trump press secretary issued an executive order banning certain words from being used in Arkansas state business, government communications, and by government employees while on the clock. Use of these woke words are officially a fireable offense.

According to Gov. Huckabee-Sanders' executive order:

·        The terms "pregnant people" or "pregnant person," are out and must be replaced "pregnant mom."

·       "Chest-feeding," "body fed" or "person fed," are out. Use "breastfeeding" or "breast fed."

·       Instead of "human milk," you must use "breast milk."

·       Instead of "birthing person" or "laboring person," use the "birth mom."

·       Use the terms woman or women, instead of "menstruating person," "menstruating people" or "birth-giver."

·       "Womxn" or "womyn," are out. Use "woman."

Now this is a real, live problem. See, I'm a professional writer—have been for about 30 years running. It's one thing to curb language for clarity or consistency, or to meet corporate or legal liability standards, or because something's genuinely racist or sexist or objectively discriminatory. But none of these words constitute the proverbial "'fire' in a crowded movie theater". No one's actually harmed or incited to harm others by these words. This is simply government officials using the law to dictate speech based on the personal feelings and reactionary social grievances of the political party in charge at the moment.

  No matter how you feel about those particular words and the issues surrounding them, don't sleep on the bigger point: Once government (local, state or fed) starts down the path of dictating language to employees and citizens, it goes south for all. In fact, there’s a certain “f”-word folks rightly invoke whenever it happens. What Arkansas is doing is government-mandated thought policing in black and white—something conservatives and 1st amendment absolutists always claim to be against.

And make no mistake—Gov. Sanders' list of bad words is gonna expand, and other state govs and local municipalities will join in with their own words. Also, while Huckabee's order is not overtly racist on its face, it is—by her own clarification—her pushing back against so-called wokeness.

But lest we forget, how we got here:

The anti-woke movement went national in earnest in 2019 when (mainly White) Conservative politicians, media platforms and public figures started attacking the prosecution of Derek Chauvin over the murder of George Floyd; and went into hyperdrive over "The 1619 Project," an award-winning series essays and reporting examining America’s slave trade and white supremacy's impact on modern America helmed by Nikole Hannah-Jones for the New York Times. While "1619" went on to become a Pulitzer-winner, it galvanized conservatives against academia, Black history and social justice in ways seldom seen since the 1960s. In 2019, then-president Donald Trump tried to ban 1619 from state school curriculum. Ever since, anything that seems rooted in or adjacent to Black issues or social justice has been junk-drawered as 'woke' and attacked accordingly. In 2021 banned the 1619 project in its entirety, first by a 2021 Florida State Board of Education amendment banning critical race theory and again in 2022 via Gov. Ron DeSantis' Stop WOKE Act.)

Also, what starts in government eventually makes its way into the private sector...

So far, 2023 has seen the demolition of Affirmative Action by SCOTUS, companies and orgs not-so-quietly dismantling and defunding their DEI efforts, the War on CRT in schools, the reactionary rise of the largely racist and 'go woke go broke' movement, the re-fund the police (most police departments were never defunded in the first place) ... But the biggest evidence of this has been the mass Go Woke Go Broke themed boycotts against every major brand from Bud Light to Chick-fil-a to Disney to Target to select Hollywood movies and shows that are seen as pushing anti-white, anti-Christian, woke agendas...

So don’t be shocked if 2024 ushers in more companies openly ban words and ideas from staff and new hires in workplace in the name of “corporate unity” “sound business practices,” “corporate culture,” or whatever HR policy updates they can devise to push a business variant of ‘go woke go broke-ism’.

Oftentimes, when they say “this is just the beginning” the ‘this’ has actually already begun. Well, this time it’s no different. Buckle up because this will get ugly.

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