I noted yesterday that while popular opinion is now turning massively against the Black Lives Matter movement, there are still redoubts, notably the BBC and other sections of the media establishment and academia. Today’s madness from one such redoubt is from Manchester University where students want to ban the noun “black”. The sheer lack of academic rigour on display is horrifying.
My cats are black and white. That is a statement of fact using two nouns. But the students argue that the noun black should be banned as it is “stemmed in colonial history and is now outdated.”
The word stemmed is a modern one taken to mean “originate in or be caused by” and is itself derived from the old English word “stemn” referring to a part of a plant. So does the noun black originate in or was it caused by colonial history?
No. The noun “black” has its origins well before the colonial era. There is the Old English word “blæc” which means black or dark and also ink or the Proto-Germanic word “blakkaz” which means burned and the old Anglo Saxon word “blak” which means ink or indeed the Norse word “blakkr” which means dark.
Because dates are no longer important in the modern world of academia, it is likely that Manchester Students are unaware of when Old English, the Norse languages and Anglo Saxon were spoken in this country and thus how they found their way into the English language many, many hundreds of years before the Brits embarked on the evils of colonialism.
Manchester students get a fail for logic, data analysis and even basic common sense but, no doubt, for pointing this out I am merely an alt-right freak.