by Jeff Dunetz at lidblog.com
Remember when words mattered? You know what I am talking about. When words had a meaning before, the work word police artificially softened them. Before the woke crazies took over, there were terrorists instead of militants and illegal immigrants, not migrants.
Wokeism has created a new rule, it is against the law to hurt people’s feelings. They changed the Oscar winner announcement to “the Oscar goes to” instead of “the winner is.’ The woke people don’t want to hurt the feelings of a mediocre actor who made millions for acting in a movie nobody saw.
The woke language police have a new target. USA Today’s entertainment, lifestyle, and wellness reporter, and chief of their word Police, David Oliver, argues:
“Aloha.” “Hola.” “Shalom.”
These are ways to say “hello” in Hawaiian, Spanish, and Hebrew, respectively. But just because you can say something doesn’t mean it’s always appropriate.
On the surface, simple greetings and phrases from other races and cultures may seem fine to sprinkle into our vernacular. Inclusive even.
Oliver says using Aloha to a Hawaiian, Hola to someone with a Hispanic background, and Shalom to a Jew might seem like mockery.
In other words, don’t use terminology that might hurt a few people.
Now can’t speak for Hispanics or Hawaiians. But I do know that shalom wouldn’t bother Jews. Shalom means hello, goodbye, and peace.
Jews have three daily prayer services (morning, afternoon, and evening). Many of the prayers in each service end with a prayer for peace. A transliteration of that Hebrew prayer is, “Oseh shalom bimromav. Hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu. V’al kol Yisrael V’imru.” In English, it means, “They who make peace in their high places, may they bring peace upon us, and upon all Israel.