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I got called a "honky" today

I advised civil rights advocates not to use obscure acronyms and abbreviations UNLESS you also explain their meaning. That got me labeled a racist. Why is good messaging so anathema to the Left?

John Aravosis

Feb 1

I waded into a little Twitter storm last night that, sadly, tells us a lot about why the Left is so bad at messaging.

I advised people not to use obscure acronyms and abbreviations UNLESS you also explain what they mean. Specifically, I was responding to this tweet by HuffPost’s Philip Lewis — a great guy, whom I’ve followed for years — about a series of bomb threats at historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

I’d never even heard of the term HBCU until a few years ago. And I guarantee that a lot of people on Twitter have no idea what HBCU even means, and thus, wouldn’t learn anything from Philip’s tweet — they wouldn’t realize that we’re talking about hate crimes/terrorist threats against Black colleges. (Sure, African-Americans would know, as would many woke lefties — but for most of the public, they’d read the tweet and move on, not ever knowing that this was about some pretty horrendous racism.)

I’ve raised the same concerns about abbreviations and acronyms like AAPI (Asian-American and Pacific Islander), BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color), and LGBTQIA+ (As a gay man, I don’t even know where to start with that one). Each of these phrases are understood by only a small portion of the population, so when we use them writ-large, without explaining them, most people have no idea what we’re talking about.

To wit, I was looking for information a few months back on hate crimes against Asian-Americans and landed on a page devoted to “AAPI Hate” — that’s all it said on the home page. You’d have no idea the page was about Asian-Americans had you not googled the term AAPI. They just assumed you were familiar with it. (I only learned THAT term last year!) Same problem with BIPOC. I remember reading an African-American guy I follow on Twitter saying that he thought it meant “bisexual people of color.” As for the ever-growing abbreviation for gay, bisexual and trans people, it’s gotten so long that most people have no idea what it all means (ask regular Americans what the Q stands for, let alone the +).

When you use these terms without explaining them, you “in” your argument, making it so obscure that no one knows what you’re talking about.

Oh, the gnashing of teeth I received in response to my simple suggestion that we try to explain civil rights issues in a manner in which most people will understand. Here’s a sampling of the replies. (I must add that Philip never even replied. It was everyone else online who went nuts in response.)

Just to remind you, this all started because I tried to help African-American civil rights advocates, and allies, better reach white audiences by simply suggesting that they explain acronyms that most people aren’t familiar with.

Now, there’s a lot going on here. We’re all angry and on edge after the last four years of Trump, and the ongoing effort to dismantle our democracy and destroy every issue we care about. That tandems with the purity politics/cancel culture issue (a phrase Republicans like to use incorrectly — they call everything cancel culture — but it is a real thing on the fringes of the left, and among most of the right). People are looking for villains everywhere. If you’re not 100% in agreement with them on every issue, you’re the enemy.

There’s also the issue of Democrats simply not being very good at messaging. So my basic point, that should be obvious, that you shouldn’t use terminology that most of your audience doesn’t understand, unless you explain it, is lost on people who simply don’t know how to message anyway.

And finally, there’s another problem that I’ve found all too often among younger lefties: They want their victories handed to them — they think it’s offensive to have to fight for their rights. Now, in a way they’re not wrong. I’ve been a civil rights activist for going on 30 years now. And it’s offensive as hell that I have to fight for my civil rights. I should just have them. Everybody should. But that’s my lot in life. Gay, bi and trans people are still discriminated against, and I can either sit back and bemoan that fact, or I can do something about it. I chose the latter. And part of “doing” is explaining. It’s educating. It’s winning people over. And that concept — the notion that the burden is on you to make your to the uninformed — is offensive to many younger lefties. I take you back to this tweet:

“Hold white folks hands.” Yes. You should. The same way I’ve held straight people’s hands for 30 years now. It’s my job as a civil rights activist, and more generally, as someone who has devoted his life to making change, to educate others about the discrimination my people face. Absofuckingposilutely. I first saw this “it’s offensive to ask me to advocate” argument among some younger trans activists a few years back. I had written some blog post that many of them were offended by, because I said in the post that it’s their job to explain their issues, including their prefered terminology, to non-trans people, in the same way it’s my job to do the same as a gay person. The typical response I got was that it was offensive to ask trans people to take the lead on educating others, non-trans people should take the initiative and educate themselves. Except, most won’t. That’s the whole point of the civil rights battle, that most people don’t get better, get more informed, get more tolerant, on their own. They need to see and hear and witness things around them in order to slowly change their minds.

It is our job as civil rights advocates — and as progressives, more generally — to educate people about our issues in the most effective way possible. And that means using the most effective language possible. It’s not offensive a radical proposition. It’s simply a question of whether you’re here to win or whine. And I want to win.

The very notion that people should “google it” if they don’t understand your message is absurd. If I read a tweet that I don’t understand, most people aren’t going to google it. They’ll just move on. That’s the kind of society we live in now. Everything happens in the now, and you’re only as good as your last viral tweet. If people don’t understand what you’re tweeting about, they’ll just scroll to the next tweet they do understand.

But also, just think about it. Most people aren’t understanding what you wrote. Then why not rewrite in a way they can understand? What is so hard and controversial about that simple proposition?

And more generally, why the venom (and particularly, the racist venom), over a white guy trying to offer advice as to how best to reach white people? Isn’t that what we want more white people doing — helping to wake other white people up to the bigotry that still exists around us?

Now, some of this is Twitter, and the Internet more generally. Everybody, from genius to crackpot, now has an equal voice. You don’t have to be right, or even informed, in order to blast your opinion to the masses and create a storm of ire against your latest perceived enemy. This is the topic of another story for another day, but as much as I’m an advocate of the Internet, it’s empowered far too many people who lack the expertise to be good advocates. And their muddy thinking muddies our message.

Regardless, this honky will continue to help African-Americans sell their message to white audiences, whether struggle-twitter likes it or not. Why? Because I’m in this to win, and ultimately help people — not to be loved. To paraphrase Harry Truman’s apocryphal wisdom, if you’re looking for love, get a dog. I did.