This summer the Hera Gallery in Rhode Island hosted an art exhibit/project, led by photographer/writer Kathie Florsheim, titled “Unspeakable: Getting the Word(s) Out.” The exhibit raised awareness about the important issue of speech censorship by our government and other entities.
“Get into Good trouble using forbidden words,” stated the presentation’s intro. “Come see UNSPEAKABLE, an installation at HERA Gallery in Wakefield, RI, that explores the effect that federal censorship of arbitrarily chosen language – in federal documents – has on meaning, and perspective, and the promotion of self-censorship. To ignore this clear red flag is to invite more and more federal intervention into every aspect of our lives.”
What are the forbidden words? PEN America has compiled over 350 “words and phrases…viewed as unacceptable by the White House and flagged for review by federal agencies in an attempt to remove all references not only to diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to ‘vaccines,’ ‘trauma,’ ‘measles,’ and a host of other topics, from ‘abortion,’ to ‘women,’ and including ‘elderly,’ ‘Native American’ and, unsurprisingly, the ‘Gulf of Mexico’.”
(Note: To enlarge the graphic’s word list on your computer, try using “control” and the plus sign. Or do a “how to enlarge text” search for your specific device.)
OR, here’s a short selection of more of the words on the Unspeakable list:
- climate science
- diversity
- equality
- female
- gender
- hate speech
- immigrants
- LGBTQ
- mental health
- non-binary
- oppression
- pronouns
- racism
- social justice
- underserved
- victims
Of course, we the people will continue to use—and need to keep using—these types of words.
These censorship attempts, furthermore, are just one example among many other various government-sponsored atrocities that have ignited us to use other specific words the government most likely hates.
I’ve compiled my own (totally non-comprehensive) list. Click on the links for related info.
- Autocracy
- Authoritarian
- Alternative Facts
- Affordability
- Bad Bunny
- Cult
- Cognitive Test
- Dicktator
- Epsteined
- Election Denialism
- Fascism
- FAFO
- Groceries
- Hatred
- Inflation
- Jan 6
- Kleptocrat
- Kakistocracy
- Lying and Liars
- Measles
- Misogyny
- Malignant Narcissism
- No Kings
- Oligarchy
- Pedo
- Questionable
- Redacted
- Racism
- Small-d democrat
- Transphobia
- Unprecedented
- Vaccine effectiveness
- Wintering
- Xenophobia
- Youth
- Zohran (Mamdani)
Speech censorship is anathema not only to concerned individuals. Certain organizations, including The Committee for the First Amendment, The American Library Association, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), PEN America,Institute for Free Speech, and more, all advocate for our freedom to keep using the words we deem important, descriptive, and expressive of our values, wants/needs, and realities.
In other words, and to make this clearer as a political issue, one side currently specializes in speech censorship and such related actions as book bans; another needs to keep fighting this and to reclaim our rights.
So, here’s one other mighty word to add to the please-feel-free-to-use list: Midterms!
