Racialized
There are words to be used with care, because they are charged, heavy with meaning. “Racialized” is one.
This word can be confusing, as it is sometimes mistakenly used as a synonym for visible minorities or non-whites, for example.
So we can sometimes wonder if the use made of it by some of the people we quote is good. An example: when Canadian defender Jordan Harris is made to say that “PK [Subban], as a racialized person, the career he had in Montreal is enormous”. Do we mean that it is a feat because he is black?
If so, it is faulty. Because to be qualified as “racialized”, you have to be a victim of discrimination, of racism, reminds our linguistic advisor Lucie Côté. We therefore refer to a person, populations or racialized groups in order to emphasize that they are the object of prejudice and racist behavior, not because they belong to a visible minority.
That said, the word is still to be used sparingly, since it is rejected by people who could themselves be considered racialized. To The Pressit is therefore generally used when a person describes themselves as racialized, for example, or when an institution uses it in its official communications.
Otherwise, ambiguity can set in.
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Family drama
Two children died in Laval last October at the hands of a man about whom no details have filtered through the media.
Is it a family member? The Laval Police Department responded that the exact link between the man and the children could not be specified, but that it had “all the appearance of a family drama”.
We had no choice but to publish the response of the police authorities, for want of knowing more. But we also unfortunately titled using the expression “family drama”, which we tend to avoid, a bit like we do for “crime of passion”, for example.
The expression indeed tends to euphemize what took place: in this case, the murder of two children, which is more dramatic, precisely, than a “family drama”.
After reflection, we therefore chose to keep the expression “family drama” in the text, but only in quotation marks, when it came to the citation of the police officers, since this added relevant information. But we removed it from the title to avoid minimizing the seriousness of the drama, precisely.
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Populism
Here is a word that gave a hard time… to some readers, this time.
Earlier this year, I wrote about Pierre Poilievre calling his partisan strategies “populist”. Patrick Lagacé spoke about the “populism” of certain releases by Éric Duhaime and François Legault.
Readers have criticized us for using the word “populist” pejoratively, applying it to right-wing parties only. “What is democracy, if not the people who decide? asks a reader. And so, why not apply the expression to Valérie Plante too when she says she wants to bring decisions closer to the population? »
Good questions. The reason is that ‘populism’ is not about giving power back to the people.
Populism is rather the “political discourse addressed to the working classes, based on criticism of the system and its representatives”, according to Robert. A populist, in other words, is someone who claims to represent the so-called “real world” against the establishment and the institutions, which may be on the left, but which is still more widespread on the right in our time.
Therefore, a populist is not someone who simply seeks to represent the people, which is the very objective of an elected representative.
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Street gang
The term “street gang” is debated these days, to the point that some are asking that we stop using it. The problem ? It would have an ethnic or racial connotation and would be assimilated in the minds of some people to a gang made up of young black people.
There are several issues with this request. First, there are indeed groups made up of black people, but also Latino groups and other varied ethnic origins.
Then, there really isn’t an alternative solution that can be understood by everyone, whereas the goal of mainstream media is precisely to be understood by everyone.
Some suggest replacing street gangs with “urban gang”, which is not usual, or with “criminal group”, which is too broad. This would indeed include both the Hells Angels and groups of young offenders in a neighborhood, which is not optimal given the great differences between such organizations and because we try to avoid the adjective “criminalized” , since it denotes someone with a criminal history.
In addition, organizations like Statistics Canada do use street gangs, particularly in their regular reports, which could lead to confusion if we decide to change the term unilaterally.
So we continue to use that term for now.
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Kyiv
This is a city name that we hadn’t given enough thought to until the news forced us to do so.
The Ukrainian capital was called kyiv in The Press for years, as in most Western media. Normal: kyiv is the Russian name which imposed itself because of the Russian, then Soviet past of the city.
However, Ukraine has been an independent country since 1991, which prompted the authorities there to officially abandon the Russian name of the capital a few years later in favor of the Ukrainian version, Kyiv (or Kyïv).
Readers have pointed out to us the discomfort that the name kyiv could cause in the Ukrainian community, which prompted us to question this outdated toponym.
We have since replaced kyiv, Kharkov and Lvov with Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv.
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And you, do you have any words you stumble on while reading? The Press, for one reason or another? Do not hesitate to send them to me at: [email protected]
I wish you all, dear readers, a beautiful holiday season, full of beautiful readings, under the sign of healing and enrichment.