{"id":1511,"date":"2013-08-02T15:27:24","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T22:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/?p=1511"},"modified":"2020-07-11T12:35:29","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T19:35:29","slug":"seattle-officials-word-cross-too-offensive-for-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/seattle-officials-word-cross-too-offensive-for-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Officials: Word \u2018Cross\u2019 Too Offensive for Use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2847\" src=\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Seattle_Orwell_01_400x525.jpg\" alt=\"Seattle Officials: Word Cross Too Offensive for Use\" width=\"400\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Seattle_Orwell_01_400x525.jpg 400w, https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Seattle_Orwell_01_400x525-229x300.jpg 229w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>by Chris Banescu &#8211;<br \/>\nAll government employees in the city of Seattle have been informed that the word \u201ccross\u201d and the letters \u201cT\u201d and \u2018t\u2019, universal symbols for a Christian cross, are patently offensive and are banned from use in all official documents and communications. Encouraged by the enthusiastic support from liberal, progressive, and leftist organizations for originally banning the words \u201ccitizen\u201d (offensive since many people are residents, not citizens) and \u201cbrown bag\u201d (offensive to people of brown skin), Seattle\u2019s Office of Civil Rights is expanding the list of banned discriminatory and hateful language.<\/p>\n<p>As reported earlier by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.komonews.com\/news\/local\/City-officials-urge-ban-on-potentionally-offensive-language----218033521.html?tab=video&amp;c=y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KOMO-TV<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/08\/02\/seattle-officials-call-for-ban-on-potentially-offensive-language\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FoxNews<\/a>, and other media organizations, city workers in Seattle were previously &#8220;advised that the terms &#8220;citizen&#8221; and &#8220;brown bag&#8221; are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.\u201d This did not concern Elliott Bronstein official spokesman for the city\u2019s Office of Civil Rights. \u201cLuckily, we&#8217;ve got options,\u201d Bronstein wrote in a memo obtained by KOMO-TV. \u201cFor &#8216;citizens,&#8217; how about &#8216;residents?&#8217;\u201d According to that same memo, city employees should use the terms &#8220;lunch-and-learn&#8221; or &#8220;sack lunch&#8221; instead of &#8220;brown bag.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Voice Blog has obtained copies of the latest memos expanding the city\u2019s policies prohibiting the usage of offensive language in all government functions. Here are the official press releases from Seattle&#8217;s Office for Civil Rights, with additional Memos included. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1513\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/City_of_Seattle_header_01_661x161.gif\" alt=\"City of Seattle Bans Words Citizen and Brown Bag\" width=\"661\" height=\"161\" \/><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;\">For Immediate Release: August 1, 2013<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dear <del>citizens<\/del> residents of Seattle, starting next Monday the word &#8220;cross&#8221; shall be removed from all official city publications. All previous press releases, official documents, memos, forms, publications, pamphlets, websites content, and any other city communications containing this intolerant word shall be immediately destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>All city <del>employees<\/del> comrades are henceforth forbidden from speaking this offensive word in any discussions and cannot use it any written communication whether printed or via electronic means. We agree with the complaint filed by The Atheists of the World Who Hate Only Christians group who consider the word &#8220;cross&#8221; to be extremely offensive to atheists. The city&#8217;s Office of Civil Rights, as guardian and protector of the public good, agrees and has now banned usage of \u201ccross\u201d phraseology in all city government communications. Please cease and desist all usage of the word \u201ccross.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Banned Phrases and Words<\/span>:<br \/>\n&#8220;Crosswalk&#8221;<br \/>\n\u201cCrossing the street\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cRailroad crossing\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cCrossword Puzzle\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cCross-references\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cCrisscross\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cCross-stitch\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Acceptable Substitute Phrases and Words<\/span>:<br \/>\n&#8220;Marked-path on road&#8221;<br \/>\n\u201cTraveling through the street\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cRailroad area where train travels\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cAt-right-angles-word Puzzle\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cMultiply-linked-references\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cCrissthrough\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cTrans-stitch\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yours truly,<br \/>\n<em>&#8211; Elliott Bronstein, Seattle&#8217;s Office for Civil Rights<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Memo #1<\/strong> \u2013 Proceed with caution on usage of word \u201ctrans-stitch.\u201d We\u2019ve just received a memo from the LGBT for Intolerance Legal Fund that said word is also problematic and potentially offensive. We recommend using \u201cxxx-stitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Memo #2 <\/strong> \u2013 Please disregard prior memo and discontinue usage of \u201cxxx-stitch\u201d word. We\u2019ve been warned by the Pathetic Smut Producers Association of Hollywood legal counsel that said term is offensive to the pornography industry. Going forward use \u201ctwo stitches forming an X\u201d in place of \u201ccross-stitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1516\" src=\"http:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Cily_of_Seattle_header_01_661x161.gif\" alt=\"City of Seattle Bans Words Citizen and Brown Bag\" width=\"661\" height=\"161\" \/><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;\">For Immediate Release: August 2, 2013<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dear <del>citizens<\/del>, residents of Seattle, it was brought to our attention by the Atheists of the World Who Hate Only Christians group that the letter &#8220;T&#8221; is just as offensive and hateful since it&#8217;s a universal symbol for a cross.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, effective immediately all city <del>employees<\/del> comrades must hereby stop using the letter &#8220;T&#8221; either in lower or upper case form. Please replace it with the letter &#8220;L&#8221; which is a much more inclusive replacement (as evidenced by the words Liberal, Left, Leftism, and Lenin) and a significantly less offensive letter of the capitalist alphabet.<\/p>\n<p>You are hereby ordered to remove, destroy, or block said intolerant letter from all keyboards on all computers, tablets, smartphones, and any other mobile devices. Failure to comply with this reasonable policy will result in the immediate firing of all offending individuals.<\/p>\n<p>Lhank you for your collaboralion in lhis crilical maller and immedialely cease lhe use of lhis inloleranl leller.<\/p>\n<p>Yours lruly,<br \/>\n<em>&#8211; Ellioll Bronslein, Seallle&#8217;s Office for Civil Righls<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Memo #3<\/strong> \u2013 Disregard Memo #2 immediately. We\u2019ve just been informed that the letter \u201cX\u201d is also a symbol for a cross. Like the letter \u201cT\u201d is it hereby banned. Use instead the more politically correct \u201ctwo stitches that travel over each other\u201d definition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Memo #4<\/strong> \u2013 Disregard Memo #3 also. Il violaled lhe ban on leller \u201cT\u201d issued previously. Lhe proper non-offensive official phrasing shall be \u201clwo slilches lhat lravel over each olher.\u201d Lhank you!<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the original (real) story from FoxNews. Yes, I know, it sounds insane. Tragically, that\u2019s the kind of Orwellian society our once great America is being transformed into by too many delusional individuals with too much unaccountable power and influence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.orthodoxnet.com\/z-img-lib\/zMisc\/Line_Divider_02_270x20.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" height=\"20\" hspace=\"7\/\" \/><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Seattle officials call for ban on &#8216;potentially offensive&#8217; language<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>August 02, 2013 &#8211; FoxNews.com<\/p>\n<p>Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms &#8220;citizen&#8221; and &#8220;brown bag&#8221; are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.<\/p>\n<p>KOMO-TV reports that the city&#8217;s Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Luckily, we&#8217;ve got options,&#8221; Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. &#8220;For &#8216;citizens,&#8217; how about &#8216;residents?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Seattle&#8217;s KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term &#8220;brown bag&#8221; has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people&#8217;s skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home,&#8221; Bronstein said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the memo, city employees should use the terms &#8220;lunch-and-learn&#8221; or &#8220;sack lunch&#8221; instead of &#8220;brown bag.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word &#8220;citizen&#8221; should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn&#8217;t include a lot of folks,&#8221; Bronstein said.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle, however, isn&#8217;t the only city with an eye on potentially disruptive words.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Post reported in March 2012 that the city\u2019s Department of Education avoids references to words like \u201cdinosaurs,\u201d \u201cbirthdays,\u201d \u201cHalloween\u201d and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests because they could evoke \u201cunpleasant emotions\u201d among the students.<\/p>\n<p>Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism.<\/p>\n<p>Officials said such exclusions are normal procedure, insisting it\u2019s not censorship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction,\u201d a Department of Education spokeswoman told the newspaper last year.<\/p>\n<p>HT: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/08\/02\/seattle-officials-call-for-ban-on-potentially-offensive-language\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FoxNews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>HT: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.komonews.com\/news\/local\/City-officials-urge-ban-on-potentionally-offensive-language----218033521.html?tab=video&amp;c=y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KOMO-TV.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Seattle_Orwell_01_650x610.jpg\" alt=\"Seattle Officials: Word Cross Too Offensive for Use\" width=\"650\" height=\"610\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2848\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Seattle_Orwell_01_650x610.jpg 650w, https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Seattle_Orwell_01_650x610-300x282.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Chris Banescu &#8211; All government employees in the city of Seattle have been informed that the word \u201ccross\u201d and the letters \u201cT\u201d and \u2018t\u2019, universal symbols for a Christian cross, are patently offensive and are banned from use in all official documents and communications. Encouraged by the enthusiastic support from liberal, progressive, and leftist &#8230; <a title=\"Seattle Officials: Word \u2018Cross\u2019 Too Offensive for Use\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/seattle-officials-word-cross-too-offensive-for-use\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Seattle Officials: Word \u2018Cross\u2019 Too Offensive for Use\">[read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35,11,58,59,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-tyranny","category-leftism","category-leftist-tyranny","category-satire","category-videos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxnet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}