Have you ever wanted to fight oppression but didn’t know how?
A Canadian professor’s come up with a way that might have eluded you for life.
Dr. Linda Manyguns is mining a method of justice linked to language — more or less.
Specifically, it relates to the written word.
The Mt. Royal University associate vice-president of indigenization and decolonization made her decree on August 30th.
Going forward, she won’t capitalize letters.
The university instructor is joining the “lowercase movement.”
If I may say so, the revolutionaries’ picket signs are sure to be a letdown. But not nearly as impotent as the lowercase-and-no-punctuation movement’s would be.
dr. linda manyguns joins the lowercase movement to reject the symbols of hierarchy wherever they are found and will not use capital letters except to acknowledge the Indigenous struggle for recognition. read her full statement: https://t.co/4CIjB5bRNp pic.twitter.com/tPHDxfb3yq
— Mount Royal U (@MountRoyalU) August 30, 2021
Here’s how Linda linda laid it out:
“this is a beginning effort at describing the use of lower case on the website of the office of indigenization and decolonization.”
To be clear, she’ll still capitalize “Indigenous.”
“Indigenous people have been actively engaged in a multidimensional struggle for equality, since time immemorial. we strive for historical-cultural recognition and acknowledgment of colonial oppression that persistently devalues the diversity of our unique cultural heritages.”
The professor decries “racialization and cultural domination.” Also: discrimination.
Those “leave the mark of imbalance and abuses of power. sometimes [sites of anti-racism demonstrations] generate media interest but interest is generally fickle.”
She’s determined to accomplish equity:
“the goal of equity, diversity and inclusion of all people is synonymous with the interests of Indigenous people. we support and expand the goal of equality and inclusion to all forms of life and all people.”
According to Linda, she and others are joining “leaders like e. e. cummings, bell hooks, and peter kulchyski, who reject the symbols of hierarchy wherever they are found and do not use capital letters except to acknowledge the Indigenous struggle for recognition.”
“we resist acknowledging the power structures that oppress,” she proclaims, “and join the movement that does not capitalize.”
She’s supported by the school:
“the office of indigenization and decolonization supports acts that focus on inclusion and support the right of all people to positive inclusion and change.”
The topic of “indigenous” has, in America, become quite hot.
Curiously, the label is applied to people who — as stated by historians — are not indigenous.
Rather, their ancestors came to America as did other settlers, theirs from Asia via the Bering Strait (though that isn’t the only migration theory).
As for the indigenous in Canada, I sincerely hope they’re treated with all due respect.
And with respect to righting wrongs via cutting capitalization, it strikes me as a powerful sign of the times.
We appear focused on the micro, so much that it’s become the macro. The macro, subsequently, has ceased to exist.
It seems society has lost sight of a larger picture.