Native Sun News Today Editorial: Words have consequences in America

Native youth hold a “Land Back” flag at the Washington Monument as part of a #ShutDownDAPL really in the nation’s capital on April 1, 2021. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Words have consequences

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

By Native Sun News Editorial Board

nativesunnews.today

Donald Trump began throwing around words like Kungflu, and Chinese Flu and the Asian Americans have paid the price. There have been 3,800 attacks on Asian Americans just this year and there have even been deaths that can all be traced back to the idiotic use of words against Asian Americans by Trump.

Words have consequences. Keep in mind that the GOP is famous for using and changing words so that they take on a whole new meaning.

Example: A few years ago after the Sandy Hook massacre of First Graders, responsible Americans began talking about instituting some laws about “gun safety.” They talked about background checks for anyone wanting to purchase a gun.

The GOP immediately changed the words “gun safety” to “gun control.” Just that small change in words caused a big stir in many radical gun owners who actually believed that “gun control” meant that the government was coming to take away their guns. Gun safety and gun control took on new and ominous meanings.

In 1993, news outlets began reporting on the story of a mystery illness causing deaths among young Navajo, often using the term “Navajo Flu”. Hearing a news report, a physician notified health officials to say that the illness sounded a lot like Hantavirus, which he had observed in Korea in the 1950s.

Like the Korean virus, Sin Nombre virus does not spread person-to-person. Instead, transmission occurs when humans are exposed to air contaminated with aerosolized mouse feces, usually within enclosed spaces. All of the Four Corners victims were found to have significant infestations of deer mice in and around their homes.

Of course the people of the Navajo Nation were furious that this illness was given the name of their Tribe and so the media reluctantly stopped calling it the Navajo Flu.