The Left Breaks Language

And you'd better not complain about it

Note to Leftists reading The BEC:

You are just a few minutes away from mischaracterizing what I’m writing here; you will get it all wrong. You’re about to accuse me of making a comparison between two people whose stories will be told to some degree within this post. You’re about to call me insensitive and mean-spirited.

This post is about language, not individuals. I’m comparing the standards of language used about these people after their deaths and I’m making no comparisons between them as individuals.

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No small Hellish firestorm erupted this past week when The Advocate/NOLA.com published two related items: First, the story of Belle Adelman-Cannon’s tragic death written by Missy Wilkinson, and after, a Letter to the Editor about the story.

Note the language used to describe Belle:

At 17, Belle Adelman-Cannon could speak fluent French — plus German, Hebrew and Chinese — and sew their own clothes. They lobbied the state Legislature on behalf of LGBTQ youth and could ride a unicycle and walk on stilts.

They could dance ballet en pointe and argue philosophy at Benjamin Franklin High School and the University of New Orleans — where they were dually enrolled, and where their teachers described them as an irreverent, joyful, insightful and incisive thinker.

"It was endless, endless endless things," said Laura Adelman-Cannon, Belle's mother. "You don't have enough space in the newspaper to write about all the things (Belle did). ... They were going to take care of the world and make it better, immediately, not waiting for someone else to do it."

The fearless, compassionate trajectory of Belle's life was cut senselessly short in a tragic accident Saturday afternoon, when a school bus collided with them on Zachary Taylor Drive in City Park. Belle was walking to meet their father, writer C.W. Cannon, after completing a shift at Grow Dat Youth Farm.

"Five minutes earlier, this wouldn't have happened," said Laura Adelman-Cannon. "And it is nobody’s fault."

New Orleans police have not arrested the driver in the crash, which was classified as a fatal accident. The investigation was ongoing as of Monday morning, according to NOPD spokesperson Reese Harper.

When Belle was killed, they were preparing to head to Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi, to work as a mentor and counselor-in-training for the first time. And they were getting ready to celebrate Pride weekend in New Orleans as in years past: with a hand-crafted costume and a Jewish Pride float.

"I lived Pride every day for Belle," her mother said. "My kid was so incredible, and queerness was a part of that. ... Belle was really proud of who they were and willing to go up to the state capital, which is a scary place, among people who literally hated them, and stand up and fight for queer kids."

A gentleman named David Larose read this compelling and tragic story and felt simply perplexed by the language describing the victim:

Who are “they”?

[NOTE: The letter has been retracted - part of the larger story - so the best I can do is piece it together for you.]

The gentleman is asking a question about language/writing standards:

What obligation does a writer - or do we - have to maintain a deceased person’s chosen identity?

To phrase this in the extreme, simply to make a point (not a comparison, Leftists):

If Belle Adelman-Cannon identified as a walrus, would The Advocate have written the bizarre story of a walrus struck by a school bus in City Park?

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Unsurprisingly, Leftists have gone on the attack against the letter-writer, accusing him of all sorts of evil and demanding the paper retract his letter and further demanding that “somebody should be fired for this!”

How dare they publish a response to a confusingly-written story about a young girl who very tragically lost her life…

I could show you literally many hundreds of responses just like these. And indeed, the letter to the editor was withdrawn:

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This from Belle’s parents:

We are surprised that the paper would publish David Larose’s letter, but here is our response:

We are sorry you were confused about our child’s freedom to publicly live their identity. Certainly the death of our brilliant beautiful child is confusing. Belle’s pronouns, however, are not. Our wonderful child was gender fluid. Our child was not confused. Our child approached his short 17 years with amazing clarity. We, her parents, celebrated who they were in life and were able to hold the complex and complete sense of Belle’s self in our minds. It is rather easy to do, to love your whole child.

Thousands of years of linguistic evolution provide us extensive evidence of how languages gender or do not gender nouns, and verbs, and use the linguistic tool of pronouns in a variety of ways. Our child was not confused but you clearly are. Perhaps your confusion is due to being monolingual. Often people who are monolingual find it really hard to understand how other individuals can be multilingual, fluidly moving between languages and holding them all seamlessly in their mind. Honestly, it is no different, in my view, for one who is gender fluid.

We are grateful for Missy Wilkinson’s coverage. Missy Wilkinson has helped us honor the life of our child.

One small piece of advice. When you need to preface a statement with, “I do not mean to be disrespectful, but...,” you are about to be disrespectful. I advise, in these situations to simply stop.

C.W. CANNON AND LAURA ADELMAN-CANNON

“… his short years… we, her parents… who they were…”

Is it not reasonable to ask what standards to expect from journalism in a situation like this?

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Now to complicate things further, provide a contrasting example, and risk further Leftist outrage:

Yesterday a convicted rapist and murderer, Duane Owen, got his due when the state of Florida strapped him - finally - to a gurney and a few minutes later wheeled his dead body out of the execution chamber.

Duane Owen, however, identified as a woman, and the ACLU defended “her”:

Setting aside the fact that the ACLU has made itself a malevolent relic, should journalists refer to Duane Owen in the feminine, as does the ACLU? After all, Murderer Owen identified as a woman. Is he not “she” as Belle Adelman-Cannon was simultaneously “she” and “he” and "they”?

Here’s how CBS reported it:

A Florida man was executed Thursday for killing a 14-year-old babysitter and a 38-year-old mother of two in separate attacks months apart in 1984 while children were sleeping in the homes he targeted.

Duane Owen was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. after a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis' office. One of Florida's longest-held death row inmates, Owen was 23 at the time of the attacks and 62 when he was executed.

Duane Owen, murderer? or murderess?

And another news outlet as well:

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A charming young lady identifies as “them.”

A vicious killer identifies as a charming young lady.

To be ‘them’ is to be queer.

To be ‘queer’ is to be multi-lingual.

To be ‘multi-lingual’ is to be better than you.

To be better than you is to be a charming young lady

None of this is obstinance on our part, nor unwillingness to organic change, or hate… it’s not about hate. Not at all.

These opposing practices cannot be sustained. Language - especially about a reality as basic as gender - cannot be changed “on the fly” or “willy-nilly.”

Belle Adelman-Cannon no more owns every word forever written about her then Duane Owen can own how we speak about him evermore, either.

We have standards about pronouns/identity in journalism, or we don’t.

We cannot survive it both ways: a sympathetic subject and an abominable one remain the subject in journalistic writing. And standards must be preserved.

A language without such standards is no useful language at all.

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