She doesn’t have a good case. But she does have a problem with an upper one — upper-case letters, to be precise. In fact, professor Linda ManyGuns, an “Indigenous” Canadian activist, is leading a literary jihad to eliminate the taller form of the alphabet.
Except, that is, when writing “Indigenous.”
It’s just the latest in the war against Western civilization and traditional curricula. This effort has included innovations such as “inventive spelling” and the notion that math and enforcing grammar standards are “racist.”
ManyGuns, the associate vice-president of indigenization and decolonization at Mount Royal University (MRU) in Calgary, Canada, made her anti-capitalization announcement on the university’s website, writing:
this is a beginning effort at describing the use of lower case on the website of the office of indigenization and decolonization.
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.
these sites of struggle are generally found at blockades, where demonstrations against racism occur, where racialization and cultural domination, and discrimination leave the mark of imbalance and abuses of power. sometimes these sites generate media interest but interest is generally fickle.
the explicit demonstration and practice of aboriginal culture in everyday life or at places of resistance is called by academics ‘eventing.’
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. we join 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 and join the movement that does not capitalize.
the office of indigenization and decolonization supports acts that focus on inclusion and support the right of all people to positive inclusion and change.
ManyGuns isn’t the first cultural revolutionary to pursue language manipulation. And while past efforts have generally centered around redefining terms (e.g., using “gender” to mean “sex”) or even inventing new ones, she isn’t even, as noted above, the first to manipulate capitalization. Another example is how the Associated Press, riding the BLM wave last year, announced that it would capitalize “black” but not “white” because, of course, “equity” now carries the day, and “equality” is so yesterday.
But ManyGuns’s rationale for dispensing with all capitalization — except vis-à-vis her pet cause and obsession — raises a question. If symbols of hierarchy are so bad, what about the realities of hierarchy?
In announcing her elevation to her position just this April, MRU noted that not only would the academic be a “vice-president” but would also “be the senior Indigenous leader at the University.” My, that sounds awfully hierarchical.
Why doesn’t ManyGuns insist on equality within her department instead of enjoying high totem-pole status? Moreover, does she give her students equal say in curriculum formulation and grading, or does she have authority over them?
It’s reminiscent of Kamala Harris’s 2020 campaign commercial in which she touted “equitable treatment” (as opposed to equality) and said that it means “we all end up at the same place.” But does she actually want this?
The whole reason Harris and her fellow travelers seek power and position is that they want to be above everyone else. Oh, they’ll accept it if all the serfs beneath their small, pseudo-elite circle of power wallow equally in misery, but they have every intention of being “more equal than others.” To use a twist on a C.S. Lewis line, their skepticism about hierarchies is only on the surface; it’s for use on other people’s cherished hierarchies. As far as the hierarchies they desire go, they’re not nearly skeptical enough.
Or, put simply, they’re attacking those whose power they want for themselves.
In firing her intellectual blanks, ManyGuns further proves “that modern academic leftism is insanely stupid,” as commentator Andrea Widburg so aptly puts it. Quoting MRU, Widburg points out that the professor “has a Bachelor of Arts from St. Thomas University, a master’s from Carleton University, a law degree from the University of Ottawa and a doctorate from Trent University. Her academic papers and projects are always on Indigenous subjects and informed by traditional knowledge.”
“Previously, as a waitress, high steel construction worker and chef, ManyGuns experienced discrimination and lateral violence but refuses to let it define her,” MRU also informs.
“For the uninitiated, of which I am one, ‘lateral violence’ is displaced anger against the system that results in minority-on-minority violence,” Widburg explains. “If two BIPOCs beat each other up, and you’re White, it’s your fault” (of course!).
(Note, too, reading MRU’s statement reveals that it isn’t joining ManyGuns in lowering itself to only lower case, which must be some sort of microaggression or even an act of violence. As for the professor, isn’t her name triggering? It sounds as if she should be an NRA rep.)
Modern academia is beclowning itself by embracing the world’s ManyGuns and their ideas, proving it’s a mere empty shell of what it once was. Truly creative people invent, originate, or frame eternal truths in entertaining or culture-specific new ways. In contrast, modern education’s credo appears to be: if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bushwa.
