I am an interpretive exhibit designer and have been in the profession for over 20 years. As a designer, primarily for history museums, I have seen the hand-wringing that rightly goes into making sure that the language used on every graphic panel or every computer interactive is inclusive and acceptable to the community being discussed, and the community being served.
About ten years ago, at a previous company where I worked, we had our first African-American client. It wasn’t the first time that we were telling the story of African-Americans in an exhibit, but it was the first time our/my client was black. I was very careful to listen to the language of the client to make sure that we were using the language that he wanted to use to represent a group that neither I nor my colleagues belonged to—we are as white as the day is long.
It turns out that our client used “African-American” and “black” interchangeably. We used his language to shape the wording of the exhibit, which covered African-Americans in WWI and WWII. When quoting historic documents, we used the language of the time, primarily “negro,” but never used such terms in our editorial text.
That was that, and the exhibit was a success. The idea of language and it’s use became part of my tool box. I saved it to the old hard drive above my ears. I didn’t think of it as politically correct, but simply correct.
Jump ahead ten years.
On a current project we are using an exhibit technique that has been around for a long time. A small touchscreen monitor, used by a single individual, is used as a control for another larger monitor that can be seen by a larger group. For as long as I’ve been in the business (and probably long before,) this second large monitor has been called a “slave” monitor. (Yes, you can see where this is going.) We threw out this term casually with the client without really thinking about it. It’s what we had always called them—google “slave monitor,” you’ll find lots of results. It’s still a very common industry term.
It just so happens that on this particular project there is an audio visual consultant that we’ve worked with for many years. During a meeting a new term came up. When describing the technique above, he described the large monitor not as a “slave” monitor, but as a “clone” monitor. It caught my ear, but I didn’t overthink it at the time.
Later, when discussing the meeting with my partner, I asked if using “slave” to describe a piece of equipment was inherently fraught with meaning that we didn’t intend. She said probably so, and we agreed to change our language to “clone” rather than “slave.”
So, are we just being politically correct?
I guess you could say that.
But what does it mean in this case? We simply decided to use one word to describe a piece of equipment rather than another. It is also an accepted phrase in the industry—you can google it, too. The client didn’t ask us to change it, and in fact still uses the term “slave” when talking about the monitor configuration. The term slave may never be heard by the visitors who come to the exhibit.
So why change? Isn’t saying “slave” monitor perfectly fine?
Well, maybe. But, what if in the future we work on an exhibit that is about past or present slaves? If given the opportunity to do a traveling exhibit for the UN about human trafficking, would we feel comfortable talking about “slave” monitors? Probably not, especially if someone on the exhibit committee was once considered property—it can happen, exhibit committees are often filled with experts and individuals who have direct experience with the subject matter. Better to get used to calling it something else now. The clientele for our current project is also largely African-American, and it would be rather uncomfortable to have someone describe the piece of equipment to them as a “slave” monitor.
And you know what? It word change doesn’t matter to us one bit. Why? because we have nothing invested in using “slave” rather than “clone.” It is, as my cousin was fond of saying when we were younger, “No skin off my teeth.” My great grandparents weren’t owned by other people—I don’t have that legacy as part of my DNA. Sure, we are used to calling it a slave monitor and it may be a traditional term, but neither of those are reasons to hold on to something that may insult or alienate someone for who the phrase does have meaning.
So when I hear people argue about politically correct language, I have to ask myself, what do they have so invested in the language that makes it difficult for them to change? Have they taken a racial or bigoted term so deeply into their heart that they are unwilling to let it go? Do they have such feelings of anger or hatred that to change from using one word to another would cause them to lose their own identity?
It’s time to really listen to ourselves and others. Next time you hear someone, or even yourself, complain about something being too politically correct, look for the meaning behind the reluctance to admit that it’s language that should be let go.
Release the “slave” and be free.
At the point when “clones” become a suppressed class of human beings, I suppose it will be time to toss the phrase “clone monitor” away and look for another term, just like negro became black and black became African-American. The only people that should be invested in a term are the ones the term is labelling.