A few months ago, an office at the University of Southern California declared that the word “field” is racist. They “explained” this absurdity as follows:

This change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that could be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in favor of inclusive language,” the memo reads. “Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ may have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign.”

That is, many slaves have worked in fields, therefore the word “field” is racist. But as Metatron has pointed out on YouTube, slaves have been made to work in houses, so the word “house” must be racist by the same standard. Self-appointed or university-appointed arbiters of language have similarly declared other words, such as “master,” racist. The Firefox browser, which I’m using to write this, now has a “primary password,” “formerly known as master password.”

Someone who believed that the word “field” is racist would have to be insane, but the people who make these decrees aren’t crazy. They have a clear purpose: to turn the language into a minefield (which must also be a racist term) where no one can escape gratuitous accusations. They can hold the threat over anyone’s head. The only escape is to do whatever is necessary to please them or stay silent. Occasionally the people using this tactic slip, admitting that the accusations are groundless but you’d better shut up if you don’t want to be the target of smears. Regardless, the aim is power.

Even defending people against false or questionable accusations can make you a “racist.” The Mastodon site fandom.ink makes this explicit, listing the following as “never tolerated”:

expressing or defending derogatory, harmful, and/or contemptuous views of marginalized persons or groups, including in the context of playing “devil’s advocate” (“it’s not really racist because…”)

Any inconvenient person can be a target, and anyone who defends a target becomes one. It’s an old technique, used for centuries to isolate people as “heretics,” “Communists,” or whatever. At the same time, it provides cover for genuine racists, as people fall into the habit of ignoring all claims of racism.