What’s something most people don’t understand?

Something most people don’t understand is doublespeak. It’s when a person says one thing, but really means something else which is usually something sinister. So, they make what they say sound acceptable enough so that people don’t clutch their pearls.

Doublespeak is practiced a lot by white people in America when used in racist context, because they don’t want to be seen as a “bad person” or when they’re trying to get over on you. In the Black community, we call it “codespeak”, because it involves using buzzwords to hint at a larger picture, and it seems like we’re the only group that catches it in lockstep. That’s likely because we’ve had to live by it for hundreds of years to survive in this country. It’s not called a Sundown Town because the sun sets over it.

While people do this in casual everyday conversations, the worst offense of it is in government and big businesses. Political candidates will say one thing, but actually have an undercurrent of bad ulterior motives.

A clear example of this is President Trump and his cabinet. When he said he was going to deport violent illegal immigrants with criminal records, sure that sounded good considering the gang violence that’s been going on. Some people genuinely believed that the bad apples were going to get plucked from the bunch, and thrown out the country. That’s what a lot of people thought was going to happen. But instead we started hearing about bitter elites in positions of power, using it to violate the Constitutional rights of legal immigrant students with clean records just because they exercised their right to protest. And ICE agents laughing while another agent chases immigrant children into a field.

I feel like if people understood double-speak better (or actually do what their Bible tells them to do), they’d be able to see it and know that vague promises can open pandora’s box for something bad to happen. I’ve known a lot of immigrants in my life and although they knew English, no matter which country they were from, they don’t understand colloquial comments or sarcasm people made, so they take the person’s words literally. I feel like that is what happened with the large Latino vote for Trump that is now coming back to haunt them. I think that most of them voted for one thing in good faith, but didn’t see the gacha that was right in their face. Now their friends and family, or even themselves are getting deported.

Elections have consequences, and it’s bad for you if you don’t understand doublespeak. And people need to critically think and read between the lines better. Not everything being said, is being said.

Another example of doublespeak is businesses, especially in the tech, customer service and marketing world. When they hire you for one thing, but mean something totally different on its face. I think this meme sums it up perfectly.