Seattle Employees Forbidden to Utter Words Including "Brown Bag" and "Citizen"
They're...offensive?
Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.
KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.
"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"
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There's a reason "citizen" and "resident" are two different words.
"Resident" is someone who lives here. "Citizen" is someone who belongs here.
I think we should be "Legal non-aliens."
You really couldn't make this stuff up, could you?
Well actually, the headline is made up. Read the citation, nothing is "forbidden".
It was just an internal memo from one guy.