Groomer. Racist. Enough already.

Hurling lies is cheating to win an argument. It degrades you when you do it, as well as the person targeted. Worse yet, it degrades actual truth.

There is lots of hysteria at the moment about the use of the term “groomer.” The accusation from the Left is that it is being used as a gay slur — a “dog whistle” — meant to incite harassment and violence against members of the LGBTQ community.

You’ll forgive me if I’m left to scoff at the Left’s hysterics on this front. It really is rich given that, for the last few years, the oh-so-progressive, pearl-clutching Left has been hurling around the most inflammatory of slurs — racist — at anyone who disagrees with them on anything.

• You think schools should open? You’re a racist.

• Anti-lockdowner? Racist.

• Think masks on 2 year olds are ineffective and harmful? Racist.

On November 24, 2022, The New England Journal of Medicine went so far as to claim that if you really want to fight racism, universal masking is the key! With no data to support this nonsensical claim, they wrote:

“. . . universal masking may be especially useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools, including potential deepening of educational inequities.”

The real takeaway: if you’re an “anti-masker” you don’t care about fighting racism therefore you are a racist!

I’d urge the Right not to adopt this perfidious approach to discrediting “opponents” through the use of the term “groomer.”

In reality, the word “groomer” is used in the context of sexual assault to describe adults who build a relationship with minors in order to exploit and sexually abuse them. Larry Nassar, former doctor for USA Gymnastics and serial rapist now in prison for life, was a groomer.

As someone who grew up amidst plenty of coaches who were straight and also pedophiles I’ve used the term groomer to describe these predators for at least a decade. It’s still accurate despite the cries that it is used solely as a gay slur. Here’s how RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) describes the process of grooming:

“Groomer” is not an inherently anti-gay term, as is now claimed by the Left as they demand the word’s expulsion from our lexicon. The term is used to describe anyone who conditions children for exploitation, whether gay or straight. Have some people used the term in bad faith to apply to any person simply presenting as themselves — perhaps as gay? Yes. But now there are calls to ban the word from Twitter entirely, as it has been from Reddit, because some use it disingenuously, like the way the Left uses “racist.”

We can’t go around banning useful words because some people use them incorrectly or maliciously. I’d suggest we need a conversation about what the word really means, and in what context it can be used to accurately describe the illegal behavior of “prepping” a child in order to victimize them. When I was a 15-year-old gymnast and an adult male coach regaled me with his Saturday night sexual exploits, I certainly felt it was wrong. I didn’t have the word to name it. But make no mistake, this coach was a groomer.

The calls from the Left to ban use of the word groomer are laugh-out-loud hypocritical given the Left’s willy-nilly, widespread and incendiary use of “racist” for the last few years to delegitimize those with whom they disagree.

Open-schoolers were persistently dismissed and vilified as racists throughout 2020-2021. Did the Left and mainstream media and mommy bloggers really believe we were white-hooded bigots out to murder black children? I sort of doubt it.

They called us racists because it’s a vile smear and anyone watching the drama unfold was cowed into silence. It serviced their narrative, therefore the lie was considered virtuous. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, as we used to say in the advertising business

Furthering these damaging lies is a pretty effective strategy if your goal is to mute and censor any dissent. The Chicago Teachers Union certainly tried with this now deleted tweet.

During covid, the appearance of a consenting majority was manufactured, in part by spreading lies about those challenging the lockdown policies. These lies provoked harassment. And kept others silent to avoid the same fate.

I received plenty of harassment. Like this:

And this. All day, every day.

And it wasn’t just anonymous on-line trolls lobbing insults and slurs; colleagues in the workplace did it too, though a tad more diplomatically. In preparation for a town hall style meeting billed internally as my “apology tour”, I was told to be ready to answer this question: “Is advocating for school reopenings perpetuating systemic racism?”

Welcome to Levi’s — you too can learn how to passive-aggressively call someone a racist!

I lost my job. These accusations from employees were persistent and, ultimately, effective. But that doesn’t make them true. Or the outcome just. An outcome based on a lie can never be just.

In today’s polarized world, actual facts are secondary, considered almost irrelevant, to the narrative. And when facts are fungible in service of a story, we have lost any grip on reality.

Here’s my point:

• No one should call anyone a groomer unless the person is known to actively groom young people in order to sexually exploit them. It’s a damning allegation and the party on the receiving end of it will undoubtedly suffer harm.

• No one should call anyone a racist unless there is evidence the person is actively showing prejudice and seeking to harm another person of a particular race or ethnic group because they are of that group. I’m looking at you lockdown fanatics.

Lefties — stop feigning outrage at the Right for sometimes using a tactic you perfected.

Righties — please don’t mimic this insidious maneuver.

EVERYONE — can we just stop with the name calling already?

Hurling lies is cheating to win an argument. It degrades you when you do it, as well as the person targeted. Worse yet, it degrades actual truth.

Without truth, there is no justice.

Without justice, there is no peace.