From Wikipedia:

Pronounced: bye-tswaw

Baizuo (Chinese: 白左, literally “White left(ies)”) is a derogatory Chinese epithet that came into being in the middle 2010’s. The word received attention in Germany where it was seen as criticizing the immigration policies of Angela Merkel.

Context and usage

The word baizuo is, according to political scientist Zhang Chenchen, a Chinese word that ridicules Western “Liberal elites”. The term has also been used to refer to perceived double standards of the Western media, such as the alleged bias on reporting about Islamist attacks in Xinjiang.

Zhang Chenchen further defined the word “baizuo” with the definition “People who only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours”.

Baizuo is used as an insult amongst Chinese netizens.

In the film Serenity, there’s an early scene where a teacher is explaining the history of the Alliance. The question arises about why the outer worlds fought so hard against the Alliance, and the students begin forwarding anecdotal stories about Reavers and the like. The teacher finally puts a stop to the discourse by uttering the word “baizuo”. When I first heard this word, I figured it was supposed to be some Chinese word, based on the backstory of the series. But I had no idea if it really was a real word nor what it meant.

Turns out that was the perfect word in the context of the film and that particular scene. And it turns out it is the perfect epithet for the hundreds (yes, only hundreds) of loud Social Justic Warriors who try to get their voices heard in the news on a regular basis. These people truly do satisfy the definition of the word above.

English readily borrows from other languages, where a term perfectly defines something and there is no comparable term in English. Witness, for example, “schadenfroid” from German, which means, more or less, taking pleasure or delight in the distress of others. In light of that fact, I think it’s time to adopt “baizuo” from Chinese. Such a word does not exist in English, but should. And we should begin to use it liberally when referring to all the professional whiners who protect the world from anything snowflakes might find uncomfortable.

Let’s go!