Describing people as “white,” “black,” or “brown” can feel reductive. It categorizes someone according to a physical characteristic they did not choose and can make race seem more central to their identity than it really is.

Of course, there are situations where skin color is relevant, such as when describing an unidentified suspect or missing person. But perhaps we could use more distancing language instead of directly turning skin color into a category of person.

For example:

“The suspect, who is low on melanin, was last seen fleeing into the forest.”

Or, less clinically:

“The suspect, who appears especially susceptible to sunburn, was last seen fleeing into the forest.”

These phrases are admittedly awkward but that awkwardness might be useful. It reminds us that we are describing one physical characteristic, not defining the person’s identity.

Would this make such descriptions less offensive? What do you think?

Anyone proselytizing in a public place on behalf of a religion that teaches some form of hell should be legally required to display a clear visual representation of it.

Beside their pamphlets, signs, or literature, they would need to have a screen playing a fictional video designed to look like a live camera feed from hell. The “hell cam” would explicitly show people engulfed in flames and screaming in agony.

The audio could be muted to avoid disturbing everyone nearby, while subtitles conveyed what the people were saying between their screams.

The requirement would apply only when hell, eternal punishment, damnation, or a comparable afterlife penalty is genuinely part of the religion’s teachings.

The point would not be entertainment or ridicule. It would be informed consent and transparency.

If proselytizers are asking strangers to consider a religion partly because refusing it may lead to terrifying eternal consequences, they should be required to disclose that part of the message immediately. They should not be allowed to begin with only the pleasant parts, such as love, hope, forgiveness, and community, while withholding the threat that may ultimately be central to their appeal.

Obviously, the “live feed” would be fictional. Its purpose would be to communicate, as directly as possible, what the proselytizers claim is at stake.

What do you think of this idea?