My 6-year-old granddaughter recently spent a morning badgering my iPad Siri about her name and asking for pictures of goddesses. A bit later in the day she was quite excited to hear her name on TV.
"Grandma! They said my name!"
Yup, her name (middle) is Isis. She was named for a goddess. The name was intended to be empowering and inspiring.
Let's try a bit of a thought experiment. If a terrorist organization called itself something with the acronym M.A.R.Y. would the media quite so cavalierly call them Mary? I think not. Imagine, if you will, recent headlines with "Mary" in place of "Isis." Isis, however, sounds sufficiently non-Western to be used without regard to the many who share that name.
On the printed page, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria reads in all caps like many other acronyms. Spoken, though, ISIS is indistinguishable from Isis. President Obama has been scrupulous in referring to the group as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL.
The Associated Press uses ISIL. The Washington Post, along with most media organizations, uses ISIS.
This may seem a trivial issue but it could be anything but for children and teens. This high school girl has been bullied based on her name Isis.
On behalf of my darling Zoe Isis and the thousands of other girls and women named Isis, please consider adding your support to a petition asking media to stop using the name "Isis" to refer to a terrorist organization.