Words

There has been a lot of hypersensitivity to words in media and in general society in America. A recent report on a racial murder in the South by CNN garnered resounding criticism because the newscaster simply repeated the alleged words of the murderer, who use the word "nigger" in describing his victim. This is being interpreted as the smoking gun in the hate-crime case. In another less abrasive example, a reporter described the wife of a wealthy Presidential candidate as "never having worked a day in her life". An avalanche of defensiveness fell on the reporter from wealthy stay-at-home moms and their supporters. Sadly, the reporter apologized. 

This school-yard approach to language and reactions to language are indicators of the adolescent attitudes in the media and in American society toward serious life issues, such as racism, violence and wealth disparity. Like a school-yard spat, the participants hyper-focus on the details and totally lose sight of the process of what is happening. By banning the word "nigger' in public, some feel they are actually curing racism. By prohibiting the statement of the obvious privilege of some in society, some feel they are actually closing the wealth gap by mere equivocation.

I am no stranger to these issues. As a gay man, I grew up under the oppressive weight of the words "faggot" and "queer" and "sissy" at a time when they were commonplace everywhere, including my parents' home. In fact, my seriously Catholic parents would not utter or allow other words for racial or ethnic groups. "Queer" and "sissy" were allowed. I knew I was the lowest of the low in just about everybody's estimation at a very early age. 

Preventing bullying in the schools is the best way to eliminate the unthinking use of bullying language. Recent consciousness of the devastating psychological effects of bullying is a great thing. The "It gets better." campaign for LGBTQ youth fell short of the mark in this regard, as I see it. A campaign to empower LGBTQ children to report and enlist the aid of adults against bullying in concert with all other children would have been more powerful. "It get better." translates to "Be quiet and get through it!" in my mind. This is what I did, but I would not encourage any child in this society in the 21st century to take bullying and shut up as the LGBTQ youth of my 1950s generation did until we grew old enough to take to the streets in protest.

"Be quiet!" is part of the underlying message I hear when media people shout down those who lay out the naked truth with real language. Accurately recounting a situation where ethnic or racial slurs occurred is a way to the truth of that situation. Sanitizing the report of it is simply telling people to deny how harsh the reality was. Telling a reporter she cannot state the reality that a rich woman has it a lot easier than a poor woman is a form of class censorship. The poor cannot criticize the rich in public today without being accused of class warfare.

As a humanist, I cannot allow myself to fear words. To fear words is to fear free speech and the portrayal of reality as it is. To fear words is to keep the secrets which oppress. To fear words is to surrender to those who use them as weapons. When gay men established "Queer Nation" as a slogan in the 1970s, they captured a word which had oppressed them. Africa-Americans have captured the word "nigger" within their own culture. These actions against fearing words which once oppressed have shed the light on them, so that now we know immediately from context when they are being used to oppress.