The Things We Say

I believe that words have power.  Growing up, I loved to read.  I loved how books made words come alive off the page.  I was an only child of a military family.  Meeting new people ever 2 years or so until I reached middle school.  My relationship with words was consistent.  With people….not so much.  I saw each move as an opportunity to start anew, rarely retaining any of the relationships in my previous location.  Despite being introverted and shy, I was able to meet new people fairly easily until I reached 6^th grade.  I went from being the only Black student in the 5^th grade on Guam to being one of the least “Black” students in a predominately Black school in Florida.

Things were very different there – not just the people and the place but also the words.  In the afternoons, students gathered for lunch around cafeteria tables to “rank” on one another.  Basically, to “rank” on someone was to insult them in the most original and hurtful way possible.  Hurling the wittiest insult was a sure fire way to attain “cool points.”

I was not cool.  I was the Black kid who hadn’t been around so many other Black kids in two years, the one who “talked White,” wore dresses instead of jeans and liked school.  I was a nerd.  I ate my lunch quickly and prayed to be invisible.

I was.

But I’d listen in as people competed to be the most creatively insulting:

  “You so skinny…”

  “You so poor…”

  “You so Black…”

  “Your mamma so fat…”

  “Your momma so ugly…”

It was just a game.  Something people did to amuse themselves.  But if words have power was it really a game?  Maybe we were teaching each other to tolerate insult.  Maybe we were insulating ourselves for what the world would throw at us, becoming strong enough to bear the weight of criticism.  Maybe we were shaping one another, sending out messages about who we could be and who we could not be in order to be accepted.

I learned quickly from these ranking sessions that to be unattractive, poor, fat, skinny or dark-skinned was to be worthy of ridicule, deserving of insult.  It meant being “ranked” lower than those who were attractive, financially well off, the “right” body size, and the “right” complexion.

It made me take inventory of myself and I didn’t like what I saw.  I developed a deep fear that someone would notice that my mother actually did buy my clothes from Kmart or that my features and body shape didn’t add up to pretty.  In the hierarchy of my 6^th grade world, I knew my rank was pretty low.  It wasn’t long before my self-esteem sank as low as what I perceived was my rank.

Some words leave scars.

Some words stick in my heart like shards of glass.  Like the words we can now so easily identify with just one letter:  The “N” word for Black people, the “B” word for women, the “F” word for gay people.  Words like “ghetto” and “no homo.”  Words that make it clear who and what behavior to steer clear of. 

Just like the insults I heard in 6^th grade, I do not believe these are just words.  They shape us.  They shape the world we live in, the conditions under which we live.  They define who we believe ourselves to be and who others think we are.  They degrade and dehumanize us.  Give others permission to do the same.  They cause us to take inventory of ourselves and make us shrink to keep others from seeing our “flaws.”  They are indicators of whether we feel more or less powerful than others.

I know there are some people within marginalized groups who use these words as a way to “take the words back” from those who use them to degrade others.  They take the word, infuse it with positive sentiment and share it with those they love most. 

 

I can’t help but wonder if we within marginalized groups are really healing the wounds of systematic bias and stereotyping by learning to use the wounding words of oppression for ourselves.   I believe it is a survival technique in response to the love that is lacking in the world.  We think, “We can’t make these words disappear so let’s transform them.”  It’s a creative response but at what point does it become like those ranking sessions back in 6^th grade:  a contest to see who can be most insulting.  Do we really want to win that particular battle?

I think derogatory words injure our ability to give and receive love freely and fully – within marginalized groups and across lines of difference.  With each new generation that is introduced to these kinds of words by those who love and embrace them, we perpetuate a cycle of training people to see themselves (or others) as less important, less valuable and less capable than others. 

I remember looking at myself in the mirror when I was 12 years old and telling myself, “I hate you.”  I was starved for someone in my 6^th grade world to see me as valuable but what I got at lunchtime was something different.  How many of our children, friends, and family carry that same seed of self-hate within them?  If you could heal their hurt simply by changing the words you say, wouldn’t you?  

Our words matter.

Words mattered the day I heard some of the cool 6th graders talking negatively about a classmate I had just met because they thought she was gay.  I began avoiding her because I didn't want my rank to get any lower.  I think she sincerely wanted to be my friend and I cheated myself out of that possibility.  As I write this, I can’t help but think of the 10 teen suicides last September (Read more here).  How differently might these teens’ lives have been if kids sat around cafeteria tables thinking of the most creative compliments for one another?  Cheesy, I know…but, honestly, hearing some life-affirming words could have saved me from a pretty painful period in my life and from hurting someone who might have really needed a friend.  I guess that’s why I believe we should choose our words carefully.  You never know whose life might depend on them.