The Power of Words: How they can affect cultures and communities we interact with everyday
We’ve all heard the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
Though we’ve been repeatedly told how untrue this statement is, many students still do not realize the negative impact caused by their words.
This impact goes far beyond simple bullying.
Discriminatory insults called ‘slurs’ have been used to oppress minorities throughout human history.
Many of these slurs are still in use today.
In a study conducted in 2014, Thinktank Demos found that 10,000 racial slurs were tweeted each day.
That's a lot of slurs, and the study doesn't even look at the abundance of slurs involving sexuality, religion, gender, and mental state.
However, the study also claimed that around 70% of these slurs were used in a way that implies that hatred and racism were not the tweeter’s intent, as many people think that the use of slurs is okay.
Many slurs have been “reclaimed”, the intended meaning of the slur changed from the previous derogatory definition to a more positive one.
Though the person using the slur may not have tried to offend, the intent of the slur does not negate the negative reaction it may provoke.
For example, the name of the NFL Washington Redskins has been the spark of a lot of controversy in recent years.
Daniel Snyder, owner of the Redskins, has stated that he believes the name to be a term of honor, and that he has no intent to change it.
However, a study conducted by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences found that the use of the term “Redskins” by non-Natives was seen as racist by 65.5% of Native American respondents, and seen by only 17.8% as not.
As the word “redskins” is still seen as an extremely offensive slur by the majority of the native population, Snyder, the entirety of the team, and its fan base have a responsibility to those whose struggles they have trivialized and whose culture they have exploited to push for a change in the derogatory team name.
Any reclamation of a slur should be completely controlled by the subculture that the slur targets, and not by those who are unaffected by the oppression.
However, some slurs are being reclaimed by the people who belong to the communities that the slurs address.
The word q*eer originally meant “weird”, but became a slur against the LGBTQIA+ community, used to imply that people who do not identify as heterosexual and cisgender (gender identity same as one assigned at birth) are strange and unnatural.
Many members of this community have chosen to reclaim this word, and use it in a positive way.
The “Q” in LGBTQIA+ is usually taken to stand for q*eer, though it can also stand for questioning.
Q*eer can be used to describe an identity that does not conform to typical standards of sexuality or gender, or to describe a person who prefers not to label their identity.
The term “Genderq*eer” is also a part of the reclamation of q*eer, used to describe those who do not conform into the typical gender binary.
“Those who identify as genderq*eer may identify as neither male nor female, may see themselves as outside of or in between the binary gender boxes, or may simply feel restricted by gender labels,” according to Trans Student Educational Resources.
However, the term is still not reclaimed by all members of the community.
The use of the term as positive is especially popular with the younger members of the LGBTQIA+ subculture, but many of the older members, the ones who have heard the use of the word queer more negatively in the past, are more hesitant to twist the word into a positive term, according to PFLAG.
Though the term has been reclaimed by some members of the LGBTQIA+ population, it cannot be used to group together the entirety of the population, as the term is still considered negative by some.
In this situation, the cliche “agree to disagree” works best.
As both groups have an equal claim to the word, those who oppose the reclamation of q*eer should not stop other members of the LGBTQIA+ community from using the word positively, just as the members who have reclaimed it should not force the use of the word upon those who still view it as primarily negative.
Any use of a reclaimed slur to describe someone part of the community done by anyone, a member of the targeted subculture or not, must be done with the person described by the slur’s full consent.
Otherwise, the person is having a word they consider derogatory forced upon them, which makes the term oppressive.
Because of this, it is difficult for any slur to be considered completely reclaimed.
There’s always going to be some people who are negatively impacted by the slur, and therefore are not okay with the use of the reclaimed slur to describe them.
Anyone who intends to use a reclaimed slur to describe an individual or a group that the slur pertains to should always be certain that they are doing so with the consent of those described.
In this situation, communication is key.
And no matter what, a slur should not be used to describe someone outside of the community it targets, nor should it be used to describe anything not human.
Many Franklin Regional students do not realize this, and often use these offensive slurs without noticing their problematic speech.A student calling his friend a “f**”, or another student saying that her math homework is “r*****ed” is, unfortunately, quite common to hear in the halls.
Use of slurs in this way implies that the community that the slur targets has the same negative traits that you are using the slur to describe.
You may think your math homework is ridiculous and stupid, but by using the word “r*****ed”, a term originally intended for medical use to describe someone with an intellectual disability, you are implying that those who do have a disability are ridiculous and stupid.
That is never okay.
So, Franklin Regional students, we must stop the use of these slurs unless we can be sure that we have the consent of the groups these slurs insult.
We also must cease to use these slurs to describe anyone or anything that the slur does not pertain to.
Only after we stop our offensive and oppressive behavior can this school become a wonderful and accepting community for all.
