Words of Power and Poison

On two different reality shows this week, the "C" word came into discussion (as well as earlier in the season on "Rescue Me")...I need to weigh in on this for a moment.

A couple of years back I was the facilitator for the YATV (Youth Alternatives to Violence) program conducted by Monterey County Probabtion for local youths who'd been convicted of violent crimes. This means I taught two classes, one at the Silver Star Youth Building and one at Soledad High School, with kids of various personalities and proclivities on how not to beat up the kids sitting next to them every other day.

One of the classes I taught was on "verbal triggering". You and I, and our kids, are conditioned to respond to certain words in a violent way. These words are so offensive that they can be used to manipulate us to physically assault someone we even perceive to have used the towards us (think of the classic Richard Pryor/Chevy Chase "Word Association" sketch on Saturday Night Live).

I found there were fundamentally three "word bombs":

For black students (which I had few, mostly hispanic, actually, were my students) the "N" word (nigger) was a trigger in most cases.

For most of the males, "bitch" was a winner...but not as in calling them a bitch, but calling them "my bitch" which carries a totally different connotation. This worked well with the Hispanic and Latino (some only want to be called one or the other and are actually offended when you call them the wrong one) students, both gang-members and wannabes, as it carries the connotation of being so low on the prestige chain that you are providing sexual services for a stronger man (of course, doesn't that make him even more gay than you?)

For the women, I rapidly found that the "C" word (cunt) was the female equivalent of the "N" word. "Twat" runs a close second, but it is more like "coloured" to "nigger" than on an equal footing.

It has actually been that way for a long time. I recall when I was at a picnic attended by many friends and associates, my ex-wife went up to the guy who had been her good friend for years and told him that his girlfriend (who had been involved in an affair with me and had cut a swath through most of our friends in the aftermath of all of this) was "a cunt". He turned to her and told her, flatly and with visible anger, that if she ever said that again, he'd punch her face in.

While I agree some words carry negative messages and some names are so degrading that offense should be taken. But when individuals allow themselves to be driven to reckless behaviour, even violence, by mere words, then the wordsmiths and even the not so bright amongst us, who can exploit that aspect, take control over our lives: They whisper a word, we throw a punch, we go to jail, they laugh.

I even had one black student who, when asked why he was in my class, told a tale of how badly he beat some guy up. When I asked him why, he told me that the guy had called him a "nigger". Later he came to me and admitted the guy hadn't called him that, but that saying he had was the only out he had seen to avoid punishment. It didn't completely work, he still was arrested and sentenced, but it did earn him some sympathetic treatment.

So, let's watch it people, I am sure I will get some nastygrams over this blog entry. And, I understand, but when we give words that much power, we give them power over us. And, if we are going to give any words power, I would rather those words be friend, neighbor and lover than nigger, bitch and cunt.

Just my opinion. Remember, what others say or do cannot degrade us, it just speaks of their character and perceptions.