I was raised in a house that didn't see color.
No, that is a lie.
I was raised in a house that ignored color.
There is a massive difference. Because what this meant was that the first time I realized I was different to everyone else in the town outside of my family, was my first day of kindergarten when I was four. I walked in the front gate, took literally about ten steps and had a kid of my age standing next to two other boys, pointing and shouting.
Look at the nigger!
I was unprepared. I had never heard the word before, let alone knew what it meant and the connotations associated with it. But, that didn't stop people from calling me it, did it? What I was unprepared for was the singling out and the cruelty in the child's eyes. I had never seen that before.
I had been sheltered.
I think that my parents did me a disservice for completely ignoring a problem that they knew I was going to face. It wasn't like it "could happen", because it was inevitable that it would happen, given the conditions forty years ago. My father had faced it, my older brothers had faced it, but rather than give me a heads-up of the cliff ahead, I was left to walk straight off it.
I grew up okay.
And, not only that, I look back on the first seven or eight years of my life, as some of the most empowering I have lived, because they sucked. I fucking hated those years, but every day, I got myself up out of bed, and faced whatever was going to come my way. I got very little support at home from my parents and close to none publicly from them either. It was a "fend for yourself" initiation - a trial by fire.
As a parent now, I look back at that and think it was quite cruel, but I also understand my parents. They didn't really know how to handle the situation, it wasn't something that was in the media, no one cared - it was just part of life. Though unlikely their intention, I also understand that since it is part of life, I better bloody-well learn to deal with it myself.
And I think that this is where this article is going. Because these days, parents keep trying to change the world so children don't have to face the realities of themselves. If a child is darker than other children, they will hear about it. If a child is taller, or shorter than other children, they will hear about it. If a child is fatter, or skinner, smarter or stupider, prettier or uglier -
They will hear about it.
And, while people keep fighting for "politically correct" terms and outlawing what they don't like, believing the yare making a difference, they are not. They are just kicking the can down the road until another term arises. But perhaps worse, what they are Actually doing is empowering the outlawed term and the more they try to stop it, the more power it has over their children.
Who felt uncomfortable reading the "N-word" above?
I am not even black. Yet, I have likely been called it more than black people. The thing that gives it power isn't its usage, it is the attempts to limit it. It creates scarcity, makes it more "valuable" because it makes it more impactful. It becomes a precise weapon of cruelty, that is used intentionally to cut.
It hurts more.
The more we try and control the words that people can and can't use, the more harm will ultimately get done, as there will be impact inflation on the ones aimed to cause pain, and deflation on the ones that are acceptable, because they lose their meaning.
Love is now a meaningless word due to its ubiquity.
Now, this isn't to say that using words to intentionally hurt people's feelings is acceptable, but acting as if these words don't exist and won't be used to hurt someone, is also unacceptable. Because they will be used.
The only way to disempower the words is through the mindset and attitude of the individual, not the insanity of the masses. It requires being able to hear the words, listen to what is being said, who is saying it and how it is delivered and not reacting emotionally to it. This requires developing thick enough skin to be able to not feel the pain of it, but understanding the conditions of the person, the culture, the environment.
The words we hear don't cut us.
But, when we weaponize those words, they feel like they do, because our brains can't tell the difference between physical and emotional pain, it is just pain. Our logical mind however can take a step back and ask,
"Is anything broken? Am I bleeding? Am I in danger because of this collection of sounds that came out of that person's mouth? - No? Then, I am okay."
But instead, we are teaching our children to be hypersensitive to the words they hear and be victimized by anything that doesn't align with their view of the world. We are telling them that if they hear a word that they don't like, even if it isn't said to them, even if it isn't intended to be hurtful, they are a victim. We are telling them that how others define them is important, and if how they are defined by others is not precisely how they see themselves, the others are victimizing them. We are telling them that the personal pronoun they get called by near strangers matter. And that if someone uses a term that has been deemed derogatory, it is the worst crime in the world and they must be punished.
Do you not see the problem?
This isn't making the world more inclusive, it is making the world more divided by creating an endless array of impossible to track terminology that is used to define ourselves in ways that no stranger could even guess at, yet with the expectation that the entire world has to adhere to the rules of "personal identification". It is giving so many micro-rules that can never be learned, so there is always an infraction, always something to pick on and use as proof of victimization.
This in itself is making victims, by creating an impossible to follow ruleset. There is no right, only a spectrum of wrong.
No one seems to be saying that you can be whoever you want to be, call yourself whatever you want to call yourself, ask your friends and family to do the same - but it doesn't matter what others think of you. It doesn't matter what skin color you have and fighting the people who care about skin color is validating them, making them relevant. It doesn't matter how you sexually orientate, that is between you and your partners. It doesn't matter if a stranger doesn't respect your decisions, because your decisions are your own.
And worst of all, what people are doing is that they are saying that they want to be treated as a unique individual, but what they are actually doing is tying their identity to other people's opinions and the words they use. They do not believe in themselves, because they "do not exist" unless the entire world acknowledges them in all their unique granularity.
It is insanity.
Parents think they are protecting their children by demanding their kids be treated in a certain way, shielding their eyes and ears from certain sights, certain sounds and like my parents, ignoring the facts of life. There is a reality and there will always be people who will take advantage of weakness. We all have weaknesses and when pressure is applied, they can be used to control us.
When we can't even hear certain words without getting upset, the barrier to control us is very, very low indeed.
If a person intentionally tries to hurt someone for no good reason, that makes them a dick. But if a person is hurt by collections of sounds uttered out of a dick's mouth, that makes them a victim. There is nothing brave in being a victim, the bravery is in becoming the survivor. It is not something that happens to us - it is something we make happen. And when it comes to surviving, getting over the hurdle of some words we don't like, is about the lowest bar to bravery there is.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
