So I'm posting from my phone right now, hoping any horrible spelling errors are caught by the iPhone. I had a few thoughts as class wrapped up today. As a Comm student, I often find myself wanting to say much more than time allows for in class. This is especially true in a class where I am technically not a student. So, for those of you who are left with a comment sitting on the tip of your tongue as class ends, a blog post might be a great way to formulate and remember that idea.
What is sticking with me is something about communication being constitutive. I grew up as the generation just before most of you, so phrases like "that's retarded" or "that's gay" were and still are common place. I can't make excuses for the thousands of times I have uttered these words, including to some of my friends who are gay, or have a learning disability. But as I struggle against the past 15 + years of this language being common place for me, what helps me to eradicate such language is knowing that by allowing those phrases to cross my lips (or the lips of friends and family) I am continuing to uphold the idea that being gay or differently abled is somehow stupid or makes a person less of a citizen of our global community. I hope that soon, I won't even have to think about this, and my brain will have learned a different way to communicate my displeasure with a situation. However, if you hear me or anyone else for that matter, please gently remind us that our words are not only constructing violence, but they are actually violent.
Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.
TONI MORRISON, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 1993
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