Words can only hurt us if we let them

It's been years now since that summer I worked with high school students in eastern North Carolina in what was then known - and still is - as Upward Bound, a federally funded enrichment program for low-income or first-generation college hopefuls. For this summer program, the 25 students lived in the campus dorms for six weeks and took classes with college instructors. I was their English teacher.

My class was predominantly African-American, with a couple of Lumbees and a couple of Caucasians. One day after class a group of girls was hanging out at my desk, when one of them said, "Ms. Presnell, you look clean today."

"Well, thanks," I said. "I always try to look clean."

This was shortly after I had discovered they had no idea who James Taylor was, and I was feeling like I was in another generation—as well as another culture—for the first time in my still-young life.

"Not that kind of clean," another girl said. "She means you look 'clean.' You look good. Everything's matching. You're dressed up. You look clean."

Oh, I got it! It was a compliment. I looked good. For a very brief moment, I felt like we'd intersected a great divide. I felt accepted. I knew the language.

I've been reminded of that day lately for obvious political reasons. Something tells me Joe Biden wasn't intending to close a generational or cultural gap when he called Barack Obama "clean." But neither was he intending insult.

"You don't have to explain anything to me," Obama said when Biden called him to explain. "I know exactly what you meant."

Obama is also taking hits from the African-American camp, where some are claiming he "isn't black enough" to represent the African-American population. As the son of a white woman and a Kenyan man, his African-American roots apparently aren't rooted enough.

Emily Dickinson, the 19th century recluse poet, wrote, "A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day."

Words can have tremendous power. Whoever made up the little rhyme, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me," had never heard of political incorrectness or lived in the very strange climate of 21st century America.

A few weeks ago, a new graduate of Garinger High School in Charlotte found himself in hot political stew after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish.

The boy caught in the middle was Jose Velasquez, an immigrant from El Salvador who in six years became a stellar student at the school. It was at the request of graduation officials - who thought it a way to celebrate Velasquez's achievement - that he recited the pledge first in English and then in Spanish. Not unexpectedly, a lot of people with severe Mexiphobia cried "foul!"

There is no question to me that words have great power - examples include Virginia Sen. George Allen's now famous "macaca" comment; Michael Richards' n-word shouted repeatedly at his audience; any time words are used as swords, or when words like "liberal" or "Christian" or "Muslim" or "alien" are spit out as though they are poison.

There is a massive gray area between black and white. I still miss the rousing verses of "Dixie" that we used to sing at high school football games. I miss "Little Black Sambo" and the Uncle Remus stories. They were an important part of my childhood, and I still get warm, fuzzy feelings when I hear them.

But everybody doesn't. The hackles on my backside rise when I hear somebody say, "I seen" or "he done," but that doesn't stop it from happening. And though it's hard, I try not to pass judgment on those who use the language so sloppily.

"It (the language) becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish," wrote George Orwell in 1946, "but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."

This is a country full of foolish thoughts and foolish words, words spoken without compassion or reason. Not all are offensive. Many are intended to do harm, but many are not. Stick a microphone up to any of our mouths, and we'd be caught saying things we wish we hadn't said. Sometimes the mouth is a very stupid thing.

What seems to matter most right now is how we hear those words. And maybe we need to be more like ducks, letting them wash right on off. They don't hurt unless we let them. If we begin to let them, they can burrow in like poison, slowly eating away at any possibility of the reconciliation and peace that might exist within us.

First published in
The Dispatch (Lexington, NC).
Distributed nationally by the
New York Times News Service.