A famous adage is \u201csticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.\u201d Of course, we all know such a claim is utter and complete bullshit. Words can do profound psychological and physical harm to humans, contributing to real, biologically verifiable trauma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was reading a NYT article<\/a> the other day which focused on Professor Loretta J. Ross of Smith College. Described as a \u201cradical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades,\u201d Professor Ross is an outspoken opponent of cancel culture and reportedly said, \u201cEvery time somebody disagrees with me it\u2019s not \u2018verbal violence\u2019\u2026Overstatement of harm is not helpful when you\u2019re trying to create a culture of compassion.\u201d To be clear, Professor Ross does think that call-outs, or public demands for accountability, are valuable in certain circumstances (such as politics). And she does believe that language can cause \u201charm, slight or damage.\u201d Still, Professor Ross complicates the notion of language as violence, and she often pushes back against youth activists, who allegedly use toxic strategies and overstate the violence inherent in language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But who gets to quantify how \u201cviolent\u201d specific language is? Who decides when harm is \u201coverstated\u201d? In our reading for this week, we read many troubling anecdotes about language as violence, and we read about the discrepancy between how a white educator and Baldwin view the violence of language. In Nobody Knows My Name, <\/em>G. claims that, \u201c[white students] just\u2013\u2013call me names. I don\u2019t let it bother me\u201d (CE 190). But we know due to numerous studies that such an environment did <\/em>bother G., as verbal abuse<\/a> can submit the body to chronic stress and cause a number of long and short term ailments, going as far as causing \u201cmeaningful alterations in brain structure.\u201d Baldwin recognizes the danger that G. is in, noting that his family is risking \u201cG.\u2019s present well-being and his future psychological and mental health\u201d (195). The white principal doesn\u2019t see it this way, though. The principle claims that the racist incidents G. is subjected to are \u201cnothing at all\u2013\u2013\u2018It was a gesture more than anything else\u2019\u201d (194).\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n G. himself draws a line between verbal and physical abuse. He reportedly says, \u201cIt\u2019s hard enough…to keep quiet and keep walking when they call you nigger. But if anybody spits on me, I know <\/em>I\u2019ll have to fight\u201d (193). Of course, there is a difference between verbal and physical violence, as G. notes. But this difference has no bearing on the degree of harm caused by each. It is easy to condemn the language G. was subjected to as violence. It is easy to see how such an environment would cause profound trauma and chronic stress. But today, as young people are accused of being \u201csnowflakes,\u201d we face new challenges. As progressive activists like Professor Ross indict our conflation of language and violence, we have to draw the line somewhere. For example, Professor Ross does not believe misgendering a transgender student is grounds for a \u201ccall-out.\u201d But studies<\/a> have shown that misgendering causes real, physical harm. We must be wary of our language and the harm it can cause, while also recognizing that it is nearly impossible to know how specific language will affect a specific person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A famous adage is \u201csticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.\u201d Of course, we all know such a claim is utter and complete bullshit. Words can do profound psychological and physical harm to humans, contributing to real, biologically verifiable trauma. I was reading a NYT article the other day … Continue reading When is Language Violent?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3729,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}