Language Matters

Racist

Once, in our society, there was a range of ways to tell someone that they didn’t understand racial issues.  It would start with saying they were insensitive, then perhaps unknowingly prejudiced.  If that didn’t explain the problem, then defining their actions as openly prejudiced was the next step.  The last step reserved only for those most affirmably and knowingly against another race, was to call them a racist.

Racist was reserved for the Ku Klux Klan and the axe handle carrying Governor of Georgia, Lester Maddox.  Racist was the ultimate insult, not just of hate, but of poor judgment and ignorance.  I knew a lot of prejudiced people in my time, but I didn’t know a lot of racists.  I felt I could change prejudice; reach them intellectually and emotionally.  There was hope.  I didn’t want to know racists.  There was no hope for them.

Not any more.  A look at social media, particularly Facebook, sees the word racist used to describe almost all behavior that fails to recognize the reality of Black America.  Use the words “All Lives Matter” and you are a racist.  Worry about the damage done in riots, without worrying about the life of George Floyd, and you are a racist.  Try to draw some nuance from the polarized debate about America today, and you are a racist.

American Tale

The American story is about redemption, finding faith and knowledge and changing attitudes.  There seems to be no room in our polarized society for that:  once you are a “racist” you are branded beyond absolution.  There are lots of folks who overcame ignorance and prejudice, but it’s hard to find the story of a racist overcoming the hate.  Sure there are those guys who used to be Neo-Nazis or KKK members, who now have “seen the light”.   But they are few, and ultimately not trusted.

Our polarized language isn’t allowing for redemption. 

Another example is the slogan “Defund the Police”.   Even those who use it regularly, explain that it really doesn’t mean what it plainly says, take all the money away from the police department.  It is “shorthand” for repurposing police departments, taking the roles that don’t suit policing and putting them where they belong.  

Drug overdoses, mental health issues, traffic control all might be placed in some other category rather than “policing”.  Call 9-1-1 for a heart attack, and an ambulance arrives.  Call for a fire, and a fire truck comes.  9-1-1 for a break-in and the police show up.  Maybe for a mental health issue, the “Mental Health Service” arrives.  Need to direct traffic, and the “Traffic and Roads Service” takes charge:  no guns, no arrest warrants.

The role of policing will still exist, and it would be a highly defined organization that would serve.  So would the role now filled by SWAT, and by process servers.  It just wouldn’t all be placed under one organization.  Organizers should have painted “repurpose the police” or “redefine the police” or “reorganize the police” on the street.  But none of those terms cut through in our highly polarized language of today.

Divide or Conquer

Hillary Clinton fell into the “polarization game” with her “basket of deplorables”.  Joe Biden is a more nuanced politician.  He refuses to fall into the polarization, refuses to allow the “writing off” of large segments of America. Donald Trump is the opposite, the essential divider.  He is the “perfect” President for a nation hoping to be split.  

Again this morning he asked Americans not to believe their “lying eyes”.  He told us that seventy-five year-old Martin Gugino, pushed down and injured by police in Buffalo, New York, was not actually hurt.  No, he was an “ANITFA provocateur”.  The President states, publicly on Twitter, “…He fell harder than he was pushed. Was aiming a scanner”.  

Mr. Gugino had a police helmet, not a scanner, in his hands.  The video evidence is clear.  But in our era of polarization, some can ignore their own eyes, and see what the President wants them to see.  Here’s the video:  SEE for yourself.

Label or Educate

Calling everyone who doesn’t agree with you a racist won’t solve the problem.  Demanding that they go down on their knees and ask forgiveness for white privilege won’t work either.  Redemption is admitting sin, and attempting not to sin again.  We cannot bully everyone into the confessional of public opinion, and shame them into change.  But we can bully everyone into even harder positions and a more polarized society.  

We need to educate, to persuade, and to move people from prejudice to acceptance.  Perhaps an old man from Scranton, Pennsylvania, himself in need of redemption for fifty years of differing statements, is the perfect fit for the job.  Joe Biden understands the difference between prejudice and racism.  He’s fallen into the trap himself:  “You ain’t black if you vote for Trump”.  And he’s learning from his mistakes, just as we need to ask the nation to do.

We are not just choosing between Trumpism and Democrats.  It’s a choice between polarization and national union.  It’s all in the language.