Bad Words

There has been a lot of discussion in recent months once again about profanity in the media with an over arching theme of family values and morality. A lot of debate over what is good for our kids, they are the future blah, blah teach them well and let theme lead the way , etc. Good intentions galore, but when it comes to implementation, the moral majority is willing to go to any lengths to make a point, trample over any rights and even violate their own code of ethics in pursuit of ethics and morality.

I have taught my daughter that there is no such thing as bad or good words. Words, labels for things so that we no longer have to grunt, point or actually have the item in our hands, to make our wants/needs met, cannot possess qualities like good or bad. They can only label. Reactions to words can however have good or bad qualities. A person can react positively or negatively to a label and the person who uses the label should be prepared to deal with either. Example, when my daughter was 10 or 11, her best friend, a white girl from next door casually used the ‘N’ word and she didn’t know how to react. I told Adrienne that if she was going to be grown up enough to use a word like the N word that she had better be grown up when someone say, wants to kick her butt or treats her like a bad white act at Live at the Apollo. I know that this is confusing for White people; the N word is a ubiquitous in today’s hip hop, rap and R & B music, so if it’s ok in pop music, then why isn’t it ok in everyday language. Well it’s the same as telling fat jokes – if you are fat, it’s ok, if you’re not, it’s rude and insensitive. The N word is also steeped deeply and temporally in our racial conscience and it’s casual use has feeling of pouring salt on a wound for many older Black Americans. Still I understand and can relate to the confusion. Generation X and younger Blacks cannot possibly be expected to feel the same hurt and shame for this word, after all much of the civil rights struggle had been fought and won before they were born.

Still words are just words and maybe our energies should be spent on things of greater import, like poverty, health care or education, instead of having this never ending discourse about how individuals choose to express themselves.