LOLA: I don’t want to “game over!!” I want to “keep being friends with this person!!” My face-to-face experiences of oppression have mostly been microaggressions from the well-intentioned—friends, relatives, people I work with. Like when I’m in an email thread planning a dinner party, and someone emails the group back with, “And Lola, if you have a boy, he can come, too!” Uh, no, I’m queer as hell? What boy are you referring to? When this happens, it feels like the person just blocked the dialogue between the two of us. But “calling out”—doing something like writing a reply-all to the whole group that says, “I have a girl? WTF????”—just seems like pushing that person further away when what they wanted in the first place was to include me. But if I don’t say anything, that block stays and our relationship can’t grow. I have to assume in these situations that she meant well and just didn’t take the extra consideration to say something more inclusive.
The idea of “calling in” means I can respond to her with how she can expand the scope of her consideration to include me. I try to focus on the fact that she’s not a homophobe, but she said something homophobic, and since she does not consider herself a homophobe, I would hope she’d want to realign that.
JAMIA: Thank you for sharing this. I have had something like that happen in a different context before. Several times at my partner’s jazz gigs, people assume that the black musicians they see there are my partner, and not my actual spouse. It’s not the same sort of oppression, but it really bothers me when people do that because they erase the reality of multicultural families. Your example is inspiring me to call people in about this in the future, because, I hate to admit, I sometimes just ignore it and say who my partner is because it stresses me out.
ESTELLE: One way of dealing with my own misspeaking is planning not to misspeak! One useful thing is to think about how I might hurt others with my speech BEFORE I can do it. What language is to be avoided? How can I research this so I am being as caring and thoughtful in my speech as possible? And what should I say instead?
LOLA: I definitely plan to not misspeak. There are some hurtful words that I’m aware of because I’ve personally experienced hurt by them, some where I’ve seen someone I love being hurt by them, and some I’m not aware of because I haven’t had or witnessed that experience. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a responsibility to do everything I can to seek it out!
For instance, I used to love saying “take a seat” when people were getting in my face until a friend reminded me that people in wheelchairs are already sitting. I was so embarrassed. I was not trying to be an asshole, but there I go, saying something that was, in retrospect, pretty hurtful. I did my best not to get defensive, and reminded myself that I run a hard line: Since I can’t know every term that might hurt someone, the least I can do is to not saying anything I DO know is hurtful and automatically assume that if something I said hurt them, they are right, apologize, and not say it again. Could the fun of saying “take a seat” ever be enough for me to justify the pain it could cause someone to hear it? Nope! Never. It’s a fucking phrase. I can find a new phrase. Words are infinite. And what the person suggested instead—“Take the night off!”—was way funnier, anyway.
How do I fix what I say to be less hurtful? When it comes to actually finding that new phrase or word, that depends on a few things. If I found out in an interpersonal interaction, I’ll ask the person I offended, “Is there a better word I can use?” and then thank them for letting me know. I don’t ask them, “But WHY is it hurtful?” or say, “But I didn’t mean it that way!” even if I want to explain and make sure they don’t think I’m a jerk. This is because it’s not about me!
If I’m trying to find out a better thing to say outside of a moment of actual conflict, I defer to the people who are part of the community that may be hurt by whatever I’m trying to avoid saying. For instance, I check myself to not say “crazy,” but had a hard time finding new words that weren’t hurtful. So I Googled–get ready—“what to say instead of crazy” and found some wonderful ideas.
JAMIA: Words matter. The old cliché that goes, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” always makes me angry. The shadows of history travel with words, and some of them have been associated with atrocities that tinges them with blood and suffering.
Toni Morrison is one of my favorite wordsmiths of all time. I watched a video last year where she spoke about how racism and oppression harm both the victims and the perpetrators. Condemning white supremacy, she said, “If you can only be tall because others are on their knees, then you have a serious problem.” I often think about her wisdom when I witness people who insist on using words that are harmful. I want to ask them why others need to be subjugated for them to feel strong. It’s amazing how many people throw inflammatory words around without thinking about the impact of their historic and present meaning.
ESTELLE: Community consensus on terminology can be in flux, so this is an ongoing task that is worth keeping tabs on.
JAMIA: It’s also interesting to me how space and the company you’re with plays into what terminology we should use and when it is appropriate and when it isn’t. For example, a white friend of mine once heard me talking to another black woman about my natural hair and being “happy to be nappy,” then later used that word about her own curly hair. It was really frustrating: I was reclaiming a word that was deemed derogatory for natural tightly-coiled African hair with another person of color, and since it is a word that has been used to demean black people in the past, it was gross to hear it from a white person with straight hair.