5 - Putting Down: “[They] Aren’t People – They’re Animals”

Summary

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.” Words do, however, sometimes hurt. Speech that promotes condoning or actually practicing physical violence is not just unpleasant but dangerous. An orchestrated war of words preceded the Rwandan genocidal slaughter. Hutu political leaders actively promoted using forms meaning ‘snake’ and ‘cockroach’ in talking of Tutsi neighbors, which made slaughtering those neighbors more readily acceptable to ordinary Hutu. The N-word in contemporary America is often used in diverse objectionable and sometimes dangerous ways. At the same time, there are affiliative uses within some black communities. And mentioning the word in order to criticize racist linguistic practices should be supported, not punished as continues to happen. Native Americans continue to protest being turned into mascots for sports teams; they resist suggestions that team names ‘honor' them. Semantic derogation of women continues, but some have tried to embrace derisive terms like slut, efforts that are unwelcome to some self-identified feminists. Even what many have heralded as successful reclamation of the term queer for non-heterosexuals, purging it of its negative flavor, does not work for all. Words harm by making public and more ‘acceptable’ the social hostility and potential violence of those using (not ‘mentioning’) them.