The Language of Politics

Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: Opinion/Editorial

"I don't believe a word used by one community to keep another community subservient can ever be truly reclaimed." - Brittany Whitlow

"The words, once heavy with hate, are subsumed within our identity. It becomes another descriptive word, made negative only if we accept it as such." - Lanz Christian Ba�es

What is a Reclaimed Word?

A word previously used to demean an individual or entire community based on its difference that is now controversially used by the community to describe itself. Examples include faggot, nigger, chink or dyke.


Brittany Whitlow

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.


Anyone who has ever been gossiped about, stereotyped or called a name can tell you that phrase is a load of crap. Words hurt. They continue to hurt long after physical wounds have healed. It is for this reason that more and more schools, workplaces and countries are making rules against using hate speech and cracking down on those who do.


Hate speech is any type of speech used to demean or intimidate someone based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender, age, disability, physical appearance, political views, etc. Hate speech can affect people’s performance in school, cause them to quit their job, make them feel isolated and depressed and even drive them to commit suicide.


While measures are being taken to prevent the use of hate speech, it is quite idealistic to believe that we will ever be living in a society completely free of it. So, instead of fighting against hate speech, many members of oppressed communities have instead embraced hate speech, using it to refer to themselves with pride in order to strip the words of power.


The “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” philosophy doesn’t work here. In fact, it gives the words more power because it gives oppressors the authority to use those words. To quote Ms. Norbury’s speech to the 11th grade girls in the movie “Mean Girls,” “You have to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores.”


I understand the purpose behind trying to reclaim words. If I refer to myself as a slur, it won’t hurt when someone else calls me that. Most people who reclaim words, however, do it with the idea that only they are allowed to use them. People outside the community who use words the community has deemed theirs alone are seen as bigots.


No one pays attention when black rappers call each other niggers in their songs, but when white “Seinfeld” actor Michael Richards calls someone in the audience of his stand-up show a nigger, it causes national outrage. Gay men can call each other faggots, but heterosexual “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Isaiah Washington’s referral to a fellow cast member as a faggot got him sent to counseling. While members of Webster’s LGBTQ Alliance may refer to themselves as queer, it is completely inappropriate for The Journal to use the word in a headline.


Because of this inevitable double standard, people will always be able to use words to hurt other people, regardless of whether the words have been reclaimed by the community. The audience member in Michael Richards’ stand-up show retaliated by calling Richards “cracker-ass.” Black people can call each other niggers a thousand times, but it won’t make it any less painful when a white person does the same.


I don’t believe a word used by one community to keep another community subservient can ever be truly reclaimed. Accepting hate speech is accepting victim status and paving the way for hate crimes. If Emmett Till had called himself a nigger, would it have stopped him from being shot, beaten and thrown into a river with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire? If Matthew Shepard had called himself a faggot, would it have stopped him from being robbed, beaten, tied to a fence and left to die?


I am black, but I am not a nigger. I am gay, but I am not a dyke. I am proud of who I am, but I will not internalize racism and homophobia for the sake of trying to prove a point.


Lanz Christian Bañes

I refuse to allow words of hate to take over our language and culture so completely that they become impossible to say without triggering outrage.


No one — not you, not some prick who calls me Chinaman or some other small-minded person — can ever make me feel like less of a person because of the names they might call me. This is because I refuse to give power to the words they use.


I have reclaimed them — not just for me, but for all of us.


The logic behind the reclamation of words is simple.


People who hate those different from them create words or change the meaning of existing words to denigrate a person based on his or her difference.


Those on the receiving end realized these differences make up too much of who they are. For us to be hurt by these words — however they are spoken — becomes a form of self-loathing, a hatred for that which makes us unique.


And so we strip those words of their power.


In doing so, we take from them some of the weapons that are used to subjugate minorities and keep them in check — keep us from realizing ourselves and our true potential.


The words, once heavy with hate, are subsumed within our identity. It becomes another descriptive word, made negative only if we accept it as such.


In short, to be queer is simply to be queer.


The list of reclaimed and nearly-reclaimed words runs the gamut, from the sexual — gay, fag, lezzie — to the gender-based, as recently demonstrated by “The Vagina Monologues” — cunt, pussy, even cock — and, of course, the racial — nigger, chink and flip, a formerly derogatory term to describe Filipinos like myself.


My siblings and I grew up freely using the word to describe our family, our people and our culture, completely ignorant of any negativity the word once carried. Once I grew older and realized what it was, I was greatly amused by the lack of creativity from our American oppressors and continued to use the word, now with greater frequency.


It was no longer taboo, no longer painful to hear it said.


In fact — and here’s the important part — it was never taboo, never painful for me because the word has been so successfully reclaimed by my community that it meant absolutely nothing. It is simply another synonym for who I am. And, more significantly, it will simply be another synonym for who my children will be.


Of course, there are those who would challenge me, who say words imbued with such hate, such ferocity, can never be reclaimed. They will always be tainted once the majority takes them for its use, and even if the sting can be taken out, only the community should be able to use them to describe itself.


I disagree, obviously.


Words and their meaning can be changed because language changes. One need only look at the derivation of some of these hate words to see the simple truth in that — faggot (a bundle of sticks), nigger (from the Spanish negro, meaning black) or douche (from the French word, meaning shower).


Once the word has been reclaimed, what’s the point of keeping it within the community against which it was used? In doing so, the word still keeps its power, still keeps its bloodletting thorns that destroy us and keep us down.


So take back the word. Don’t let hatred affect you. Remember, it is people who change words. Words also can change people — before, it was for the worse; today, it might be for the better.


If you’re scared of the word “queer,” I am sorry for you. It means the hurt in you is still too strong, too fresh for you to reclaim the word. But one day, you will.


Until then, this palaverous reporter will go on calling himself a flip and a queer and will continue using “queer” in headlines.


And for my loyal reader Arthur Stewart, who has written a previous commentary against me, I expect another letter posthaste.