04 September, 2017

Grace Pettis - Award Winning Texas Songwriter | Blog

Grace Pettis - Award Winning Texas Songwriter | Blog:





And of all the insults exchanged, nothing was even in the same universe of curses as THE word that the man used. It was beyond a “bad word” or an insult. As somebody who happens to love words, who believes that for the most parts words themselves are not good or evil but rather that they are tools which should be wielded with respect to context and intent, I found myself overcome by how evil that word was in that moment. It was dehumanizing. When this man used it, he was attempting to negate everything about this woman’s humanity. There is no word equivalent that she could have used in response. She was tough- she didn’t back down from his aggression and matched him verbally, blow for blow. But there is no word equivalent for a black woman to use in defense against a white man that can dehumanize in quite the same way. We don’t actually have a word like that in the English language. Which seemed like a pity in the moment, because “asshole” and “bigot” didn’t seem to cut it.


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