Words and the violence we do to others...

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The other day I was waiting for my bus and overheard a couple talking.  I wasn't really paying attention to what they were talking about until I heard one of them use an all too familiar word: crackhead.

My dear wife has often told me that when she was growing up there were certain words that she was not allowed to use: stupid, idiot, etc.  In contrast to her experience, I had no qualms with using these words.  Especially with my friends in high school, we would call each other these and other much worse terms.  It often seemed as mild derision was a sign of friendship.  For my wife, these words were not acceptable.

I think that I've been particularly sensitive to the term 'crackhead' since I began working with street youth several years ago.  I miss working with those kids - they were good kids.  Yeah, many swore to no end; most were unkept to varying degrees; some were confrontational; some were unpredictable; many had problems with drugs or alcohol; there was mental illness; so many had deep wounds that came out in unexpected ways and at unexpected times... so many of them were so very broken.  They were drug addicts - they were street kids.  But they were not crackheads... they were beautiful human beings in desperate need of love and healing.  I hate the term crackhead.  I hate it because it steals all the humanity of these people in two simple syllables.  I hate it for the scorn, the judgment, the condemnation that it carries.  With one word all their humanity is put aside and forgotten; with one word these people are made to be a caricature of themselves.  One aspect of their life is made to replace all the rest.  Multifaceted human beings are suddenly reduced to one-dimensional shadows of their former selves.  I hate the word.

I still use the words 'stupid' and 'idiot'.  I try not to when I'm around my wife - or her sisters and their kids.  I still use them when talking with some of my close friends.  Though I still use these words, I try to be conscious of how they are received.  I mean no offence when I use them.

The words we use can do violence to others.  They can make others feel worthless.  They can cause pain.  We use them to justify they ways that we react to, and treat, others.

I think the words that we choose to describe others reveals more about us than it does about them.  That's a thought worth taking seriously.  Why do we feel the need to attempt to dehumanize others?  What does that say about us?

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