Words

Update: I'm down to 305 podcasts and up to 5114 songs on my Ipod. OK, no more about my new toy. I know, I know. It's getting old. On to the topic of the day.

Since I have been listening to...wait, I said no more. OK.

In the recent days, I have been taking in information that originated from various sources, a lot of it being historical and/or commentating in nature. One being interviews from the 2008 conference of the ACLU. Now, I am not a member of the ACLU, but it was during this podc...interview that the topic of this post came to mind. Words. More importantly the words that we use that indicate, include, exclude, offend, and even inflame.

For example; if one were in favor of abortion rights one could be said to be either 'pro-life' or 'anti-abortion'. On the surface these two may appear to mean the same thing but they also convey a message of how the speaker perceives someone who holds these beliefs.

We use words like this all the time, often without thought. Conservative, liberal, progressive, enlightened, traditional, and so forth and so on. These normally appear to be positive words but when I say that I am 'enlightened' the sub-message that I am sending is that those who do not agree with me are 'unenlightened'. this was driven home to me after listening to an interview of Antonin Scalia, one of the nine Supreme Court justices, by the TV show 60 minutes. The following comes from the 60 Minutes website:

Scalia has no patience with so-called activist judges, who create rights not in the Constitution - like a right to abortion - by interpreting the Constitution as a "living document" that adapts to changing values.

Asked what's wrong with the living Constitution, Scalia tells Stahl, "What's wrong with it is, it's wonderful imagery and it puts me on the defensive as defending presumably a dead Constitution."

"It is an enduring Constitution that I want to defend," he says.

(italics are mine)

I have noticed that we do this sort of thing all the time. If I am say I'm 'progressive', those who disagree with me are not.

We include certain people with these words (those who agree with us) and exclude others (those who do not agree with us.

Two other terms come to mind and I'm sure they will elicit a bit of controversy. One is the term 'person of color'. This term really irritates me. As I understand it, a 'person of color' is anyone who is not Caucasian. I have heard people who are biracial say "my mother (or father) was an African-American and my father (or mother) was white. I guess what irritates me about this term is it's exclusionary form. The only people who are not 'persons of color' are white, and therefore we have no color. We are clear, without color, all the same, bland. These are the things that come to mind when I hear that term. Being excluded. I don't like it. No one likes to be excluded. We're not supposed to say that African Americans are black anymore and yet I am still called 'white'. I don't mind being called white. It's just a word and let's face it, I'm white. Actually, my belly is white, my arms are bronzed, one more so than the other, and my legs are sort of a East Coast Sand. Anyway, back to my comment. If a black man is an African American, then why isn't a white man a European American, and why aren't both of them just Americans? Why do we automatically make the color distinction as though it's necessary to point this out? I read back over this and I think, "Man, this guy sure is a racist." I would not consider myself a racist at all normally, but along those same lines, I think that we are all racists to a certain degree. When we see another person, especially for the first time, we have certain thoughts that fleet through our mind that are solely based on the skin color or cultural background of the other person. They may be extremely minor in their social impact, but we all do it. If you say you don't, well then you don't. But you lie. It's our nature to notice differences between ourselves and skin color is an obvious, immediately noticed difference. Should we then treat that individual differently due to their skin color. No! Absolutely not. We all know that. The movie "Crash" was an excellent movie that addressed the issue of race as to how it affects us when we interact with each other on a daily base. Very good movie. If you haven't seen it, go get it.

All that to say, I am white and proud of the heritage that made me what I am, just as the black man should be proud of the heritage that made him what he is. But I am also a person of color. I am not clear, blank, or bland. Well, sometimes my wife says I'm bland.

The other term that bugs me is 'homophobic'. My daughter and I had a discussion about this. She said that this word is actually in one of her college text books.

"It's a made-up word", I said.

"It's in the dictionary", she said.

"Well, if you really want to be technical, all the words in the dictionary are made up words. Let's break it down" , I said. "Phobia means irrational fear and Homo means man."

"Actually", she said "Homo means same."

"No, it really does mean man. Homo Sapien. Homo Erectus. Homo Genus. Anyway, if I use the word according to it's breakdown homophobic would mean an irrational fear of man."

"But that's not how it's used", she said.

"I know."

"So you just object to the fact that the word is used differently."

"That and the fact that it's not a real word."

"What makes it a real word?"

"Using it correctly."

"But they are using it correctly. That's the definition they assigned it."

"But it's the wrong definition."

"What kind of shake do you want?"

"Peach."

"I'll take a Cookie dough hurricane."

"Okay."

"That'll be $7.00", the voice said.

"Who are you?"

"The girl taking your order."

"But you're not in my blog."

"Guess I am now. You just wrote me in. Do you want the shakes?"

"Yes."

Anyway, I had a ball game to go to before I finished this blog, then I came home, had dinner, watched a movie and now I'm ready for bed. So I guess I'm done with this blog.

This white caucasian, conservative liberal, enlightened traditionalist, originalist person of color is off to bed. Maybe in the morning I'll think of another word to discuss with my philosopher friends at work.