October 29, 2007

“The sticks and stones are on the way”

swimboy penned this flawless “Short Editorial answering to charges of oversensitivity, etc“:

Conventional Wisdom:

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

My response:

Those hurtful names are just to say
The sticks and stones are on the way.

That’s why we care about the name-calling. And because there can be no law against name-calling we work hard to activate the societal tool of shame against the name-callers. Certain derogatory terms that used to be commonplace are no longer used in polite society due to the shame attached to their use, not because their use is illegal. We’d like to retire derogatory terms for GLBT persons, send them to the same societal dustbin. But we will never be able to do that as long as they are in use by our allies.

So call me over-sensitive if you must, but don’t call me or my siblings those other names. Language gives form to thought and thought gives rise to action. So please, watch your language.