A Single Word

“What’s in a name?”

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I had to memorize that passage from Romeo and Juliet for Freshman English in high school.  I’m guessing I’m not the only one.  And I understand the sentiment the great playwright is trying to make; that labels don’t change who we are, but I’ve got to say Shakespeare kind of got it wrong.  A label can stick to a person for their entire life whether it’s true or not!  The words we use CAN make a difference.  Sometimes a huge one.  They can build us up and tear us down.  They can create division between friends, between lovers, between entire segments of society.  A speech can inspire people to march for civil rights or incite others to riot against their nation.  Words can unite or turn people against one another.  Listen to these quotes and guess who they might be referring to.  “They’re stealing our jobs!”  “They’re stealing our women!”  “They’ll change our culture!”  “Why don’t they just go home?”  Today, you might think these quotes are about Mexican immigrants or Muslim or even Jewish people with antisemitism on the rise once again.  But these are the words said about the Japanese when they first started to immigrate to America.  Ironically, it’s also the same words used about the Chinese when THEY first came to America.  And believe it or not, it’s the SAME WORDS used to talk about the Italians, the Irish, the Germans, the Russians, and the Polish when THEY first started coming to America.  And in each of those instances the public was turned against those groups and some of the negative stereotypes about each one still sticks with us today.  Here are some of the headlines used when Japanese immigration was at its peak in the early 20^th century.

• Japanese a Menace to American Women
• Japanese Throttle Progress in the Rich Fruit Section – Actually they didn’t use the term “Japanese.”  You can guess what word they used instead.
• Brown Asiatics Steal Brains of Whites – That’s one of my favorites.

It’s ridiculous, but people believed it!  And it created negative images of these new immigrants to our shores.  Again, images that haunt us even now.

Words can hurt.

And words have power. With a single word, you can alienate someone, make them feel as if they don’t belong, or even reinforce age-old ideas about racial superiority based on nothing more than skin color. Words like “Oriental” and “Negro” while at one time common ways to describe people have become outdated and in their outdated-ness sometimes have negative connotations.  When I hear the word “Oriental,” I don’t think of myself.  I think of some caricature of a dude with slanted eyes, a triangular hat, wearing some gold-laced print shirt that’s too big with matching pants.  So admittedly I’m offended when other people refer to me as “Oriental” because it reinforces this old stereotype and belittles me and people like me.  Is it really that hard to honor how other people feel?  Is it that big of a deal to use a different word than the one you’re used to in describing someone?  Words have power and our passage today reinforces that idea.  James, the brother of Jesus, was trying to warn the church not to take what we say casually.  That we can cause far more damage than we realize when we aren’t careful with our words.  This is how he put it. 

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. ² We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

³ When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. ⁴ Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. ⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

⁷ All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

⁹ With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹ Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. – James 3:1-12

Our praise is meaningless if we can’t control our tongues.

We can’t lift up praise to God and with the same mouth belittle others.  Not if we want our praise to mean something. A salt spring cannot produce fresh water.  The tongue might seem to be a little thing, but by itself it can be devastating.  And it doesn’t even have to be intentional.  Sometimes people can say things that seem innocuous but actually perpetuate systems of racial inequality.  Being born Asian, I’ve had more than one person come up to me and say, “You speak really good English.”  To this day, I don’t know how to respond to that.  First of all, they should have said I speak English well, let’s be grammatically correct.  But more importantly, they weren’t complimenting my use of grammar or my sentence structure.  They were implying, “You speak really good English…for an Oriental.”  People don’t realize how insulting that is or how it points out that somehow you aren’t normal, that being Asian somehow means not being a “real American.” 

It’s called racial microaggression.

And it’s defined as “the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned…people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated.”[1]  Phrases like “What are you?” or “Where do you come from?” imply that you don’t belong.  What’s worse is when you answer honestly and the person persists, “No, where do you REALLY come from?  Where were you born?”  It’s just a constant reminder that you aren’t one of us.  These microaggressions don’t even have to be verbal.  They can be non-verbal like when someone looks at you cross ways or clutches their purse more tightly as they walk by.  They can be environmental like the flying of a Confederate flag or doing the tomahawk chop at a baseball game.  You might think, “well those things are trivial.  Stop being so sensitive.”  And I’ve actually heard those types of responses, but microaggression is anything but trivial and people who don’t pay attention to it are being insensitive.  In his research on racial microaggression, Dr. Sue, a leading expert on the topic, found that these tiny insults affect our mental health, create a hostile climate, perpetuate stereotypes, devalue people of color, and create inequities in education, employment, and health care.[2]  And that’s only partially how they affect us and the world around us. We need to be alert to our own microaggressions and our own unintended biases.  We all have them.  We need to be open to hearing about them and doing something to correct it when we find out.  We have to stop assuming the world around us is just “too sensitive” or “too PC” and instead do something about it.

What are you willing to do?

Change is tough.  There’s no doubt about that.  And people are more resistant to change than you might imagine.  We like to believe we’re capable of it, but many people struggle with it.  The same reason we have problems changing church culture is the same reason we are having problems changing systems of racial injustice.  We don’t like to change.  If church, if society, if LIFE is working for YOU, why bother?  It takes brave people who not only have the courage to face their own shortcomings, but to work to do something about it.  Who have to be willing to overturn the apple cart and sacrifice some of the privilege they have to make the whole world better.  Dr. Sue wrote that it’s really hard to get people to correct microaggressions (racial or otherwise) because they are often unconscious of it.  They don’t even think about it because it’s not overtly racist (or sexist or gender-centric), and often they believe they are good, moral people – which in general they probably are. When people point out these microaggressions, most of us react defensively because it creates a tension between this image we have of ourselves as a “good” person and one where we, even unintentionally, are contributing to oppressive systems. 

But God gave you two ears and one tongue for a reason.

As the philosopher Epictetus said, it’s so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.  And I can’t think of a more important time to remember those words.  Whether its race, gender, gender identity, or sexual identity, we need to remember words matter.  Words can have great power and as Spider-Man taught us, with great power comes great responsibility.  And a word’s meaning changes over time.  What might not have been offensive ten, twenty, fifty years ago, might be especially offensive now.  In our day and age, we need to be cognizant of how we use them.  We need to do some mirror-gazing and be willing to accept we still have work to do on ourselves.  We’re going to make mistakes. But there’s grace and forgiveness for all.  I’m still getting used to how best to use pronouns and hope someone comes up with a better system and quick!  No one expects us to be perfect, but we should always be working toward perfection.  It doesn’t matter how old you are, we all have room to grow.  But to me, that’s what makes life exciting!  There’s always something new to learn, always more that we can do, and always a way to make the world a better place.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] I did leave out the word “white” because I don’t think you have to be white to level a racial microaggression.  But the article is very helpful and well-written. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201010/racial-microaggressions-in-everyday-life

[2] Ibid.