Used properly profanity can be an excellent attention getter. Commanding an audience’s attention is job one whether one is speaking publicly, writing creatively, or telling a joke. I’m attempting to use it here in order to make a point. As a former United States Marine I would never tell someone that swearing, cussing, or ribald humor should be checked in any way. Y’all know as well as I do though that you wouldn’t use that kind of language in front of your mother’s sewing circle unless they’d consider themselves a bunch of tough old broads in the first place. Oops I did it again...
I was there at the beginning of last week’s pie fight. I stayed out of it mostly, because I felt I’d already said my piece. From my perspective it looked like y’all had finally come around and the issue was settled, but then a diary hit the reclist purporting it was A-OK to demonize DeSantis. I couldn’t disagree more.
I now regret not sitting down and comprehensively gathering my thoughts on the subject. I should have done so in the heat of the argument and what I posted yesterday was too little too late it would seem. Let me be clear, I have no power to tell you what you can and can’t say here. That’s far beyond my paygrade. This whole thing began because the algorithm flagged the m-word. I support that administrative decision. I wish it were expanded to cover demonizing language also. I thought my diary on the topic yesterday was just plain old good advice.
Well, hell, some of y’all didn’t take it as such... I was called a coward and an appeaser, and I’ll be quite honest, that pisses me the fuck off. Being a student of this thing we call language I’ve got to assume that was the intended purpose. It certainly elicited a most visceral reaction in me… My initial impulse was to retaliate.
This is exactly why we need to think before we say things. The pinhead noob who said that crap doesn’t know jack shit about me. My opinion about “otherizing” language comes not from fear; but from an intellectual, rational, and logical assessment of history as I’ve observed it. The whole fucking point of sharing our ideas and discussing these issues is so we can hopefully arrive at some sort of consensus.
Some of you seem to think that the divide currently plaguing the American population is an irredeemable chasm. I respectfully disagree. Some of you think the only way to confront the situation is to attack and insult the opposition. As the above example demonstrates, that tactic leads to a defensive response which comes straight from the gut and doesn’t get anyone anywhere.
I’m not coming at this problem as a noob. I’ve been standing up to bigots for fifty fucking years now. My first experience was when a man came to our door to talk with my father about the danger regarding persons of color moving into our neighborhood. As I listened to this man’s spiel and watched my father’s reaction I stepped forward and said, “Daddy, he’s a bigot isn’t he...” The mutherfucker looked at my dad and asked him if this was what he was teaching his children. My dad said, “Yes,” and shut the door.
My father then turned to me and said, “You can’t be talking to grown ups like that.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “What if he’d have had a gun?” Well, I may have been a smart ass and precocious six year old, but I had no answer for that… You may want to try and call bullshit, but let me assure you that story is completely and utterly true. “All in the Family” had been on the air for two years at that point and like most Americans, my family watched that shit every week. I knew exactly what I was saying, the charged nature of the situation, and my risk assessment revolved around the ass beating I might get from my old man for saying it.
In case you haven’t yet ascertained my point, it’s that I have never hesitated to call out a racist when I’ve encountered one. The last occurance was at the end of football season down at the corner bar. If I were looking to give the bigots hell I know I could find them down there at happy hour each and every weekday afternoon. The n-word is used unhesitatingly when they think they’re among like minded individuals.
Open and unapologetic racism is alive and well in small town rural Wisconsin. If you think snarky insults will make any headway with those old fucks I’d love to see a demonstration. A stern admonition from a grizzled 6 foot plus former Marine may make them shut the fuck up and get me a thank you from the young lady behind the bar, but it hasn’t really changed any minds.
If we want to change minds, we have to engage those minds first and foremost. That’s literally impossible if we don’t approach the situation deliberately and carefully. Insulting MAGA adherents is a sure fire way to force them into a defensive mindset. Maybe I am a coward for not wanting to get into a barroom brawl or start a war with the MAGA kid down the road. Between the cancer and the arthritis and the hernia I’m not so sure how well I could hold my own. It’s probably best if I don’t try to find out.
But I’ve got to do something and I’ve got to say something when this shit gets up in my face. It’s just my nature. That’s how I choose to spend the power my white privilege affords me. None of it has anything to do with the dehumanization and demonizing I admonished yesterday. I thought I made myself clear about the specific forms of derogatory speech I felt were beneath us, ill-advised, counterproductive, and quite frankly totally fucking useless. I don’t have all the answers, and I certainly don’t think I’m better or smarter than anyone else. I just know what doesn’t work.
I’d rather try to correct the aberrant and abhorrent mindset. These are my neighbors. They are not my enemies. They are my fellow Americans and they have been led astray from the ideals that made this a strong and united nation. I do not hate them. I do not wish to fight them. I hope to guide them, as I hope to guide you, towards my point of view.
I know I’m never going to change the minds of the die-hards. My great hope is to sway the fence sitters. This site is chock full of thought leaders who have more brains and experience than I… Y’all need to listen to them. Not only because there’s an off chance that our words could be misconstrued or twisted to justify atrocities, but because there are people out there who have yet to make up their minds about what America is, what America means, and what America could be and can be if we confront the problems facing it logically and rationally.
Language can be used to bring people together and it can be use to push them apart. What is our ultimate political goal here? Are you here just to gain internet points? I’m not naive to the notion that’s the reason we’re all here after all, myself included. Like the rest of you I seek validation of my point of view. I’ll let you in on a little secret… I don’t get that dopamine rush from crap like that Boebert diary I posted last night. I know that’s the kind of shit y’all want, but it really does nothing for me.
That kind of junk gets your attention. It riles you up, gets your blood boiling. Y’all suck it down like crack. In the end though it does absolutely nothing to solve any of the problems we face as a nation and a species. Neither do insults and epithets regardless if they’re clever or not. Like I said though, I can’t tell you what to think, or do, or say… It’s a free country after all. Nope, the best I can do is offer advice based on my perspective and experiences. Your mileage, of course, may vary...