Word of Power Learned: Faggot

      I realize that the above reference might fall on deaf ears so before I get into this I have to explain myself. The reference is to the game Skyrim and this is the message that pops up when the character gains a new "Word of Power" from a dragon. Words of power are abilities that help the main character in combat, with effects such as freezing time or launching enemies away from them. In this context, however, I want to relate this phrase to an question that doesn't yet, and may not soon, have a clear answer. The question at hand being 'do words have power?' I think David Sedaris would probably respond in the affirmative in his work "I Like Guys" because of his experience with the word 'faggot.' At multiple points throughout the narrative Sedaris finds himself tickled by the words use, or, at least, that's what he knows you are supposed to do when that word is said. There is a scene in the narrative in which Sedaris finds himself at a Greek summer camp with counselors that throw the word around with a clear disregard for its meaning with phrases like "What are you, a bunch of goddamned faggots who can't make your beds?" Sedaris and another character, Jason both laugh and even start using the word together as part of their shenanigans "when the others weren't looking." They use the word in a purely mocking way but Sedaris acknowledges the fact that "We couldn't protest the word, as that would have meant acknowledging the truth." As if protesting the word bestows power on the word and that to throw the word around keeps it from meaning anything or gaining any personal value.
      This brings up an interesting point about the argument of words as powerful versus words as subjective. Today, there is a lot of talk about political correctness and I think the argument has started to lean toward the side of words as powerful. This movement, however, has met its fair share of resistance as there are, probably, an equal number of people who believe the old adage "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Could this be true? As I stated previously there is no clear answer to this question. In favor of the words as powerful argument, there are many contexts in which words have very explicit and direct power over a person. Most notably in the courtroom, where, when used by the appropriate person at the appropriate time, 'sentence' carries much more than a denotation. Now that word holds debt, future time, relationships, and lives in the balance. Is this the case for 'faggot' though? One cannot say, some might say that its real and it hurts, while others would say "my rights don't end where your feelings begin." As for David Sedaris, I think the argument is made very clearly that, to some, a word is much more than a word. A word is power, and if sociology is right that power is 'the ability to make binding decisions for yourself or others,' than we know that words carries much more than a meaning.

Blending In, Friend or Foe?

For the past eighteen years of my life I have noticed a common connection when it comes to kids and people in general, we all want to blend in. People tend to want to be the same as everyone else than to be ostracized for their differences. From personal experience, blending in has proven to be safer than to make a stance that you may not have intended to make in the first place. But I did not learn how to blend in on my own. Blending in has been practiced for so long, adults engrain social norms onto their kids, which leads to their kids blending in, and it’s all one big messy cycle. When it comes to blending in, some people can do it far better than others. Take David Sedaris for example, was a gay kid growing up in North Carolina where the holiest you could be, was at a football game. In the first chapter “Carolina” from Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris was taken out of class to go to speech therapy. It was not just speech therapy for mispronouncing your “r’s” or for a lisp, but boys who spoke with a lisp a tad too effeminate, or the pitch of their voices were a bit too high for the macho men of North Carolina. Speech therapy in general is great for kids who struggle with speaking in front of their class or other people in general, but therapy for those who don’t speak to one’s standards doesn’t seem to me to be okay at all. When is it okay to tell kids that the way they are isn’t okay? A quote that really stuck out to me from this passage is, “She was probably thinking along the lines of SPEECH THERAPY LAB, though a more appropriate marker would have read FUTURE HOMOSEXUALS OF AMERICA” (Sedaris). These kids were being told they were different from a very young age. It wasn’t even that their differences were acknowledged, it was that the school was telling them they needed to change. They were told they needed to be “normal.” If you ask me, being normal is totally overrated, and I believe everyone deserves to be whatever the hell they feel like being. Telling someone to change for the sake of normalcy is sickening, and we need to let those kids with “lisps” that they’re not less than just because of the way they act or talk. You. Do. You.