Sensitivity of Words (explicit)

With all the talks going on in Hip Hop and beyond about the use of derogatory language, I've had some thoughts of my own on the subject.


One thing that came to mind was a conversation I had a few years ago with a friend of mine who is Haitian by ethnicity and French by Nationality. He said when someone has cursed at him in English such as "Fuck You", it had no meaning to him, leaving him no feeling about it, no reaction to it. That is because his first language is French. English was learned while living here in the States. He was involved in a huge music controversy years ago and many had a lot of derogatory and demeaning words for him in the English language.

It got me to thinking where we as human beings are trained early on to respond to certain words negatively or positively. My father liked to call me stupid quite frequently.I later learned that supposedly he was hoping it wohttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=34862369#uld make me try harder. Ehh, I just felt stupid or at least doubted myself more. Now I don't know anyone that would dare say that to me now nor would I feel anything because I know where the source of pain originated and know my own truth and intelligence. Some are not so fortunate to have that insight. Some have a reaction to every word you speak. Think about the pain they must have suffered at the voice of someone else's words.

Now have you ever had some one yell at you in an unfamiliar language? You may have reacted to the energy projected, but you most likely didn't have a reaction to the actual words because they were foreign to you. They remained meaningless.

I remembered being called a Bitch by someone that professed their love to me. I didn't have feeling about the word itself because I didn't grow up in an environment where it was ever used. I knew as a child it meant female dog and later to mean when someone threatened by a strong woman (like Barbara Streisand had been called a life time ago) would use the word. I grew to learn it was used to call out another man to mean wimpy, I suppose. But so does Pussy if it directed at a man, lol only the most powerful thing on earth to mean wimpy. That's a laugh. Make up your mind will you.

Now, Midget is a derogatory term in my family between my daughter and myself because the people who are referred to by themselves as "Little People" have said they don't like the term and feel it's demeaning. I will respect that and teach that to my child and the history behind it. So she has the information and lo and behold, she has been called this several times due to the fact, she is not only one to two years younger than her classmates in the same grade, she is also the shortest in her class year after year. She even heard a father of one of her friends refer to her as a Midget. That word has affected my daugther but with age and knowledge of self, she has removed the feeling and embraced her stature.

The rampant use of Bitch, Ho, N word, and so forth in music are not even being used as shock value in my opinion. Yes they are used nowadays by hungry artists (maybe starving) to insure the record deals because one is caught in the Instant Gratification of success world we currently live in. No one wants to live like the artist Jewel did with her mother living in a car and playing coffee houses for pocket change until......... No we are the American Idols, America's Next Top Model, the highest rated You Tube video. We are fast food drive thru at it's finest delivering to the airwaves stir and mix Rappers who can barely have a conversation let alone actually engage us with thought-provoking stories and self-analyzing messages. We have our Pop idols who all started with Disney (conspiracy here?) that don't actually sing live, just have their souls removed and a computer chip injected to lip sync off beat to another boy gets girl, boy loses girl and I'll be on Disney's latest preteen soap opera next week.

I love a good bump and grind, don't get me wrong. I have no motivation without music. I would even say my body is my instrument being a dancer and singer. But I am not one dimensional. I have many facets and enjoy many genres of music and I thank the Artists who have been bold, brave and unyielding to share their truth. I thank the producers who can make me pop my body all night long if I want to.

But in the end, for me respect is greater than fame. The journey is the truth, not the destination. We are sped up to the point that we are not in the driver's seat anymore. We are so scared to not be up to speed that we decided someone should be left up the driving. But this not true for many who live in other parts of the world. People do exist by slowing down, observing, and listening. There is a purpose in each one of us. We cannot be moved if we know who we are. Each of us is worth that time to take to heal and build, to see and experience, to yield in order to perserve integrity, and to breathe our truth for longetivity.

Call me whatcha like but I'm doing ME.
My hope is that you will know your own TRUTH and DO YOU because that is where you will find freedom.