04/02/2022
Lynn Murphy Mark
A friend recently sent me an article from the newspaper titled, “If you can’t say something nice…”. Having heard that saying before, I automatically finished it, “don’t say anything at all.”. I read the article with great interest – first to find out if I need to stop cursing, which is not the point of the article, much to my relief. Instead, the concept is called “Clean Speech”, a movement started in Colorado by Rabbi Raphael Leban.
Clean Speech is an invitation to look at the words I choose and the way I put them together. We are bombarded 24/7 by people spewing angry language with its accompanying demeanor. The most heinous recent example I can think of is the way some Republican Senators spoke to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in her nomination hearings. Nothing good came of it, except her ability to fend them off with grace and facts. She made them look like rabid, mad dogs as she carefully answered their tirade of inane questions. Her speech patterns were a great example of Clean Speech.
The article was written by Lynn Schmidt, a columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I just want to quote a little of what she wrote: “Clean Speech is chock full of lessons about judging people favorably, talking about the idea and not the people, and walking away from a conversation if it becomes negative. The movement also reminds participants that the Bible tells us to ‘Love one another’ and to think about the words you are about to say and ask yourself, would I want someone to say that about me? If the answer is no, then don’t say it.” This kind of thinking engenders a respectful attitude.
My immigration lawyer hero, Allegra Love, sends out a newsletter that is always of interest to me because she reports on the latest happenings on the border, and what they mean both to us as residents of the USA and to those who come to our border seeking admittance. In this issue she included a 27 minute podcast that I listened to this morning as the sky got lighter. It was an interview with Dr. Otto Santa Ana, a linguist who teaches at UCLA. The podcast is called
“On Challenging Racism, and Creating a New Narrative about Border and Immigrant Communities: A Podcast Interview with Linguist Otto Santa Ana”. I recommend it because its principles really apply to how we think and talk about “the other”.
Over the years he has carefully studied the language used to describe immigrants. He and his students would have to take mental health breaks as they read about people being described as “scum”, “murderers and rapists” and worse, which were terms used by the former president. But Trump is not alone in his use of pejorative, ugly words to describe people that come to our border.
According to Dr. Santa Ana, there is a barrage of words to characterize immigrants as animals, as disease carriers, and in our own immigration law language, illegal aliens. I had a 6th grade student once who said, “I’m going to study and become successful, even if I am a ‘mojada’”. Mojada is Spanish for “wet back”, a term frequently used to describe those who cross the Rio Grande to get to us. In her young life she had already been called that by people who did not look like her.
Words like these are acid, corroding thought and behavior if allowed to penetrate our consciousness. I listened carefully to Dr. Santa Ana as he spoke of the importance of respecting the voices of those who are mostly unheard. As I have learned over my years of immigration work, there is a lot to be learned from listening carefully about courage and about the shared values of wanting security, belonging, and a sense of purpose.
Between the article on Clean Speech and the podcast on the language used about immigrants I have had a lot to think about how I use my own vocabulary. For example, I am ashamed to say that when I see certain public figures on television, the first thing out of my mouth is a string of expletives. My choice of words does not help me feel better. In fact, I can feel the anger rising in me which is never a good thing. This is what I am thinking about today and going forward.
In my Unity faith, there is a saying, “Thoughts in mind generate in kind.” And so it is. Amen