Words are just as harmful as “sticks and stones”
By Nicole Doyley, Campus Minister
Published on Wednesday, January 10, 2007
To the Editor:
The issues that we grappled with at the end of the Fall term ("Racial tensions mar Fall term, activists respond," Jan. 4) reminded me of a song from the 1960s musical "Hair" that laments the titles given to black people by common culture.
My father and grandfather scorned these epithets. Similarly, the men in my family shed tears and sweat resisting these assumptions, refusing to let them alight on their souls. Black people have had to don a thick outer shell to deflect accusations, which would distort our personalities and render us impotent. And millions of us have forged through a morass of contempt, stealing our hearts and minds.
Which idiot coined the nursery rhyme, "Sticks and stones may brake my bones but words will never harm me"? To the contrary, words (and symbols) have the power to bring life or death and they have killed millions.
Every time I sit behind a truck with a Confederate flag on the back, I am pierced to the heart. This is 2007, after all; doesn't everyone know the sinister agenda of the Confederacy? That flag calls me "nigger" and refuses me personhood.
When I saw The Review's picture of the "savage Indian," I felt a similar sting. I understand, at least in part, the slap in the face this represents. This is 2007, after all. Doesn't everyone experience shame over the American genocide of Native Americans? Don't educated Dartmouth students realize that countless lost their lives just because of the "savage" stereotype? Have they never considered the anguish such pictures generate in a fellow human being's heart?
Make no mistake, words and the symbols that represent words, are powerful. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Some hearts were revealed last term; let's pray that repentance and redemption result.