‘Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.’ ~ Helen Keller.

When my children were little, their altered understanding of common phrases or things became our name for them.  The Hard Rock Stadium was erected a short distance from our home, and in its first naming was the Joe Robbie Stadium.  For us that was only ever called the Joe Robium Stadium.  Don’t ask me why, but our local supermarket (Sun) became Sun Sun Supermarket.  I once sent my daughter into the visitor’s center in the Everglades with the instruction for her to pick up some of the ‘freebies’ – meaning any brochure, map or other bright shiny object that was being given away for free.  She returned empty-handed, having not seen any ‘frisbees’.  Of course, from that point on that was what we called such items!

I am sure every family has their own unique phrases, based on similar stories.  Nowadays, thanks to social media, we get to share many of them.  Jamaica, an island with an ever-evolving language, delights in changing words to suit special occasions.  They may originate in someone’s lack of education, or they may be the result of a clever wordsmith’s play on words.  I was delighted, during Covid, to hear the word ‘diagnose’ mispronounced as ‘dagger-nose’, which seemed to describe the act of obtaining a specimen very accurately.  Once you see that long cotton tipped swab as a dagger, it is almost impossible to unsee it! 

Another talent of Jamaicans (and I am not sure how many other cultures may also have it) is the art of giving someone a nickname.  Unfortunately (for the one gifted), it may be based on a physical flaw, or derived from an embarrassing situation.  In Jamaica, anyone who is missing a limb is known as ‘Oney’ (they only have one arm).  Someone who contracted polio as a child and has an atrophied leg as a result, will be ‘Hoppo’ for the rest of their lives.  It will take a real effort to know such people by their true names, but once you hear the nickname you immediately recognize them.  It may sound cruel, but it is one way to make you learn to laugh at yourself, though I am sure most therapists would be appalled.

Language is unique to humans, although there are plenty of animal videos that seem to suggest that other animals also have language that we have yet to translate.  Through language we have been able to tell stories, to teach lessons, to communicate urgent information to our tribe.  Until we created a way to write it down, vast items of information needed to be memorized, and entrusted to certain groups of individuals to be keepers of the stories, sharers of the body of knowledge.  Words mattered.

The current political climate has taught us how easy it is for language and stories to stain our understanding of the world.  And yet it is possible to take the negative and create a positive movement, with the collaboration of a few motivated individuals.  In 2016, Hillary Clinton used the term ‘deplorables’ to describe a portion of the population that appeared to be accepting lies and disinformation without question, and it was used against her.  This year, a throwaway line from a politician that was intended to belittle and demean a group of women has become a rallying cry for a large and vocal group of people.  This time the line ‘childless cat ladies’ has galvanized a disparate, diverse collection of people to unite in opposition to the one who used it. 

This epithet, which appeared to judge women who don’t have biological children, is particularly cruel to those who have fertility issues.  I used to joke that half the women in the world get pregnant at the drop of a hat, while the other half are trying desperately to conceive.  For those of us who fell in the first group, we may not even think about what it feels like to not be able to have your own children.  We may not even consider how Mother’s Day hits them, or Father’s Day, for there are two people affected by infertility.  And yet most of us are lucky enough to have such aunts and uncles in our children’s lives.  People who think our children are wonderful, even as we are pulling our hair out at their ‘wonderfulness’. 

There are terms which were created to help us to be more aware, that have been turned into dirty words.  The term ‘politically correct’ was coined to help heighten awareness of how cruel some of our commonly used terms can be.  We have managed to get words like ‘retarded’ and ‘dummy’ removed from everyday language.  Being politically correct means nothing more than being aware of how language can be perceived by those it describes.  It is not up to me to determine whether a term is offensive, it is up to those, often unseen and unheard from, to help us see how hurtful throwaway lines can be.  It may seem ridiculous that US football teams have had to be renamed, but unless you are on the receiving end of demeaning nicknames, or belong to a group of the oppressed minority, you really should keep your opinion to yourself.

This week I watched a documentary (made in 2016) called ‘The Brainwashing of my Dad’.  It was a personal story of the way one man (among thousands) had been turned into a hateful ball of rage after listening to a consistent diet of talk radio and watching a certain non-news cable station.  He was a man who had been kind, caring, considerate of people from all walks of life who became a bigoted, angry, bitter man.  It helped me to understand how powerful words are, especially when the words are composed of convincing lies and propaganda.  It is very easy for us to be ‘brainwashed’ when we get our information from one source only, and don’t do our own fact-checking.  In this information age, we must be very aware of how easily we can be fooled by disinformation, and even worse, convincing AI generated falsehood.

This Friday morning I hope you are not haunted by old taunts and nicknames carelessly created by cruel ‘friends’.  I hope you can find a way to turn negatives into positives.  And I hope you can help share the positive with others, to generate more and more light to counteract the hateful rhetoric that only causes pain and division.  And for those feeling Helene’s wrath, may this soon pass.

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.