Disruptive Language: Thoughts and Feelings

There are certain words that are more abrupt than others within the English language. Some are more powerful and ultimately are seen as less acceptable to use in everyday dialogue. Furthermore, Certain words are racial specific and secluded to the black race, an example of this would be ni*ga. Is it ok that it is only socially acceptible for some to use this word?”

Ta Nehisi Coates mentions that some words are more personal and ‘harmful’ to say when you don’t know the person closely or have a relationship with them, this is due to the fact that you have not built a foundation and level of understanding between each other. For example Calling your spouse or sibling c*nt can be taken as a light funny way of fooling around, however, if you were to call a random stranger a c*unt there would be associations attached and possible considerations of bad intentions coming from that person. 

However, in the general consensus of things, words have ‘no meaning’ without our interpretation and context. Therefore over many generations, we as humans and co-existing communities have carved into words in order to make sense of words. Hence racial barriers being included, perceptions of what is ‘good and bad’ to say and much more.

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