Words and Deeds (was Re: Gender, Race, and Publishing on the Left)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Barkley Rosser wrote:
>     Actually this business about language is very
>difficult to pin down, albeit very important.  Thus, we see
>an evolution of the use of terms for
>outcast/discriminated-against groups, whereby a term comes
>into use to replace an earlier term that has come to be
>viewed as pejorative.  After a while the new term also can
>come to be so viewed and gets replaced by yet another.  The
>extreme of this is when we see a once-derided term (or
>something similar to it) resurfacing to become a newly
>acceptable term to replace something else.  Thus "People of
>Color" is now acceptable, although "colored" went through a
>long period of being viewed as racist (although it persists
>in the title of the NAACP).  Likewise both "black" and
>"Negro" have come in and out of favor more than once.  And
>in another category we have the somewhat bizarre emergence
>of using the term "queer" as acceptable, although it is not
>quite clear that is quite yet acceptable for a non-queer to
>call a gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual, etc. person
>"queer."  And, of course, some African-Americans proudly
>call themselves "Niggas", but it certainly remains very
>unacceptable for anybody else to use such a term, or its
>very close cousin (except maybe in Huck Finn).
>Barkley Rosser

Words register the balance of forces, changes in social relations,
emergences of attempts to organize the hitherto unorganized groups, makings
of new alliances, desire for self-definition and self-determination, etc.
Words don't make the struggles alone, but we do use words--and sometimes
make new words, unmake old words, or remake used words--in our struggles to
define what it is that oppresses us and fight against it. New words and
meanings do not emerge out of thin air. Words and deeds are connected in
struggles.

Yoshie