Reader responds to a response>
This letter is in response to Dan Hammill’s response to Jessica Weeks’ editorial published Jan. 7, as well as the editorial itself. Hammill, I doubt you could have missed Weeks’ point more if you had deliberately tried (which I’m not ruling out in order to avoid insulting your intelligence). You support your “point” with irrelevant examples of your personal usage of language she claims should be derogatory in order to create equality. Apparently you didn’t notice that “lick this” in reference to stamps is not on a par with “Michigan sucks.” Your stamp example (as well as your inane “let’s eat out” comment) neglects the fact that there is nothing derogatory or insulting about the comments you are making.Your letter continues by saying that the infamous “N-word” is degrading “by definition.” Weeks’ entire point is that “sucks,” “blows,” “pussy,” etc., are also degrading by definition, as their negative connotations demean females and homosexual males.Regarding Weeks’ editorial itself, I am almost ashamed (in light of Hammill’s incompetent rebuttal) to say that I also believe her to be wrong. Surely she is right when claiming that these words reflect a negative attitude towards women and homosexual men. However, that reflection is from the time that those words acquired their negative connotations, not from the time that those words are used as having those connotations.When people first started saying things sucked, they were being very chauvinistic and male-centered. However, now that we have moved beyond that point (though it can be argued, as I believe Weeks to be doing, that we have yet to make that move) the word as it is used in negative ways is no longer connected to the actions that Weeks claims they degrade. When I hear “Michigan sucks,” the image of fellatio does not come to my mind. The word has gained another meaning, one that does not especially relate to any other meanings it may have.I do not believe in the offensive nature of words themselves. The “infamous N-word” is not an offensive word “by definition,” despite Hammill’s claims. It is the use of any word which makes it offensive or not. Black people use it with no problem, because they do not mean it to be derogatory. So the word, despite it’s offensiveness from white people, is not offensive in and of itself. It is the degrading meaning behind it which is offensive. Words themselves are never more than symbols for ideas, and it is the ideas which are offensive, not the word. White culture is so permeated with racism that any use of the “N-word” is derogatory from one of us, and I view our abandonment of that word as a step (albeit a small one) in the right direction of releasing those offensive attitudes.I do feel, however, that Weeks’ statements regarding “Indian-giver,” “Jewish deal,” and “Ann Arbor is a whore” are exactly right, and that those words are quite offensive to those described. The person so labeled is being insulted, and by relation so is the group involved in the insult. Calling someone a whore is not insulting to women in general, it is only insulting to a select subset of women. And the fact that I’m friends with some very wonderful people who just happen to have practiced prostitution makes me very edgy about that particular comparison.Words are outlets for ideas. Trimming vocabulary will not change ideas, though discussions regarding doing so brings such attitudes into the open where they can then be dealt with. Offensive ideas are the problem, and despite how we may trim the words we use those ideas will make themselves known using new words until we do something about the ideas themselves.
Vincent ConawayJuniorEngineering
