. . . but words can never hurt me.
A familiar line? My parents and teachers taught me and my classmates and friends this retort to invalidate the power of bullies who said cruel things to us or called us mean names. And although it did make us feel a little better at the time, on reflection, this statement is simply not true. Bruises, abrasions, broken bones—these things heal in time; but the damage done by words lives on in the soul and can last a lifetime.
I had a graduate school professor who talked about “parental tapes”: those recordings in our brains of the things our parents said which continue to influence how we see ourselves and how we respond to the world well into our adult years. People who have been told that they’re lazy or too fat or less smart than someone else or that they’ll never amount to much will often fulfill those words in their adult lives. Words inform self-image, which leads to actions, which result in failure and unhappiness. On the contrary, children who have heard positive words about themselves will often live up to the image created by their good “parental tapes.”
I graduated from high school decades ago, but certain words spoken by unkind classmates still trigger involuntary responses in my mind. Even before high school, I recall watching my grandmother can jelly. Each time she prepared to pour hot jelly into a jar, she placed a spoon in the jar. When I asked why she did that, she replied, “To keep the jar from breaking, stupid.” My grandmother didn’t think I was stupid; this was a careless word spoken at a busy moment. She was a very kind and loving woman who was still raising and caring for grandchildren until she died. I remember many kind things she did and said, but that one careless word has also stuck throughout the decades.
The power of words to injure and to incite rage and violence in our age of mass communication, when every word spoken by a public figure is heard live or is on the Internet within minutes of being uttered, is extraordinary and causes thoughtful people to pause and reflect. I’ve heard it said recently, “You’re responsible for what you say, and you’re also responsible for what people hear.” How can that be? some may ask. I can’t help what someone else hears. Well, of course no one can anticipate how every listener will respond, but everyone can—and must—consider carefully the impact which spoken words might possibly have on those who hear them. Freedom of speech is not freedom to insult, bully, or harass. It is not freedom to incite violence or panic. It’s often been said, “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater unless there really is a fire”–pointing to the limits on our freedom to say whatever we like, when the words we say may cause harm to others. Laws governing libel and slander also enforce the requirement to speak responsibly and civilly.
To our great shame as a nation, we have a reality TV show going on right now in the guise of a presidential campaign. We have a candidate who is a loose cannon, saying whatever pops into his head at any given moment. The Republican candidate’s loose tongue is disturbing and dangerous on many levels. Insulting and bigoted remarks toward women, immigrants, the media—these all reveal deficiencies in his character and knowledge and are reason enough to discount his seriousness as a candidate for the highest office in our government. But even more frightening are his accusations against his Democratic opponent and our sitting president. Regardless of personal opinions about them, calling our national leaders the founder and co-founder of the world’s largest terrorist organization is unconscionable, especially by someone who thinks he’s fit to serve as our president and to unify us as a nation.
Statements such as calling members of the media “the lowest form of life,” suggesting that an opponent’s father was involved in JFK’s assassination, sparring with a Gold Star family, stating with “100%” certainty that his opponent can’t possibly win the state of Pennsylvania except by cheating, referring to his opponent as “Crooked Hillary,” remaining silent while his adrenaline-fueled supporters chant “Lock her up,” and suggesting that his opponent might be conveniently assassinated are unprecedented in presidential politics. They would be more at home in a high school locker room or a fifth-grade contest for class president. The fact that a chronologically mature adult would publicly make such statements defies belief.
The candidate continues to evade responsibility for his incendiary words by playing cunning games. His statements are made in ways that allow him to easily deny that he said what everyone clearly heard. He called President Obama and Hillary Clinton the founder and co-founder of ISIS. When an interviewer tried to give him a graceful way to make sense of his false claim, he dug in and said he absolutely meant the accusation in the most literal sense: they founded ISIS. But as media attention continued, he reversed his course, said he was only being sarcastic, and called the media stupid and “the lowest form of life” because they don’t get his humor.
Same game, different statement. When he suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President Kennedy, he brushed it off as simply pointing out an article which other people had seen; “they” said these things, he didn’t. Same game, yet another statement. He suggested that the “second amendment people” might do something to prevent Hillary Clinton’s liberal SCOTUS appointments. But when confronted, he claimed he meant the “second amendment people” would surely vote against her and help him win the election.
Is it possible that he’s just so stupid he doesn’t know what he’s doing? It’s possible, but does anyone want someone that stupid to be leader of the free world? Or is it possible that he actually does know what he’s doing and phrases his messages in ways that allow him to deny responsibility? That’s also possible, and I for one believe he is well aware of the games he plays and is a master of manipulation who is consciously conning millions of people. He’s perpetrated scams before, but this one is by far the largest and has the most far-reaching consequences.
This is where the statement “You’re responsible for what you say, and you’re responsible for what people hear” becomes important. It doesn’t really matter whether Trump was suggesting that gun owners become assassins or simply use the power of their vote; it doesn’t matter whether he really meant to say that Obama and Clinton co-founded ISIS or he was being sarcastic. The statements are indefensible, regardless of their meaning, because what he said allows different people to hear very different messages. No one can control others’ hearing 100%, but it is the speaker’s responsibility to anticipate the obvious legitimate interpretations of his words and make every effort to be sure the intended meaning is the one that is heard. A speaker who doesn’t do that is either stupid or manipulative—neither of which belongs on a resume for the presidency.
Entire news cycles are devoted to parsing this candidate’s words to determine what they mean: time which could much more profitably be spent comparing candidates’ stances on real issues or reporting other important events. Instead, viewers are treated to nightly round-table discussions of the latest verbal vomit from the RNC candidate, keeping full media attention on him and away from his opponent or anyone else who may have happened to make news that day. And to the news media, I would also say, “It doesn’t matter what he meant!!!” His words disqualify him. Period. The most important thing we do every four years as a nation is elect our leader. This is a privilege denied the citizens of many other nations, a privilege we should treat with respect and reverence. Seeing this process reduced to reality TV should make every responsible citizen heart-sick and disgusted.
The defense “I was joking” or “I was being sarcastic” is not an excuse, either. This is not stand-up comedy or reality TV; this is a presidential campaign. Voters want to hear serious proposals or serious concerns about the opposing candidate–not outrageous “jokes” which serve only to demean the process and to plant seeds in the minds of unstable listeners who may take the “jokes” seriously and act on them. One doesn’t tell jokes at a funeral, especially ones that make negative statements about the deceased. Sometimes humor is inappropriate. The presidency of the United States is not a joking matter.
In a Daily Kos article, a writer who calls himself CleverNickName says he believes Trump was only joking about someone shooting Mrs. Clinton and adds:
But that doesn’t matter, because the threat that he made today isn’t limited to Secretary Clinton. When someone in the position he is in — a celebrity entertainer who is the Republican nominee for president — suggests that not only would it be acceptable for the Second Amendment Crowd to go take care of her, but laughs about it, he is normalizing violent behavior, on a national stage.
He continues:
But what about the angry alt-right guy who wants to go use his Second Amendment Remedy to take care of another [person] who bothers him? . . . What about that guy, who is waiting to hear someone say what the voices in his head are saying? How much did the danger to us and people like us go up today, because Donald Trump normalized and amplified his thinking?
Beyond the surreal feeling of disbelief renewed with each daily dose of outlandish verbiage lie very real dangers. On Wednesday, November 9, if the Democratic candidate wins (Please, God!), the millions of people who have supported and voted for the speaker of these irresponsible words will not be going back to business as usual and happily looking forward to January and the inauguration of the second President Clinton. The adrenaline- and testosterone-fueled rally goers who chant, swing fists, assault protesters, stage angry mob scenes outside rally venues yelling “F*&% everyone” will be angry. By telling these angry mobs that the election may be rigged and that the opponent can win only by cheating, not only is Trump covering his ass in advance to explain his loss but he’s also insuring vengeance against the system and the opponent who beat him. If millions of supporters who already felt angry, cheated, and ignored now believe their messiah was robbed of his rightful victory, there could be riots unlike anything we’ve seen before. And since most of these people are also gun toters, the possibilities are frightening beyond imagination.
Donald Trump is playing verbal dodge ball: he says things, and when his words are thrown back at him, he ducks and dodges so that nothing sticks to him. But the damage is done as soon as the words are spoken, and the Republican Party can’t figure out what to do. The Party of Lincoln has become a national disgrace: what bitter irony! The party that saved the union and made us all equal is now set to begin a new civil war, in some ways more devastating than the war of 1861-1865. The hand-wringing, the tentative endorsements, the apologies for their candidate’s latest childish antic, the bail-outs by those who can’t stomach remaining party to the disgrace—none of this is going to stop the destruction of their party and the damage to our country.
Words matter. They may not break bones, but they can do irreparable damage.
In the words of Dr. Maya Angelou,
Words are things, I’m convinced. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, in your clothes, and finally, into you. We must be careful about the words we use. Someday we will be able to measure the power of words.
In the same interview with Oprah Winfrey, Ms. Angelou continues:
On June 4, 2003 I wrote, “When I was thinking about how to explain why one’s choice of words are so important, I came across an article titled ‘Seeking Peace Through Our Words’ written by Lauren Grabelle, a rabbinic intern at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis.”
This was during the first war in Iraq when the elder George Bush was in office. Grabelle wrote, “Jews are instructed not simply to desire peace, but to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ (Psalm 34:15). The question for us, then, is how do we seek peace when we are in the midst of conflict? How do we pursue peace in a time of war? The same psalm that instructs us to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ tells us to ‘guard your tongues from speaking evil and your lips from deceitful speech.’ Peace begins with the very words we utter. When we speak words of hate, we create hate. When we speak words of peace, we create peace.”
Dr. Angelou continues to quote Ms. Grabelle:
“We can pursue peace by engaging in dialogue. We have to consider the words of those whose views are different than [sic] our own. Hearing perspectives other than our own allows us to continue to see those around us as btselem elohim, created in the Divine image.
In the current situation, we may not feel like we have much control over what is going on in the world. Yet we do have control over what we say in response to the world around us. We could use our words and our voices to say hateful things about those with whom we fight and disagree or we could use words to seek common ground. We could make statements of resignation. Or we can use our words to uplift ourselves and to remind us of our common humanity.”*
Peace and love to you all!
*Here’s the link to the article about Dr. Angelou: http://jewishpostopinion.com/?page_id=1608
And this is the link to the Daily Kos article: