Thursday, April 28, 2022

What's in a name?


It's an amazing thing to be able to overhear how young people speak with and to each other. 

In general, teenagers are in the throes of navigating space, personal and social, and finding order in a chaotic world. Often, their discussions reveal a desire for understanding - both their own, and how they can be understood. In our contemporary world, teenagers catch a lot of flack for all sorts of things, but are they really any different than any other generation? Aren't they trying to find their way in a world that is completely different than the one their parents inhabited?

So they communicate through images. And in these images, their stories are written and told: memes and emojis express how they are feeling and how they want to be known and understood. They (and we) post how we want to be seen and also the things of which we are most afraid.

For people of all ages, one of our greatest fears is to be called names.

The other day, I had the opportunity to hear a discussion after a group of fifth-graders (roughly ten or eleven years of age) were having after we disembarked the bus after an excursion. They were ebullient, joking, doing what kids do (and practicing the craft of communication that they will need even more as they enter their teenage years). One of the students had a white, fluffy bunny attached by a keychain to her bag. Here is the brief description of their conversation as I walked behind them:

Student 1: "Hey! I really like your white bunny!"

Student 2: "Thanks. I like having it on my bag."

Student 3: (running up behind them) "You shouldn't say that. (He's laughing) You're being racist to that bunny."

Student 1: "What?"

Student 3: "Yeah, you're a racist!"

Student 1: (now slightly upset) "I'm not racist. I just said I liked her white bunny."

Student 3: "That's racist."

Student 1: "I'm not racist! I'm not racist! It's just a stuffed bunny."

To say that I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. What I was expecting to hear was a thrilling discussion about Lego, or bus-riding, or... or... ANYTHING but a defamation of a young girl who had the gall to correctly identify the color of a stuffed rabbit.

This young girl was adamant about not being a racist, because in our contemporary world, there are few names that carry with it more negative connotations than 'racist.' And yet the term was bandied between eleven-year-olds as if it was a commonplace thing for eleven-year-olds to talk about.

This brief interaction helped me to realize two things we, as adults, need to be tremendously careful with.

Firstly, the words we speak in front of our children will be absorbed quickly and unconsciously. Whether we speak graciously or we practice a particular innocuous brand of slander, kids (as they always have done) will repeat what they hear. For us, a word filter should be fitted the moment we get up in the morning until we put our heads down for sleep at night. Not only is this a good thing for our kids, but it also changes how we see the world.

Secondly, no matter how much filter we have over our own words, unless we help children navigate the tumultuous online world, kids will be unable to understand the importance of their words on other people. I'm not talking website filters or nannying the internet, and I'm certainly not advocating censorship, but I am encouraging active participation in listening to kids and what they experience while online. For the kids in the above narrative, in all seriousness, they probably did not pick up the finger-pointing-racism from their parents, but have been osmotically gathering ideas online. Without guidance on how to correctly speak about racism, it just becomes a name (and unfortunately) a joke.

Some who read this may think I've overreacted. I wonder that myself. They were just playing around. It's just a white bunny. But somewhere deeper inside of me, I feel there is a modern metanarrative occurring that reveals this is not simply a one-time event, but will be a greater issue as the years pass. 

Each name we are about to stick to someone else is an opportunity: for them and for us. I hope we can stick to choosing a graceful name.

1 comment:

Debbie Gortowski said...

In addition to the two suggestions you have given, I suggest a third:
Teach kindness to our children by example and words.
The middle school years can be brutal. Peers will bully.
Kindness can go a long way to suspend and dissolve the damage of unkind words.
Kindness is steeped in love.

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