#when we streamline our vocabulary by submitting to the uses of language we are taught | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sa-sssa · 14 days ago

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I'm a West african diasporan; or a Caribbean person or a british person. I'm not a "black person". When you call me a black person, and when you call people black and white, you clearly mean so much more than that. Brown people, yellow people. Not quite black, but not quite white. Language is a powerful weapon and an effective tool for social control. You don't have to submit to the vocabulary you've been taught. Whenever you speak a word, its etymological origin and historical evolution should be considered. We should be ever evolving. Otherwise, what is the point of ego and of consciousness?

Why do people need to be categorised by colour? Why is that their most significant feature? My story and the stories of my ancestors mean nothing when you call me that. I am just a dark and shameful colour. If you called me a diasporan or a Caribbean person, the colour of my skin would be just as vivid. If you called me british, you'd be able to hear my accent, and quickly understand why I'm so stoic and unimpressed.

Anyway, we know this about the world. We know language is powerful. We learn these things and then conveniently forget when the discomfort of practising progress becomes too great. We're not good at being uncomfortable. Not at all.

Anyway, love each other. Treat one another with dignity and kindness. Acknowledge your own inherent worth every day. Inherent and gifted to you by the source itself. ✨️✨️

#even white people could find a sense of community by refering to themselves using more creative descriptors than white #for example they get so excited when they learn theyre scottish or something #theres a reason for that #because it connects you to your roots and your story #it doesnt just place you one a side of this racial war that started with the enslavement of africans #it deletes the very concept of race which we know is not only a construct #but an extremely destructive insidious and divisive construct #will we learn #?#will we grow?#will we practice what we preach?#i hope one day we will #when we streamline our vocabulary by submitting to the uses of language we are taught #sometimes there is use in that because it makes ecpression of difficult concepts easier #but oftentimes words are used in a thought terminating way #they are propagated by being recontextualised by individuals who wish to weaponise them #eg. woke #eg. literally the word progressive #they are used as weapons for political and social war #and their new context and definition quickly infect everyone's daily vocabulary #all of a sudden we're oppressing ourselves

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