but words are things

I find it a curious thing that as I release my novel into a wider world this weekend, the idea of words seems to resonate loudly in the stories of the world at large. Or maybe I should say the words of ideas.

As I hastened to post my chapters in a post on Facebook, I found myself commenting on several posts (including my own) about the decision to publish an edited version of Huck Finn. I’m not going to link to the story. If you haven’t heard of it, you’ve probably been living under a rock. Besides, it’s a stupid story. And I’m not just a little bitter about the immense amount of publicity this literary academic is getting for bastardizing public domain literature. Blech.

But the supposed issue is the power of a word. I’m not black. So I will never, never understand the emotions that go through a person of color’s mind when the n word is unleashed into the atmosphere. I had a bi-racial friend in high school, in a town full of red necks (another not so kind word of stereotype). I remember being on the bus when a bunch of stupid white junior high boys thought it was cool to say that word. I felt hurt for him… but it still… I know I didn’t feel it all. That said, I’ve been called names. Some things that really cut into me as a kid. The fact my name rhymes with messy may or may not have influenced my crazy OCD need for organization. Or… to be honest… I find the word fat worse than any four letter word on the planet. I hate to speak it, to read it, to write it even now. So I understand how a word can pierce your soul and bring up all sorts of… issues.

But words are a representation. A collection of phonetics and syllables. It’s the frosting on the cake of an idea. It is not the idea. And while I know literature is interpretative, I was under the assumption that Huck Finn doesn’t glorify racism. Granted, I haven’t read it in almost twenty years… but I could have sworn the point of that novel was to create a character of a different skin color and show he has a soul – and that a boy who was considered stupid and ill-behaved could figure that out when the rest of polite society did not. Does that mean he should use that word? Well, pre-Civil War, he would have used that word. It was used pretty liberally until a half century ago. I think it is dumb to pretend it wasn’t. We shouldn’t avoid things – ideas that make us uncomfortable. That’s how we learn, how we grow, and how we become better people. Deleting things that make us uncomfortable doesn’t inspire any movement at all.

The second story is still developing. Maybe it won’t ever actually make sense. Horrific tragedy seldom does. But the resulting conversation is a question as to whether the words shouted across political divisions were fuel to the fire that made this happen. I can’t wrap my brain around why anyone would do such a thing as open fire on a member of Congress and the surrounding public. I don’t understand the belief that government is so evil that the people who serve our country and those who support them are somehow less human to qualify as being entitled to life. I don’t know how anyone could make a suggestion on a campaign that a second amendment solution is any sort of solution.

I don’t know if it’s just because I’m a writer… or just because I am so friggin sensitive, but the power of words never ever leaves me. I toil over sentences for hours – or in the case of my novel, years. I sometimes post things with haste, get called on it, and am willing to rephrase… or recant. But words, especially words of hate should never trip lightly off the tongue. Because once it is out there, the emotion behind them goes into the universe. 

I have learned in my own life recently how important it is to speak love when you feel it. Love can never be expressed too much. But hate… it’s always illogical and blind. We all say foolish things. But we should never hesitate to examine the folly that brought us there, before we end up with blood on our hands.