This past weekend me and my other Posse scholars at Denison University experienced the Posse Plus Retreat. A Posse Plus Retreat is a weekend where all the Posse scholars, ranging from freshmen to seniors, all come together for a weekend and have discussions on a topic relating to our world today. The "plus" part of the retreat allows Posse scholars to bring one guest (not apart of Posse) that is either a student or a faculty member on campus to be apart of the discussions. So this last weekend we had over 100 people who are apart of Denison University come together under the Posse Foundation and discussed a very important subject.
This year our topic was language. Along with this topic, Posse highlighted a phrase that we have all heard of when we were younger, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Guest facilitators helped us break down the parts of language that we all speak: tones, intention behind words, and how it relates to our identities. By doing that, it raised a question of if words really never hurt, and obviously, they do. In two days, I was able to learn about words that I have never heard of before and it has now changed my perspective on things. In order to spread the importance of words and the many reasons why we would be careful with what we say, here are two terms that you should really know:
Microaggression is a verbal or nonverbal insult or remark that is said, whether it is intentional or unintentional. Most of the time, microaggressions are less noticeable than hate speech, but nonetheless it's meant to degrade a group of people. For example one could say "you're so beautiful for a..." The recipient would feel a slight offense due to the fact that the speaker has complimented on his or her beauty, but has put a derogatory tone towards a characteristic of that person.
Code switching is the modification of one's behavior and dialect depending on certain groups of people. Do you talk to your professors the same as you talk to your friends? Obviously not. We don't use certain vocabulary with people that we respect and also vise versa. One of the reasons people use code switching is to be able to say something between those words in secret. Along that, some use it as a way to target a certain group of people with an intent to diminish them. For example "Wow, nice hair." Depending on the tone of the speaker and also the conversation prior to that, the speaker could be sarcastic and really is insulting their target. Comments of one's appearance or qualities could also be used to say something about their race or gender.
Although there were way more words that were addressed during the workshops, microaggression and code switching really stood out to me. By understanding these two terms it allowed us to relate it to issues among race, gender, and sexuality and how we can be more mindful and educated about world issues. Words and terms, whether they are said or written, have a large impact with our generation and we should be more aware of what we say and how we say them.
