A Reflection on Violence in Our Language
There is a peculiar irony to the fact that the very tool we use to bless, to befriend, to share poetry or prayer can also be our most refined instrument of violence. I speak here of our language.
Not the crude shouting of obscenities, nor the slander that courts the law. I speak here of the quieter often unnoticed violence: the erasure performed by a word left out, the social bruising inflicted by a phrase spoken with condescension, the subtle cruelty of tone and syntax. The violence in language does not always roar. Sometimes, it whispers. And it is easy to overlook such injuries. A cutting comment, shrouded in humour. A meeting where a person’s suggestion is ignored, until someone with the right accent repeats it. A question that assumes someone’s incompetence, or worse, their non-belonging. None of these would qualify as crimes. Few would even call them wrong. And yet, these small verbal acts repeated, unchecked, accumulate into deep and lasting wounds.
I recall, with vivid clarity, an exchange many years ago during a faculty meeting. A young woman, brilliant, thoughtful, Black, presented her work on literary resistance among colonial poets. One of those gathered in the room responded, quite cheerfully: “Ah, fascinating. I didn’t realise that sort of thing was studied here.” The room chuckled. I did not. It wasn’t the words alone, but the scaffolding beneath them. The implication of novelty, and condescension cloaked in curiosity.
That is verbal violence. Not the presence of shouting, but the absence of recognition.
There is a term in the field of linguistic anthropology: erasure. It refers to the way dominant discourse makes alternative meanings disappear. Whole histories, whole ways of knowing, swept aside by the unexamined assumption that one’s own language is not only correct, but natural. And what is erased is often what does not conform to the power structures we inhabit without seeing.
The philosopher Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” (problematic as that is) But I take it a step further: The misuse of our language shapes the misshapenness of our world. Language is not just a mirror, it is a chisel. And in careless hands, it can carve wounds rather than create wonders.
And dare I say scripture is not exempt. We need only look at how verses have been wielded as hammers rather than balm. I’ve heard Leviticus quoted with surgical coldness, used to cut people down in the name of holiness. I’ve seen the language of “purity,” “submission,” and “natural order” used to buttress entire systems of exclusion. We must ask: do our words heal? Or do they bind and gag? Do they break chains? And are they life giving?
This is not to suggest we must all speak with sterilised tongues, afraid of error or misstep. No. What I advocate for is attentiveness. A moral attentiveness to what we say, how we say it, and what invisible scripts, the scaffoldings, that lie beneath our utterances.
There is a nobility in restraint, not the restraint of fear, but of care. A refusal to reach first for the easy jab, the sharp quip, the familiar stereotype, the old tropes.
There is a kind of radical hospitality in revising our speech to accommodate the dignity of the other, and so I offer you an invitation to a practice of witness.
For the next seven days, listen more closely to your own speech. Not to correct it, but just to notice it. I will invite you to especially pay attention to:
- The language you use when you are in disagreement.
- The phrases you employ when speaking of people unlike yourself.
- The tone in which you express frustration or critique.
Then listen to others with discernment. Where does violence hide in a joke? Where does dismissal dress itself as humour? Where does silence become complicity?
If you’re so inclined you might keep a journal a log of growing awareness. This may help in you reflections after the seven days.
Alongside this, I ask you to notice the words that build. The ones that honour, invite, soothe, that gives new life, that empowers. The way someone’s name is spoken with affection. The joy in a compliment that asks nothing in return. These, too, are linguistic acts. These, too, shape the world.
Because if violence can be done in words, then so can peace.
If language can wound, then surely it can also anoint.
We are not helpless before the tide of discourse. We are its stewards.
Let us then choose our words with the precision of poets and the compassion of priests.
Not to be perfect.
But to be kind.
To be just.
To be aware.
