the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug

I attended a portion of the Black Economic Council's conference in Oakland today. Specifically, the keynote luncheon and awards presentation. My boss won the "mensch" award (because he's a really great guy), and a coworker was given the "transformation" award (because he's a cousin of Optimus Prime). Anyway, one of the other award winners gave an awesome acceptance speech that, in the great tradition of awesome acceptance speeches, went on WAY too long.

But something he said hit home with me as a writer, especially given the recent flap over the idiot who's releasing a version of Huck Finn with a certain word changed.

The background: this award winner met a man whose mother was the granddaughter of a slave. It's striking to think how little removed we are from that culture, though it seems like ancient history. This man held the hand of a woman who held the hand of a slave.  That's how he put it. Just one touch away. Not so distant after all.

As part of this story, the man was corrected by a wiser man nearby. "Don't say she was a slave," this wise man said. "Say instead that she was enslaved."

The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between the lighting and the lightning bug.

To say someone "is a slave" is to blame them for their condition. It's what they are, that phrase says. No big deal. She's a slave. She's five feet tall. She's brown-eyed. That's who she is. That's who she'll always be. You can't change her eye color. You can't change her being a slave.

To say someone "is enslaved" is to illuminate that they are a victim of someone else's inhumanity. This is a big deal. She's enslaved (by someone else). She's repressed (by someone else). She's beaten (by someone else). Being enslaved is a condition that can be changed... by changing that someone else.

Think on that a while. And pay attention to the way simple phrases and images appear in the media, and in casual conversation. Notice those places where a bias has crept in without looking like any bias at all. Understand how words affect us on deeper levels. I'm no fan of political correctness--that overt, childish mockery of language that creates whole new doublespeak and which inhibits the free exchange of ideas. But we all need to be aware of how the words we use affect others. And ourselves.