Speaking in Tongues

The language of oppression and the language of the oppressed often look and sound similar, but the meaning is entirely inverted between groups. Across time, place, and people, you find the language of the oppressed often using the same terms that oppress them within their own groups to not oppress, but actually empower themselves. Rap and the black community in America re-took their most hate-infused terms, as did gays, women, some groups of poor and the formerly colonialized. The key to the dynamic is context and not just the re-taken language, but how it is used and with whom.

To an outsider, and especially a member of the out-group that themselves suffers psychological and/or moral-ethical pain from the suffering of their own group’s persecution of the powerless, certain words over time have become essentially non grata. In America today, fag, bitch, pussy, nigger, etc but in fact this list goes on and on in every language ever known for as long as humans have existed.

But humans have time and time again overcome the abuse of power and taken back their stories, and with their stories, their dignity, in part by first psychologically steeling themselves from the most powerful force of oppression there is, which is self-hatred, and then in fact entirely re-taking the meaning of the words used by the out-group to attempt to destroy them and re-contextualizing them within in-group culture to be much less harmful.

To be sure, it’s rare that a hateful term is ever actually a good term. Hate is hate, and even the in-group knows this to be true. But inside the safety of the oppressed’s own community, the terms of hate that outsiders use to attempt to destroy them are often used to imbue psychological strength and resilience to the out-group’s constant attempts to destroy, disparage, and otherwise harm in-group members.

It is a middle stage of progress when the out-group finally relents and the oppressed finally see the light of justice. And often, the out-group finds itself so ashamed of its previous self that it attempts to hide its tracks by banning or making the hateful terms of its previous self socially taboo. There is nothing wrong with this, and in fact, it is likely good, but nonetheless it is a middle stage of progress because it suggests the words still retain some power. Ultimate progress is reached when the formerly hateful words no longer retain any meaning at all.

As a kind of thought experiment or PsyOp, it would certainly be difficult for members of the out-group to see someone who looked like themselves, and talked like themselves, but was psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually a member of the in-group re-taking the terms used to destroy them and their peers. In all likelihood, it would look like someone speaking in tongues. But to the trained ear, it might sound like a formerly downtrodden soul shaking off the shackles of oppression, rejoicing in its newfound freedom, and demanding not only justice but recognition of its own inherent value from a world that attempted to steal it.