The Language Of Oppression

Haig Bosmajian, UW professor of speech communication says. "While names, words, and language can be, and are, used to inspire us, to motivate us to humane acts, to liberate us, they can also be used to dehumanize human beings and to 'justify' their suppression and even their extermination." In order to justify the inhumane treatment of African American slaves and soothe the conscious of the Americans, dehumanizing terminology or the "language of oppression" was established and propagated by way of both "academic" and "legal" opinion at the very highest levels of our educational and legal communities.

The Language Of Oppression Past

From 1815 to 1830, the American Colonization Society: "Free black in our country are ... a contagion." In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court decided: "A negro of the African race was regarded ... as an article of property ... a subordinate and inferior class of being." In 1858, the Virginia Supreme Court declared: "In the eyes of the law ... the slave is not a person." In 1867, Buckner Payne, Publisher: "The Negro is not a human being." In 1900, Professor Charles Carroll: "The negro is ... one of the lower animals." In 1903 Dr. William English: "The negro race is ... a heritage of organic and psychic debris." In 1909, Dr. E. T. Brady: "They [Negroes] are parasites." In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided: "The Fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life." Again, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court declared: "The word 'person,' as used in the 14th Amendment does not include the unborn."

The Language Of Oppression Present

In 1979 Professor Joseph Flectcher: "Pregnancy when not wanted is a disease ... in fact, a venereal disease." In 1980 Dr. Mariti Kekomaki: "An aborted baby is just garbage ... just refuse." In the Sunday, July 12th, 2009, edition of the New York Times Magazine, the power of the language of oppression to corrupt our conscious was revealed in the words of sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said in an interview that she was surprised at a 1980 court ruling that prevented the restoration of Medicaid funding for abortions, because, in her opinion, when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 "there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."

Leadership And The Resonance Of Eternal Truth

History teaches us, time and time again, that the use of oppressive language to demonize and dehumanize certain segments of the human race is incontestably evil. True leadership holds the resonance of eternal truth bound by the conviction to stand up for the truth. When one's convictions are compromised for the promise of comfort or power, perpetuating lies to attain or maintain status is the rule of the day. Such a leader or organization cannot proclaim service to God or man.

Brothers, we really need to talk.

Reference(s):
1. The Language of Oppression, H. A. Bosmajian, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1983 (http://bit.ly/biBhho)
2. Metaphor and Reason in Judicial Opinions, H. A. Bosmajian, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1992.
3. William Brennan, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable, "The Eight Semantics of Oppression", (http://bit.ly/c2Smvh)