Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.
Interpretation
Oppressive language not only reflects violence but also acts to perpetuate it, hindering understanding and knowledge.
In this quote, Toni Morrison emphasizes the profound impact of language on our perceptions and experiences. She argues that oppressive language is not just a mere vehicle for expressing violence; it actively contributes to and embodies that violence, shaping our understanding of reality. By using restrictive language, we also confine our ability to grasp knowledge and ideas, highlighting the destructive power that words can wield in society.
In practice
A speech on the importance of language in cultural identity.
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.
You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.
What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.
The measure of charity may be taken from the want of desires. As desires diminish in the soul, charity increases in it; and when it no longer feels any desire, then it possesses perfect charity.
American individualism, much celebrated and cherished, has developed without its essential corrective, which is belonging.
Tragedy is formed 'round ideas it does not expound, and to understand its history is, in some part, to understand those ideas and their place in the society that produced it.
Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
He had fought back with every weapon in his arsenal, being alternatively obtuse, evasive and pedantic, for it was wonderful how you could obscure an emotional issue by appearing to seek precision.
Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?
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