Time For Mercy

We must be allowed to make mistakes. Mistakes that hurt.

Then we must be allowed to own them - own them - and grow.

A lovely acquaintance of mine, for whom I have a great deal of respect, recently posted a photo of her mother. In it, her mom was wearing a thick, fur-rimmed hood -- the kind you often see worn on northern Inuit people in photographs. Under the photo she posted the caption "My Eskimo family", as a light-hearted reference to the fur hood. Shortly thereafter, she was ripped apart on Twitter for her use of a pejorative term.

The condemnation was harsh and her responses defensive, not the best form of engagement to be sure but often what happens when one feels the victim of unjust and very public attacks. When she finally had some people actually explain why "Eskimo" is insulting -- rather than simply bash her for using it -- she apologized to the Inuit community and said that she was unaware that Eskimo was now considered offensive. She immediately changed the word in the caption from Eskimo to Inuit.

The bashing continued.

Some tweets were too disgusting to repeat. Whereas the initial offensive remark was made in ignorance with no intent to cause harm, some of the responses were deliberately injurious. I believe that once someone gives a sincere apology and you continue to treat them as if they haven't, you are no longer engaging with evolution as the goal. You are trolling and seeking a fight, in the hopes of getting the person to do or say something that you can add to the initial grievance.

When you know someone’s heart to be in the right place, as I know hers to be, it is always a hard thing to see that person treated as if they are someone they are not because of a moment of human unawareness.

In the last five years, as I have guided and trained in conflict transformation work, I have come to see how easy it is to not know how very much you do not know.

The fact is that which terms are considered acceptable and which are not can be very hard to keep up with, and if you are not having these specific discussions regularly, it is INCREDIBLY easy to "miss" when a word is taken off the "acceptable" table.

I have made many mistakes that were simply born of not being sure and saying the wrong word. Because of how little our education system teaches us about anything non-European, we don't understand a lot of differences between terms. It was only about five years ago that I started to not use Hispanic and Latino interchangeably. It’s sad to have to say that, but I hadn't been educated to know the distinction. After a friend corrected me (thank you Vanessa Guillen), I made a point of getting it right.

It can be especially confusing when some members of an ethnological community are fine with a term and others feel differently. Many blacks are offended by the word Negro; I am not. MLK Jr. preached passionately about the plight of the Negro man, and that is not a word I feel that I can jettison from my heart or my history. Others believe it to be a shackle from yesteryear that must be expunged from use. One of my best friends told me last year that a friend of hers who is also black finds the term 'black' offensive and wants to be called Afro-Canadian. That is not the way I identify. I had no idea that there were black people offended by the word black! It is a very tricky thing, and we are denying others the second chance we each would want when we don't allow people some missteps as they try to navigate the cultural glossary.

I remember once several years ago being told that my use of the word Aboriginal was inappropriate, because it was a term bestowed by white men and not self-endowed, and that I should be using Native. I apologized and immediately complied, trying hard to shed Aboriginal from my personal lexicon. When Native finally started naturally falling off of my tongue, I was told that it was not longer okay and I should be using either First Nations or Indigenous. I now use both of those terms, but Native still slips out unwittingly on occasion. I also use Inuit and not Eskimo. I am very aware, however, of how blessed I am to work not only in the arts but also in social justice, and to be so close to people who are aware of current cultural climates and help to keep me reasonably in the know as well.

When people mess up, however, we must recognize the difference between malice and a lack of information.

I do not believe that intention is everything. If you accidentally injure me, my wound and recovery time are no less real. It is equally problematic to say that intention means nothing. For me to view you in exactly the same way regardless of whether you sought to injure me or whether it was an accident would be unfair. If I didn't do anti-oppression work and have the network that I have through that work, I would absolutely still be saying Native and irritating people unintentionally. No question. Not everyone is in close proximity to that kind of easy access to ever-changing cultural vocabulary, and so they genuinely do not always know. Many members of my family in the 50s and older, incredibly kind-hearted people, still will often say Oriental and mulatto rather than Asian or biracial because that's what they were taught in school and what they’ve been saying for 60 years. They're not surrounded by socially-conscious progressives tapping them on the shoulder. If one of them tweeted one of those words, was called out for it, apologized and then was STILL destroyed online, I would be extremely upset.

I have no tolerance for deliberate and targeted bigotry or insidious microaggressions. Accidental trespasses are not that.

Every single one of us steps on a foot sometimes.

It takes time to unlearn what you have learned. If you've never actually been told that the terminology has changed - or if you’ve heard a new word but not been told that the old word is now a faux pas - the chances that you'll continue saying what you've always said until someone points it out are high. In this case, many Indigenous people very kindly engaged and imparted the necessary knowledge, and now that knowledge has been gained not only by the person to whom it was directed, but by many more people. What a great thing. Education as to why “Eskimo” is now considered a pejorative term has taken place. I am just sorry that the kinder, gentler education had to come alongside such harsh attacks and allegations of racism.

I know how a term that insults your own can feel like a slap. I very much understand that. I understand how when that culture and history is so much a part of you, it feels like utter thoughtlessness or even cruelty that people so flippantly use inappropriate terms. I know how exhausting it is to always feel that you are educating those who you feel should "know better". I also know that each person has been exposed to different degrees of information, and you don’t know something until you know it.

We must be allowed to screw up, own up, apologize and learn.

Then we must be granted the grace to change.

To err is human.

xo TT, 10/5/16