My Words Matter

In a recent conservative radio interview with Representative Jen Kiggans, the host

suggested that Representative Hakeem Jeffries keep his “cotton-picking” hands off of

the Virginia redistricting fight. Rep. Kiggans laughed and agreed, and has since back-

tracked on the use of the term, though not the target. The context is that Jeffries does

not represent Virginia in Congress and doesn’t have a say in the matter. Further context

is that the redistricting is a racially charged gerrymandering to secure more

Republican/MAGA seats. Added context – Kiggans and the radio host are White.

Jeffries is Black.

The public backlash was immediate. I was aghast. How could we be so permissive of

blatant racial slurs? How has our political environment become so heated, so divisive,

so uncivil that dog whistles are hardly nuanced any more?

As we ended our last podcast, posted this week, we were talking about the need for

honesty about our past, making amends, a national 12-step engagement in self-

reflection, confession, and intentional movement toward being our better selves in

creating a “more perfect union.”

That has led to some uncomfortable reflection for me, as it should. I grew up with the

phrase “cotton-picking hands” and referring to people as “cotton-pickers”. Let me be

more honest – I have used those phrases. “It wasn’t racial” I tell myself, because I was

talking to or referring to white friends. And it was in jest.

As an adult, I know better. That those phrases are rooted in our slave-owning past is

undeniable. Their use as derision is clear. They are pejorative terms intended to evoke

degrading images.

Even if I could convince myself of my innocence in my intent, the injurious and

provocative images it creates for black Americans and descendants of slavery mocks

my attempts at rationalization.

Words matter.

That’s why I agree with Ibram Kendi that it is not enough for me to claim, even with

good intention, that I am not racist. I have to admit that I carry vestiges of my biased

and racist upbringing. That is unescapable growing up in the era in which I did. I still

have immediate responses and images that spring into my consciousness in multiple

situations. I am capable of making decisions based in racially-based assumptions. No, I

can not claim to be racist-free. But I can be intentional about being anti-racist, beginning

with my own hard and humbling inner work.

I must actively engage my own biases and assumptions. I must evaluate my own

speech and vocabulary. In writing this I have already identified other phrases I have

 used that are insensitive to the harm they can inflict on others who have been

dehumanized and marginalized under my white gaze. And not just descendants of

slavery. I grew up in anti-Catholic and anti-Jew neighborhoods. I grew up with anti-

immigrant messages – diminishing anyone who looked different, talked with different

language or with an accent, or held different beliefs than me and mine.

I have to be anti-racist in calling out the harm in ethnically-charged public rhetoric. But if

I am going to do that with integrity, I have to start by calling out my own.