Friday, November 14, 2014
Negritude Movement
In class today we talked about different inappropriate words people use to pretty much to describe someone different from them. And I thought it was interesting that there is a term for taking back the meaning of a word and changing the meaning of it to something positive, the "Negritude" Movement in France and the taking back of Negre for example. I think it sucks that we have these words in the first place but I think the best way to handle it is to just do away with the words altogether. Some people might be okay with the word and others may take a lethal offense to that same word. Taking back the meaning of widely used derogatory words is powerful and a big move for the group being targeted, however I think the better idea would be to use a different word and be done with the bad ones that we use now. Like Dr. Johnson said in class, "Why do you want to use the word in the first place? There are a ton of different expressions and words to use." How do y'all feel about it?
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The derogatory language we use today no longer carries the same meaning nor impact that it once had years ago. In all honesty, I believe society is pushing us to use the inappropriate language more often, so that those who do use the language, in context, will be stripped of their power to that word. However, in reality, we are deteriorating the meaning of that which is apart of our history.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I do think it is powerful to take back such words. It shows that society does want to change and be more positive. Honestly, I think words like this will always exist unfortunately. There is so much negativity in this world, it is ridiculous. Also, there are people out there who will always work hard to segregate everyone by race no matter how hard we try to unite.
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