197. Word Choice Is an Opportunity to Match Your Impact with Your Intent
How Phrasing Can Negate Experiences
There are words that we use so often that we rarely stop to consider the impact that they can have.
The word but is often used when we discuss things like Black History Month. “It’s important but, it’s the shortest month of the year…” In that phrasing, the word but negates what comes before it. When you use the word but you may be negating the lived experiences and realities of others without even realizing it.
For the final episode of Black History Month, Erica discusses why we need to be more conscious of when we use but.
Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:
How the word but negates experiences and realities
A case for keeping history, heritage, and cultural months on the calendar
Why using the word but doesn’t soften the impact of your words
How to use language as a clue to how you’re processing
Where Does Your But Show Up?
On the Pause on the Play® podcast, Erica Courdae (she/her) says that during Black History Month, you’ll often notice the phrasing, “Black History Month is important, but it’s the shortest month of the year.”
She says the sentence should be, “Black History Month is important, period. And it is centered in the shortest month of the year, period.”
She says “‘but’ shows up to try to negate constantly…and I want to remind you to be aware of where but is coming up in your vocabulary and where you may actually be negating the experiences and realities of people and you may not even recognize it.”
Being conscious of your language use is a way to honor “what you may not understand, ways that you may not exist, and ways that you can do things differently.”
When we construct sentences with a but in the middle, it negates or softens what comes before it.
It can be easy to underestimate the power of the word but. Erica’s advice is to, “think about it in the context of who we want to center, who want to shift access and visibility to, I think that can make a difference.”
Keeping It On The Calendar
Erica says that in the context of a larger conversation about whether we should keep months devoted to specific histories, heritages, or groups of people, she is of the opinion that we need to retain those months of reflection, learning, and celebration.
If we take them off the calendar, “we run the risk of these individuals being swallowed and digested in a way that they become invisible throughout the rest of the year.”
Keeping these months can create a platform for or put an exclamation point on necessary conversations, actions, and attention that need to be placed on those that don’t regularly get the attention.
She says that getting rid of Black History Month doesn’t fix the fact that February is only 28 days, “we will have 28 less days.”
But Doesn’t Soften the Impact
Erica says but will “wreck everything if you’re not careful.” It’s a word that seems so innocuous and it can be difficult to avoid, “but it’s a word that completely undoes what you say your intention is.”
In a slightly different way, Erica says that as a Black person, she thinks of when Black people say, “I don’t mean no harm, but” then follow that with something that is harmful.
She continues, “The whole point of acknowledging what you don’t want to do, inserting the word but, and then saying what you really wanna say, you didn’t soften it…The impact was still there.”
That phrasing is an attempt to soften what follows, but the hurt remains.
Language Is a Clue
She says that if we take the opportunity to pay attention to our language and phrasing, it gives us clues about “how we are processing people, places, individuals, and situations…where we are trying to put two very different feelings in on statement or one space of processing and putting the word but in there as if it’s gonna stitch it all together.”
And we need to recognize where that’s happening when it comes to people who aren’t regularly centered and given the same level of access, visibility or opportunity.
For example, “I know I didn’t hire anyone of color, but no one applied.”
She says if you break that down and think about it, did no one apply because it wasn’t posted somewhere inclusive? Did the listing make it clear that people of color would be welcome, included, and safe at your place of employment? There’s an opportunity to dig deeper when but shows up.
When we use that phrasing, “way too often it is to negate what’s really happening, to soften the blow to your own ego. Nobody benefits from that. Not even you. That keeps you stuck, that keeps you stagnant, that keeps you not growing.”
Acknowledgement is the First Step to Action
Erica says that being conscious of your language is a challenge to do better, not because we’re constantly striving and doing, but because we’re “not comfortable just being comfortable and stuck and not being willing to grow.”
Bringing attention to your language is a different way of being aware of the impact and intent of your statements and how they align or not with your thoughts and processing.
And it’s important to begin to take these considerations in Black History Month, because “anytime we are in a month that is meant to center and to focus on groups that are historically and grossly undersupported, marginalized, erased,” it gives an opportunity to pause and consider how we have, or have not, being honoring experiences unlike our own.
And when we can pause and consider it and acknowledge it, we can follow that up with action.
“It is always important to take a month that is often focused on the trauma or a group, or obligating that group to entertain you, to educate you, and to flip that around and figure out, what can I do for you?”
Even as Black History Month comes to a close, she says, “Black people need support, amplification, and opportunities to be shared with them in a way that is beneficial to the outcomes that we want and need…We need that all year round.”
She urges people to consider, “how you can be a part of doing things differently by amplifying, by supporting, by witnessing with a purpose that is attached to values-aligned outcomes that benefit these groups…How is that you can be a part of redistribution and relocation and recreation of opportunities and systems and structures that are more equitable?”
“That’s what I want you to consider. And there’s no buts about it.”
Ready to dive deeper?
Any time that we discuss language and word choices, it’s important to consider how it impacts people and the intended or unintended harm that can happen when we are not mindful with one of our most important resources: our words.
Inside The Pause on the Play® Community, we have our guide to problematic language and alternatives, which is a crowdsourced document that you can learn from and contribute to, so we can all work on recognizing that our language is powerful.
This is one of the many resources available to Community members, along with community conversations, office hours, workshops, and more.
Learn more at pauseontheplay.com/community