My Interpretation of "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" PART TWO

Broken down gods survive

in the crevasses and mudpots 

of every beleaguered city

where it is obvious 

there are too many bodies

to cart to the ovens

or gallows

~

I think this means roughly "faith is alive in very few in a city too full of unscrupulous people."  It could also mean that very few people are able to express themselves in a place where there are so many people.  This interpretation supports the line "our labor has become more important than our silence" as meaning expression is more important than silence.

~

and our uses have become 

more important than our silence

after the fall

~

I think Lorde is talking about peoples' silence not helping them, more specifically, her realization of how useless silence is as she nears her death - "the fall."

~

Too many empty cases

of blood left to bury or burn

there will be no body left

to listen

~

To me, this line is comparing human life to an expendable resource.  Too much blood left to burn represents the untapped potential in silent people as well as the untapped potential in her life that her impending death will seal.  

~

and our labor 

has become more important

than our silence

~

She repeats this line to draw attention to the fact that we should all take advantage of the time and knowledge that we have on this Earth.  In other words, our labor - what we do on this Earth while we are alive - is more important than just living without asserting our own knowledge and vocalizing ourselves.  

Gender norms

When I read the article I learned that there is a difference between men and women. That this difference has caused the women to be judged negatively on the way they say things or express it. Since gender norm has a bigger effect on the women then men it has created this difference where the women use indirectness while men use directness. With this it shows who has more power in gender, language, and cultural. But what irritates me the most is why do we have to be judge so cruelly in the way we speak when involving gender norms? I just wish we can be more equal towards each other so there doesn't have to be this division in this world where we can't get along each other.

My reaction to His Politeness is Her Powerlessness

I wasn’t really happy with this article. Why can’t men and women be seen as equals? I shouldn’t have to be subservient to a man. It’s 2015 and the gender norms are still in place, it’s time to move on. In “His Politeness is Her Powerlessness” Deborah Tannen stated that “[women speak indirectly, when they want something because she doesn’t feel she has the right to ask directly]” (2), that particular line I didn’t like. The reasoning for that is because if I want something I’ll ask for it directly; why should I have to sugarcoat the way I speak to sound more ladylike? Language shouldn’t divide us they way it does. If a woman speaks with authority then she’s seen as mean and extremely aggressive but if a man does it then it’s socially acceptable. That’s not fair, when will gender equality take place? Women and men should be treated with the same level of respect because they’re human beings. 

Division and Human Nature

This unit shows the division between people: the way they think, their sexual preferences, and the way they behave in different settings. Human beings will always judge people because it’s just in their nature. However, it just goes too far sometimes. In Phylosophe by Judith Butler, a boy was killed because he walked more feminine than most boys. Why does the way he walk affect anyone else’s life to the point where those group of boys felt like they had to rid him of the world? Everyone’s life would be a lot easier if people would just mind their own business. The way we judge people, creates a division between everyone. As people we should be a lot more accepting than we are because no one likes to be judged.

The barbershop

Our cultur has been divided without us even knowing it. In the article the barbershop it talks about how when she goes to her neighborhood she can act as however she wants. However when she goes to talk to a professor she can't. She can't just talk how she normally would because that would be inappropriate. She has to collect herself and become proper. Talk clear so he can understand her. Without her having to say things twice. To sum it up, were divided because when she was in the university she had to act differently than she normally would when she's in her own neighborhood. 

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

Everyone in this world has some sort of bias or prejudice towards someone or something. No matter how adamantly a person may try to deny this, it’s true. Because of this bias, people get judged simply because of the way they walk, talk, act, dress, etc. No matter what you do or say, someone is always going to judge you for the most trivial of things. Humans are not perfect. We were never meant to be. But these biases have divided us.

Without even taking a second glance at someone, there are already a million opinions running through a person’s mind. And these judgments may never change, even if we take a chance to really get to know a person. As much as I don’t want to admit, I’m guilty of this too. We all are.

But we have to look past these things. Henry David Thoreau said, “It is never too late to give up our prejudices." We can be more accepting by just giving someone a chance. Stereotypes and prejudices only aid in driving people apart.

We are more than what our stereotypes and prejudices have defined us as. We are greater than the sum of our parts.

Yeeee

I wrote a little speech of my own regarding language gender and culture, but it wasn't specific enough to be used for the group essay so I decided to make use of it as a blog post. let me know what you think.  

Language, Gender and Culture, all three are defining aspects in who we are as people. Yet all three are also devices used by people to judge each other. All three are both gifts and curses, and all three are what we as a national, even global, community make them. Language and culture both affect each other, for a man from Georgia would not need to speak fluent Chinese in his hometown of Atlanta, however it would be a huge asset to someone who lived in Chinatown of San Francisco. Gender and Language are linked through the way men and women speak, both directly and indirectly. And lastly even gender and culture are connected in many societies where women are seen as lesser than men, and sometimes, though maybe subconsciously, they feel as though they “don’t have the right” (Tannen 3) to speak. All three factors are not only limiting to people, but ridiculous and unreasonable.

We are all judgmental in some aspects. We may not even know we are doing it but we do. We do this simply based off of stupid, irrelevant details such as clothing, speech, and the overall “look” of a person.  At Mayfair there is a hugely diverse culture. Teachers and students of all races, religions, sexual preference, and from different backgrounds, Mayfair has it all. Yet there is still judgment. Students make fun each other for their clothing choice or hairstyle even if they are just following their religion. We tear each other apart based on each other’s home life, how we talk, how we walk, or anything, any minuscule detail, which we can hurt each other with. I even hear students speak badly about the teacher who is hard to understand because of his strong accent, or the teacher who is a Jew, or who is gay. People secretly assume the special-ed students are dumber than they are. People write someone off based on what words they use, thinking that that boy over there couldn’t possibly have a bright future because he says “nigga” and he took Algebra 1 his junior year; yet they don’t know that same boy is a writer, a reader, a secret scholar. Trapped by the belief of others that he is destined to fail because he lives in a certain area. We constantly keep on the look out for things we can use against each other, while trying to minimize the amount of things we can be judged by.

 The fact of the matter is that we can’t help where we come from. Some habits such as speech patterns are too hard to break, and shouldn’t make a difference in how we view each other. I meet people every year and become friends with people who I would never have thought I’d be friends with before. People who I thought were annoying, people who I thought were too different from me and I who I couldn't possibly get along with. I’ve come to realize that its not just culture, language, gender, sexual preference, or anything else that makes up a person, though those do add to who they are. We are made up by who we are as people, how we care for our fellow man, how we see the world. The differences between us are minuscule when you take away the insignificant facts. We all have hearts, minds, and bodies; we all love and hate, fear and laugh. We are not our race, or sexual preference. We are not where we come from, not just the sum of our parts. We are not put here to tear each other down, not to mock and hate, not to jeer or discriminate. We are here to help one another. Fellow human beings, here to exercise our humanity. We are people put on this earth to help each other thrive. If the world could see this there would be no hate. There would be no injustice. There would be no such thing as racism, sexism, or discrimination. We would finally see the truth. We are the same, equal. We are human.