Are words powerful?

We are a multiracial couple. My husband brought it up to me, that there is a lot of negativity when black people talk about themselves. The way we say things and refer to our people. And he asked me how I feel about that. He told me that words were powerful. What I made it mean?

I used to think words are just words and that when followed by action they become powerful. We give them whatever meaning they have but they only come to life when you act upon them. 

Yes, I agree that we have a negative talk, but personally I believe that it’s a front, it’s our front. Words hide our emotions, who we are what we do. 

He asks, why do we make constant reference to ourselves by race/colour? Black people this, black people that. I suppose we’ve heard it so many times that we just start talking like that, and in us talking like that it removes power from the western world when they refer to black people this and black people that.

Is there something else? Of course there is. Our race is so messed up regarding its own identity that it holds on to race/colour as an identity that unites us, that keeps us together. Probably, only to realise that it’s all we have at the moment. We’ve lost so much, that there is not much to hold on to, to share. What we do share, is the love for our continent and hope that one day we’ll all return to Africa, and that Africa will be big and better. 

Wouldn’t it be more powerful if we talked positive? Oh God, yes it would be. What I do say to myself, is that we take so much shit on a day to day basis, that we can talk negative if that helps to vent the frustration. Do we make it mean something? We definitely do - a lack of belief in ourselves, our people as a race, the great future of Africa. Generally we don’t believe, but we want to. We want to believe. I want to believe. We joke about it with our negative talk; I think that it softens the blow if it doesn’t happen. It was the same when Obama was running for president, many of us didn’t believe he would make it, and we talked negative to soften the blow if he didn’t make it but we hoped that he would make it. He did make it, and then our thoughts changed to ‘how long will he last’. Not as a president, but as a black man in power. And there it is the ‘race issue’ again.

Does the divide really exist? I’m sure it does, for many it lives in our heads, it feeds on our fears, it feeds from our past, it feeds from our own existence. I think of my grandmothers and how lucky I am to have them, but all the wisdom that they have will go when they go. And that is how things are. We try to hold on to our history, past, to make it mean something about our purpose in earth, in life. Is it important? That’s a good question and one for which I do not hold the answer.

I suppose it helps us remember what can be achieved, what we can do, how far we can go. It helps us to do greater and better things.  It helps to believe that we can do whatever we set ourselves to do, because our forefathers have done it before us. But to be fair we can do that even without a past, we can create our own reality today, whatever we want our tomorrow to be.

Are words powerful? When I look back I don’t look at the words that my ancestors have said. I look at their actions. Yes, words have their place and they grow stronger if followed by action.

Kizzy

20/10/10