Words are powerful. We all use them everyday. Do yours inspire peace or hatred?
As I write, the details of last week’s shooting at a Tucson, Ariz. grocery store parking lot are becoming clearer. Someone approached Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others gathered for a local meeting and conversation with constituents. He suddenly shot at several people, killing six, and shooting Rep. Giffords in the head. The dead included John Roll, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Arizona, and Gabe Zimmerman, 30, the congresswoman's director of community outreach. An additional 13 people were injured. The lone gunman was arrested.
The suspect, 22-year-old Jared Loughner, is being held on multiple counts of murder. His background is being discussed all over the media, including the videos uploaded to YouTube in which he advocates violence against America, our government and its leaders. While some speculate about his mental health status, others are aware of the white-hot political rhetoric characteristic of the last few years in Arizona and other conservative southern border states. Emotional, narrow-minded language is present constantly in the print media, radio, and all over the Internet. Talk that is so bitter and divisive, the county sheriff said that his own state of Arizona has become a “mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
While Arizona and its residents may have more than their fair share of political rancor, especially around the issue of illegal immigration, it is not alone in its struggle against violence-inspiring speech. Technology has given all of us, including terrorists foreign and domestic, the capacity to communicate and inspire instantaneously and worldwide. We all have seen the way that cable television news shows, Internet websites, newspapers, magazines, and talk radio can spin the hatred of narrow political ideology in ways that incite violence. This act in Arizona is another in a seemingly endless string of human acts of violence of one person against the other, one perspective against another, one nation against the other.
Words are powerful. We need to choose them carefully even as we protect our rights of free speech, assembly and press. What is our responsibility as people of faith to this growing human problem? Is it too big for one person to have an impact?
As a family therapist, I believe that the family is at the center of this problem of violent speech, both in its origins and for its healing. The most important speech we ever hear about ourselves and how we live is the speech we hear every day in our families of origin. When couples and families come to therapy, one of the first things I hear and address, and try to intervene on, is angry, belittling and demeaning speech between family members. I know the power of that kind of interaction. If my clients can’t begin to calm their inner worlds enough to talk with respect to one another, not one single thing I say or do about their other behaviors will be effective.
What can people of good will and faith do to impact violence in the world? We can strive to become people of clear, calm and respectful communication, in our homes, with our families, at work and online. Take a good look at the way you use words in your life. Do you have a positive impact on the world? Or do you use words as weapons to wound others? Be part of the solution, and mind how you communicate.
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