Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always harm me

Language.  Words.  These are things that never really dominated our discussions in class, but that always worked as a kind of behind-the-scenes agent.  We have, obviously, decried the use of words like “heathen” in favor of terms like “unreached peoples.”  This is in effort not only to put away the language of the civilizing mission, but also to cleanse ourselves of any wrong done previously.

I suppose I had always assumed that by the 1950’s we were done with that kind of language.  By the 1960s, surely, we had put it away.  That was the era of civil rights!  Feminism was around the corner.  Didn’t Americans know better by then?  Weren’t mission practices (and, by sheer association, mission terms) evolving?  Hadn’t those things been fixed?

Apparently not.  This is the one entry where I have been directly told that if I needed direction it would be best to write about Africa (or somewhere else—I can’t remember right now), but the choice remains ours.  This is also the one time where I will not be writing about Africa, but I will, instead, be looking at the language of this issue as a whole.  Of course, the caveat should be made that “the past is a foreign country—people do things differently there.”  The language used was conceived of in a time before the idea of political correctness existed.  However, this exercise is intended largely to examine past missionary practices in a critical light, so that is what I intend to do.

The first bit I will take is from the “Juniors” page.  The missionaries are writing from their children’s perspectives when they say, “There are many little Haitian boys and girls who come to our church.  We feel very sorry for them because they do not have very much.”  The idea that children care so deeply about the material possessions of their friends is odd.  I doubt that their very young (from the picture, none of the missionary children look above the age of seven) children take much note that their friends do not have good shoes.  The adults feeling sorry for these children?  I would believe it.  Children inspire a special kind of sympathy.  However, the idea that the missionary kids feel bad for them?  It gives the article an unintended tint of uppityness.  After all, if children cannot ignore differences among each other, who can?

I’m already running long here, so I will only take one more example from this issue.  The word heathen is used in an article written by a South African missionary.  I guess this is what really grabbed me and told me to write this.  I mean, it was the early 60s!  This was no time of great colonialism!  And still!  This word was used.  It honestly is very hard for me to believe.  I’m very interested to know at what point the word was really dropped out of (at least official) usage in proper publications such as this one. 

There are several more examples of language that could easily be considered “harmful” in this issue, but I am severely restricted in length, so they will have to be left out.  Language is such an important part of human communication, it is surprising to me that it was not understood to be possibly counterproductive until so recently.