The power of words and definitions

IMG_1956People who live in Los Angeles, like in all places, have a lot of nicknames. We heard people called “shelter resistant” and “career criminals.” We heard about the “school to prison pipeline.” We heard the Unites States called “La Oosa”, and the “Land of Milk and Honey”, and Los Angeles called the “Land of Second Chances”. As protesters march, they call out “Nothing about us without us!” and as they leave, they chant, “We’ll be back”. Loca
l NGO’s talked about ‘mission drift”, and called the 90’s “the decade of death.” A homeless person tells us, “dog parks downtown have more amenities than our parks.” “Gentrification”, we were told, is the continuation of Colonization. “When Starbucks comes, you know you lost”, they add.

“So what keeps you motivated?” we ask. “It aint over yet.” is the reply

The definition of violence is a force or action that injures, harms, or destroys. An NGO that specialized in torture and trauma gave us this definition of the purpose of torture: to dismantle a person (physically, mentally, and emotionally) and take away their trust in themselves and other people. This definition especially had a big effect on me, because it reveals the purpose of torture, something I don’t think about, probably because of fear of looking too deep within myself and my experiences. But definitions are very important:

Definitions also have the power to direct or limit an NGO’s reach. As seen in the example of the Torture Immigration place we visited, they had to clearly define “torture” and related terms, to draw a line in the san between those that qualify for their help, and those that don’t, based off of available funding. And words are important because that is the way we frame things.

For example, when someone goes to jail, the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony changes peoples lives forever. The word “victim” does not often match the reality, or what people expect to see. When looking at mental illness, tIMG_1953here is such a stigma associated with it. The people who have it don’t want to self identify that way because they might end up in a situation worse that what they are already in; NGO’s my have trouble finding funding for their cause. After all, as a person from one of the organizations we visited told us, “there are those that are easy to help, and those that are not.” If an NGO needs to meet a bottom line and show numbers of success, its much easier to boost numbers by avoiding the more, shall we say, difficult cases. “I’m scared to death that I a much sicker than I thought,” is a phrase we can all relate too.