Because perhaps it has frozen over?
I find myself in the unbelievable position of agreeing with our erstwhile candidate on the GOP ticket. Sarah Palin, for the first time since her inexplicable arrival on the political scene, has said something that actually makes sense.
I find myself taking her side in the tiff with David Letterman, who sparked a debate by making what even he admits to be a tasteless joke about one of her daughters. It wasn't funny, and probably would have drifted off into the wilderness, except that Sarah was paying attention. (Insert snide remark here - as a big fan of the "gotcha media", I don't have a lot of credibility when it comes to objective analysis of her character.)
Ms. Palin made her argument on the Today show this morning, to an incredulous Matt Lauer who taunted her with raised eyebrows during the interview. He took great pains to insist that Letterman was just joking, geeze, nothing to get your long underwear in a knot over. You slutty flight attendants are so touchy...
Not so fast, buster.
Sarah's argument centers around the idea that our words actually matter. Letterman's joke about her youngest daughter getting "knocked up" by the third baseman for the Yankees wasn't just unfunny, wasn't just rude or in poor taste. This kind of crap, these stupid jokes, these reaffirmed stereotypes of women get slowly burned into the collective, cultural consciousness. Stupid women, stupid girl, stupid blonde. Stupid, slutty, trampy, trashy women.
Now, I recognize that we've come a long way, baby. I see how facial expressions go from interested to flat when I go off on my tangents, get up on one of my soapboxes. Boo, hiss, shut UP already, Jaime. Yeeaaa, no. Sorry.
The words we choose to use represent our thoughts, our feelings, our fears. The words we select out of the vast language options are indicative of what we believe. These words send signals, spoken and unspoken, that communicate the fundamentals of our belief systems.
For example, when I hear someone say "Merry Christmas", I hear the following message: I believe in Jesus, and you should too. If you don't believe in Jesus, you're an outsider and don't belong here. As a result, I say "Happy Holidays" to everyone, even once to my pastor on Christmas Eve. (That got an eyebrow raise, lemme tell ya.) Other phrases, like "Do you work?" send another message. "Are you important? Or do you just sit at home and change diapers all day?" Hell, yes I work. I work inside the home, outside the home, all around the home, and I can kick your ass if you don't get out of my way.
It is my firm believe that our words indicate who we are, what we believe, and how we think. Our words create the relationships between people, and our relationships with people result in our society at large. So our little "jokes" about girls, women, gays, blondes, and even the "stupid husband" characters on sitcoms like Raymond and The King of Queens represent our true societal beliefs.
David Letterman apologized, sincerely this time, for his bad joke. Sarah used his apology as a chance to take one last swing, saying that she hopes men that make sex jokes about women "evolve". I am surprised to hear that word from her, because that word carries other connotations than just to grow and change. But I do agree with her, that it is time for the entertainers in society to rise above the lowest denominator and to quit repeating sexist, unfunny jokes about girls and women. It is time for us to chose our words more carefully, to create a better society, one relationship at a time.
