Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 18 seconds

My question here is this: if I choose to use the word ‘tribal’ as I understand it and need to use it because there are no suitable cognates, then must I censor my own speech when I know the person I am writing to would be offended? Probably. What if I am writing to a general audience? How aware must I be and how sensitive must I be to possible offense? I have a very fine-haired trigger point these days to the negative effects of self-censorship. I have had to ‘bite my tongue’ way too often and a recent experience was a very public one. Someone tried to use a public online space to shame me into silence. Does a personal experience like this factor in here when we talk about free speech or must I always eat my own history in favor of cultural sensitivity? All words connote. And they connote differently depending upon context. We can be honest with each other as we try bridge the language gaps AND as you say and I have said, speak and listen as slowly as we can.

I come at this in a very one-sided way as a speaker and writer of English, as that fabled “privileged white male” you spoke of in an April post, but I do come at it with as much awareness as I can muster. That is the best I can do. I can only accomodate so much not because I don’t want to but because I can’t. Well, part of me doesn’t want to. The lazy part that wants to be unburdened by nuance and cultural difference and all of the world of living that I am unlikely to ever see because it is so far away. But mostly I don’t know and rely on others to tell me when I have crossed a line I never knew existed. Just remember that we all have those lines, even the privileged white dinosaurs like me.