THE RECTOR’S CORNER

The Reverend Canon Greg Frost

You Long Haired Pinko Commie!

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me.” I was taught this as a child in order to
respond to those persons on the playground who might call me names. It was a child’s rhyme, and it was intended to instill confidence in the wake of someone who merely wanted to hurt me through name calling. The problem with the rhyme is that it is false. Broken bones mend, but monikers and slanderous comments can last a lifetime, and they can cause far more damage than can sticks and stones.

For instance, I can remember a time when being called a communist was a terrible insult. And not only was it an
insult, but it was down right dangerous being branded a communist because a person could lose his/her employment
as well as be ostracized in one’s community. Being called a communist was serious stuff in the 1950s.
Blacklisting was real. It hurt a number of innocent persons depriving them of liberty and the freedom of expression.

However, by the time I came of age in the 1960s, things had begun to change. Long hair on men became hip and vogue, and a new idealism swept through the younger post World War II generation.

It was about peace and reconciliation and not fear and war. I got swept away by this new philosophy. I was a love child of the 1960s. I had long hair; I was against the war; I joined demonstrations; I was a member of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society, a leftist group); and by God the very first person I voted for president of the United States was Eugene McCarthy. Was I a communist? Certainly by the 1950s standards I was, but in reality I wasn’t. The only Marx I understood was Groucho. I was an idealistic youth more interested in girls and enjoying not going to classes in college and yet getting credit for them than I was in Stalin’s Great Society. But my joie de vivre frightened a lot of people. Change is never easy especially when it means one group must cede power to another group. As a result, frequently I was called a long-haired pinko commie. I was called this so often that the word communist just lost its meaning. It didn’t hurt anymore because it was such a misnomer. Eventually it reached a point that I would admit that I was a communist. So what? There were so many of us who were branded as communists that the term was rendered meaningless and lost all power to hurt or dissuade. And that was okay. The slanderous intent of the word needed to die.

We are in a similar situation today. Instead of branding someone we dislike a communist, now we call them a racist or homophobe or sexist or on and on. These are vile words, and they should be for they refer to horrible actions by people. However, these words are in danger of losing their bite because they are so often misapplied.
So often they are used to hurt or slander or stop a conversation by fearful people. The result is going to be that if you call someone a racist enough when in fact they only hold a differing point of view from you, then the word will eventually be rendered meaningless. All too soon people who are branded as racists, who really are not racists, will say, “So what?” And then we, as a society, will have gone too far. Then the real racists will go unchecked because
they will be able to hide under the guise of name calling. Then the real homophobes and sexists will be able to operate with impunity. And the very persons whom people are trying to protect by calling someone these seek to protect.

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me.” Maybe they can’t hurt me, but they sure
can hurt the true recipients of racism and bigotry through over use.