[Zinedine Zidane, translated]
Some words that
Can hurt more than actions
[Verse 1]
You ever take a pounding to the deepest part?
Thinking you were sound and then it breaks your heart?
That place where no arm can breach
Where no harm can reach
'Til a figure of speech
Comes and seeks to besiege
Your memories and teaches reasons
Why you need to bleach
Every inch of you
Every pinch'll do
Nothing like a bit of syntax
That's a sin tax
On a brown back
That's when my chest gets heavy
And my palms get sweaty
And I think maybe it's petty to get
Unsteady from this threat he
Doesn't know much better than to pa** on
But somehow these are syllables I can't pa** on
[Zinedine Zidane, translated]
I'd rather have been punched in the face
Than have heard these things
[Verse 2]
We want discourse, but what's the best course
Of action? Better to cut on the language that stings
The aggressions of the smallest degree? I agree
But then we try so hard to be honest
Avoid stings but we're by the WASPs' nest
I pick my words like blackberries with thorns
How come no one wants to take the bull by the horns?
In this discussion we're all painfully mourning
Our oppression but there's a facade that our words ain't ignoring
The same heavy weight of controlling
Our own lexicons, we're conforming
To restrictions we think are according
To inclusivity, but where's the outpouring?
I can't open my mouth when there's a harness around it
Don't act astounded
I put it there myself
To end this verse
More than a bite, I know how much a bark is worse
The deepest part, yeah
The deepest part
They say political correctness
Is what's ruining this country
A guy hears that and has a hunch he
Can't deny. He feels the words leak out of his sides
He just stands by
[Zinedine Zidane]
Some words that
Can hurt more than actions
[Claudia Rankine]
Our very being exposes us to the address of another, she said
...there is no avoiding the word-filled sticks and stones of others. Our emotional openness, she added, is borne, in both its meanings, by our addressability. Language navigates this