Words, nor people, truly equal

I remember my Honors English 10 teacher Mr. Ransome explaining the concept of the perfect word. He told us, for every sentence, there was a right tone, delivery and word choice.

Strung together, these "perfect" words would form something beautiful; a complete, coherent thought that would be so provocative a reader couldn't help but stop, reflect and think.

Words, he said, are not created equally.

Since then I have never looked at words the same way. Each comes with two different definitions: a denotation and a connotation. A word's denotation is the literal form, the dictionary meaning. A word's connotation describes the attitude and emotion that come along.

For instance: love and hate - two, one-syllable words that pack quite a punch.

Last week I was reading a friend's blog. He was elaborating on his winter break in Pueblo, our hometown. To say the least, he wreaked havoc all over town and had a blast doing it. Brad - who would consider himself one of the state's top-notch drinkers - recounted all of the drunken conversations and adventures he had with his buddies.

I was enjoying myself in Brad's world, where the beer flows endlessly and the laughs never cease, until I came across him calling one of his friends a "homo."

Later he calls one "gay."

Every other insult begins or ends with some homo-hating harassment.

I called Brad on it. I asked him why a smart lad like himself would use such inappropriate language. I left this comment at the end of the post:

"Bradley, sounds like you had quite the winter break. Very funny stuff you have here. Yet, I'm left disappointed that you - in your brilliance - can't muster up better insults than "homo" and "gay." Such hate. And not funny anymore. Really, it's sorta like the '90s. Or worse, a popped collar. You don't pop your collar do you, Brad?"

Later he and I had a conversation via instant messenger. I asked him what the aforementioned words meant to him in his usage and why he used them.

"I use them because they are a part of my standard vocabulary," he said. "What do they mean to me? Dumb, retarded."

Ouch. I began to wonder if he thought I was dumb and retarded.

Maybe the pen is mightier than the drag queen?

What hurt the most, as I said on my blog, was that these words came from my friend, an intelligent guy, who graduated top of the class.

I wrote, "He's so smart and quick. Perhaps some of my best conversations with breeders have been with him. Not many people, gay or straight for that matter, can hang with me when it comes to a battle of wit and tongue, moreover in Pueblo."

If ever there was a perfect word to spark a little controversy, "breeder" was it.

One of my readers, Laura, left a comment wondering how I could call someone out for using a sexual-orientated classification term and use one myself in the same breath?

First, I explained it like this, "I use the term breeder, which is rapidly becoming an acceptable term, as a synonym for heterosexual or straight."

See, Brad's friend is straight. So calling him gay would be an untrue statement with the only possible implications of making him less of a man.

Personally, I have no problem when the guys back home, including my brother, call me DK or Dude Kisser, because that's who I am. Moreover, if one of them were to describe me as a fag, I'd more than welcome it.

If a person's words are meant to cause harm, that'd be a different story. However, in my case I was simply using the term to draw the perfect description of Brad.

Laura - a bed-ridden mother-to-be - responded that no matter how commonplace or un-hateful I intended my words to be, they were still harmful, because they divided humans.

She found this article where some 'mo, Jason Ruel, writes that the word "breeder," used by a homosexual to define a heterosexual, is the new "N" word.

"How can we get the heterosexual world to trust and respect us when we refer to its citizens as Breeders? We cannot," he writes. "That would be like me walking into an NAACP meeting and saying, "What's up nigger?" It just does not work."

First, I have to point out that, simply, an oppressed people can in no way oppress their oppressors. Ask any political scientist. It just doesn't happen. As a friend said, if the term 'breeder' is indeed used for derogatory, the most it can amount to is a "responsive" term.

However, Ruel is right. In the broader spectrum, any word used to belittle a people is just wrong.

But hate aside, the terms "breeder" and "fag" are very important because they are two words that define two very different types of people that bring different qualities to this world: birth and fabulousness.

So it doesn't matter what we call or define each other as. Just so it's honest and in respect.

"America needs a wake-up call. We need to stop creating lines between people. Unfortunately, it is just our way. Maybe it is just the human way - I hope not ... I hope I can raise my son to be better," Laura wrote on my blog. "... I hope everyone can raise their sons and daughters to be better."

I couldn't agree with your more Laura. And instead of using these words to divide, we need to use them to distinguish. Enrich ourselves - and vocabulary - with diversity and complexity.

Strung together, these "perfect" people will form something beautiful, a complete, coherent world that would be so provocative even the most spiteful can't help but stop, reflect and love.