Some of us grew up with the saying, \u201cSticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.\u201d It was a line of defense on the childhood playground, a way to rebuff verbal bullies and avoid a fistfight. It is also false. Words can hurt \u2013 sometimes more deeply and with more long-lasting effect than sticks and stones. Words can also heal, inspire, uplift, and unite. Words matter. It\u2019s hard to imagine anything with more impact on us as individuals and on our community than how we speak to and about each other.<\/p>\n
At Miami, The Code of Love and Honor guides what we say and do, including respecting the dignity and rights of others and \u201ctheir right to hold and express disparate beliefs.\u201d Honoring that sentiment is vital for our growth, for problem-solving, for unity, and for our success. Insensitive or insolent words divide and weaken us. Mutually respectful dialogue helps us flourish.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to witness the importance of words first-hand. At a demonstration near the Armstrong Student Center, words of division, bias, and intolerance were used by an outside group \u2013 words that could easily have caused hurt. What happened instead was that Miami students responded with words of their own \u2013 words of acceptance, tolerance, and support for those being targeted by protestors, their fellow Miamians. What a powerful gift many of them shared by living this line of the Code: \u201cI demonstrate Love and Honor by supporting and caring for my fellow Miamians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Words are the way that human beings shape the world. We each seek coherence and meaning to the vast encounters we have in our environment. Language gives us the ability to understand, but it also puts us at risk of misunderstanding. Misunderstanding one word\u2019s meaning can lead to completely misunderstanding everything a person may be trying to say.<\/p>\n
As anyone who has studied a second language knows, most words don\u2019t have only one meaning; they can be interpreted many ways. One challenging task of translation is selecting the most precise equivalent for the particular text from among an array of choices. A similar challenge sometimes arises in our conversations with each other. We might hear someone make a remark that is negative in our personal vocabulary, but we shouldn\u2019t assume that\u2019s what they intended to convey. That\u2019s why dialogue is indispensable. Instead of reacting to a remark with \u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d dialogue starts with \u201cWhat did you mean by that?\u201d Through dialogue, we might discover how much we have in common despite the differences in word choice.<\/p>\n
More than ever, we need such respectful engagement in the 21st century. We\u2019re living in an increasingly diverse world, and we\u2019ll have to learn to talk to each other to ensure that our differences are a source of creativity, delight, and enrichment rather than division and pain. We should, for example, respect the rights of groups to choose the names that are applied to them by others, and avoid using those names in any negative way.<\/p>\n
Our commitment to Love and Honor, our history of standing up for human equality, and our virtues of openness, respect, honesty, and generosity put Miami in a strong position to model and convene civil discourse and fruitful conversations about the great challenges facing us as individuals and as a society. Knowing words can hurt, we can choose instead to use them to heal, elevate, and unite. We are One Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of us grew up with the saying, \u201cSticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.\u201d It was a line of defense on the childhood playground, a way to rebuff verbal bullies and avoid a fistfight. It is also false. Words can hurt \u2013 sometimes more deeply and with more long-lasting effect than sticks and stones. Words can also heal, inspire, uplift, and unite. Words matter. It\u2019s hard to imagine anything with more impact on us as individuals and on our community than how we speak to and about each other. At Miami, The Code\u2026 Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1721,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-love-and-honor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1721"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}