Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’ve been more susceptible to click bait lately–maybe it’s end-of-the-school-year brain fog?  Tonight’s last unfortunate click was about some woman’s “birthing story.”  Apparently–supposedly?–some American woman delivered her baby in a Turkish hotel.  I can’t tell you all of the details because I came to my senses and bailed partway through, but only because said woman kept using the B-word in reference to herself.

I am not okay with that.

I am an English major–I LOVE words.  If a word has a derogatory connotation–if it’s perceived as an insult when uttered by a significant portion of the population–than the word is derogatory.  Using it on yourself or people who fit the same general description as you do doesn’t make it okay, because the word has become a cruel, ugly, slur.  I have never used either the N-word OR the B-word to refer to a human being, and I never will.  I don’t care whether you are black or white, male or female.  If the best we can do for a word to refer to ourselves is appropriating a word that another group uses to show contempt for us, we have problems.