Words matter

I have been following with interest the media’s reporting of the ban in Manitoba’s Legislative Assembly on the use of the words racist, bigot, homophobe, misogynist and transphobe to call out hateful speech. The stated goal of the ban is “to improve House decorum.”

I’ve appreciated the fulsome coverage of this issue in the Free Press through the publishing of editorials, op-eds and letters to the editor. I was in particular struck by Premier Wab Kinew’s comments during his May 7 monthly interview with Marcy Markusa on CBC Radio.

Kinew’s strong opposition to the ban raises a critical question: How do we keep democratic civil society alive while silencing the calling out of discriminatory language and behaviour? Of course we can’t. By confusing decorum with silence we run the risk of contributing to a “head in the sand” mindset; to what American journalist and activist Barbara Ehrenreich referred to as a “Smile or Die” culture.

But then a followup question emerges: How do we effectively voice our legitimate dissent in ways that move us towards correcting discriminatory practices? A “no holds barred” approach to voicing our opposition may not be the answer. It’s all too easy to slip into shaming people by lobbing ad hominem/ad feminam attacks across partisan lines.

The skill of responding with non-combative moral clarity is a difficult one to cultivate both in political life and in the broader public and private spheres. It is, however, a worthy goal — perhaps an essential one in our efforts to embrace the messiness of democratic life.

Which brings us to the question of moral clarity in the field of journalism. And back to the May 7 interview during which Wab Kinew challenged Markusa to weigh in on the issue of racist language. She responded by indicating that “…my job is not to have an opinion.”

I fully endorse Kinew’s assertion that putative journalistic impartiality poses a disservice to the public.

Of course it does because it is a form of self-imposed silencing; because it denies the fact that all perspectives are filtered through our values and life experiences; because it denies the fact that all journalists curate their coverage, bringing certain issues to the foreground while assigning other critical issues and events to the back page. Or indeed rendered invisible.

I choose to access news through CBC and the Free Press because of some degree of alignment with my values and my understanding of the causes and consequences of local and international realities. I choose to access other trusted media sources when I want clarity on important issues that, to my mind, are not adequately covered by mainstream Canadian media. I choose to avoid watching Fox News and other American news outlets that self-declare as far right, such as Breitbart News and Tucker Carlson Network.

I make these choices on the basis of my decidedly non-impartial standards of moral clarity, a clarity that I strive to bring into all my authentic exchanges including those with people who have significantly different perspectives from my own.

We know that our words do matter; they can hurt or heal. And for better or worse, they can and do influence both individual and collective action. But the issue of whether to ban or not ban in the House goes well beyond cleaning up our words on either side of the political divide.

What seems a clearer and more pressing requirement is the need to ban political policies and institutional structures that leave far too many people living on the margins.

So let’s all embrace the messy business of democracy by exercising moral clarity through a commitment to value-led truth-seeking and truth-speaking. And ultimately to value-led action that carves away at deeply entrenched societal hierarchies that bring undue suffering in their wake.

Surely this is the challenge facing parliamentarians in the House as well as journalists in their newsrooms.

Surely this is the challenge facing all of us in our work places and our places of play; in our city streets and in our rural communities; on our front stoops and around our kitchen tables.

Frances Ravinsky is a co-founder of Community Works Manitoba, a small not-for-profit based in Winnipeg that uses first-person storytelling to explore critical social issues.