Words matter, especially now

My daughter’s elementary school emphasized respectful and inclusive language. Yet, when conservative journalist Megyn Kelly raised her concerns that the Republican nominee for president was profoundly disrespectful of women, he responded by calling her “overrated,” “angry,” “crazy” and “a bimbo”. He even referred to blood coming out of her body. How then does my friend respond to her daughter’s question, “Do we have to follow his rules?”

Because of sexual violence on college campuses, Obama used Title Nine to help bring about change. As a result, when my daughter started college, considerable time and effort was devoted to discussions of sexual assault. Yet, as a 59-year-old man, our President Elect boasted of sexually assaulting women using extremely graphic and vulgar language. Will this election outcome once again give some young men permission?

My daughter is helping high school students that recently immigrated to this country by tutoring algebra in Spanish and helping them apply to college. These children are attempting to overcome tremendous cultural and language hurdles and, if they attend college, they will be the first generation of their family to do so. On Election Day, a boy in her class was supposed to be reading Frankenstein. Instead, he stared at the page while clutching his body and rocking back and forth. He was absolutely terrified! The anti-immigration language that he had been hearing over the past months had convinced him that some members of his family would be deported the following day if Trump were elected. Words matter!

This story was originally published November 22, 2016 at 6:22 PM with the headline "Words matter, especially now."