I'm writing a book about language and social justice and it is fraught and challenging and complicated. One thing I want to share is the ethical praxis and mindfulness that inform my approach to the subject . . .

Views on the matter differ greatly, but I don't personally believe in rigid, dogmatic, sprawling lists of words one should use and words one should not use. It is not how I operate or move through the world. I believe there are better ways of cultivating mindfulness of language..

So rather than provide a list of words with singular definitions, I often try to bring alternative perspectives into conversation and clarify my view.. not as "the only" view - but as one perspective in a matrix of positionalities, shaped by complex and shifting power relations.

Doing this work requires a certain kind of capaciousness and tolerance for political differences as well as honesty about our disagreements. It also requires a curiosity about alternative views, even views with which we strongly disagree..

It is common for activists and intellectuals on the left to trade accusations of harm with regard to the use of language. We can be very judgmental about people who use language in ways we find offensive or harmful. These judgements and disagreements can be useful and productive.

But productive disagreement hinges on our capacity for moving beyond binary thinking, grappling with complexities and acknowledging that the "judgements" we find so compelling right now at this particular moment in our political and personal development are very likely to change.

Take the word “racism”. Anti-racists do not even agree on what it means. I feel angry when the word is used in ways that erase the structural realities of power and imply a false equivalence between the positionalities of BIPOC and white folks within a system of white supremacy..

I find such use to be harmful. But when I teach courses on racism, I provide the space for students to engage with multiple perspectives and definitions of the term, even and especially definitions that contradict my own. Because that's what it means to promote critical thinking.

We're not all going to agree on the ethics and boundaries of language, but it is our civic responsibility to at least try to understand our varied and conflicting perspectives. We may even find that there is significant disagreement and conflict *within* ourselves on such matters

But many would rather just get (or create) a list of words to use and words to avoid with simple, reductive definitions and content themselves with superficial understandings of both the words and the world in order to feel like "good people" and engage in performative wokeness..

So part of what I'm doing in this book is providing definitions, yes, including definitions that are in conflict, but also providing a framework for how I approach and think through the always evolving, shifting and slippery language of power, social change and transformation.

I keep coming back to themes of capaciousness.. the ability to hold multiple, contradictory, paradoxical truths.. a certain quality of mindfulness.. and Audre Lorde’s work on the need to acknowledge the messy terrain of our differences and disagreements.

None of this is what one typically finds in the ecology of social media, which encourages static, binary thinking, a desire for easy answers, the flattening of complexity and constant desire for clout. We can delve into complexities here, but that's not what's rewarded or common.