Comparison of the Two Essays "The Meaning of a Word" and "Being a Chink"

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In "The Meaning of a Word" and "Being a Chink", Gloria Naylor and Christine Leong examine words of hatred that are meant to scorn, hurt and disgrace people. But these same words could also be used without harmful intentions and in a fashion of endearment amongst the people those words were created for. They each had a different word to discriminate their different culture and ethnicity. These writers discuss the words "nigger" and "chink", which are words in our language mostly ignorant people use. Naylor and Leong are also both minorities who were raised in America. They talk about how discrimination and hatred towards minorities is almost always inevitable in America, which is mostly populated by Caucasians. Naylor and Leong observe how these racial acts of discrimination can unify a group of people even closer together. Naylor didn't know the true meaning of the hate word nigger until it was used against her in a degrading manner. On the other hand Leong already knew what chink meant but wasn't traumatized until she found out her father discovered it. In both their essays, Naylor and Leong introduce a word that is meant to humiliate, hurt and ridicule. Naylor, being of African decent, was introduced to the word nigger at a very early age. Naylor asked her mother what the word meant, but she knew it meant something terrible. Black people raising their children in America would have to explain what nigger meant sometime in their childhood. Naylor's mom explains that the word nigger is used to try to paralyze their people by humiliation. "This word cannot be erased from the human mind or language, therefore somehow it must be overcome" (Naylor, 1986,p.470). Similarly to Naylor, Leong also introduces a word to ig... ... middle of paper ... ..., color and texture of our hair and even the subtlest facial features. The true meaning of these words doesn't even justify its existence. They are simply meaningless words meant to damage, humiliate and degrade certain groups of people. To prove those words worthless, the same groups of people that those hate words were created for, changed them into what is used sometimes in everyday social conversations. In a few ways it has assisted them knowing what each has gone through and forms somewhat of a gathering with the same strength of mind. Naylor, Gloria. "The Meaning of a Word" The Bedford Reader Eighth Edition X.J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, Jane E. Aaron. Boston, New York, 2003. 468-471 Leong, Christine. "Being a Chink" The Bedford Reader Eighth Edition X.J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, Jane E. Aaron. Boston, New York, 2003. 474-477

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