Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

Photo by Pierre Chatel Innocenti on Upsplash As I mentioned in Ode to Words (Part 1): One Line Wednesday , I recently attended a workshop on racial and gender equity. While there, and as part of the workshop, I was exposed to words that were mostly unfamiliar to me: systemic oppression…equity-focused…gender justice lens…power imbalances…patriarchy…unpacking white privilege…micro aggressions…gender policing…monosexism…tokenism…White Fragility…intersectionality… As I listened, perplexed, and watched others around me nodding and murmuring understanding, I felt oddly…isolated. Have you ever played that game with yourself where you repeat a common, known , word over-and-over until it loses all meaning, all sense ? Words are funny things, aren’t they? They can be powerful and meaningful—listen to any Barack Obama speech —or absurd—read any of DonaldTrump’s tweets , or heck listen to him speak extemporaneously. systemic oppression…equity-focused…gender justice lens…power ...

Recently, a friend of mine called me“bougie.” In case you’ve never heard the term, Urban Dictionary defines bougie , a hacked truncation of the word Bourgeoisie, which refers to the middle-class in Europe, as “aspiring to be a higher class than one is.” Now, this wasn’t the first time I’ve been called bougie. And generally, being called bougie doesn’t offend me because it calls me out for daring to dream, for striving to accomplish something. I have, after all been called other, worse things. And I don’t particularly care much what other people think of me. But being called bougie does rather irritate me because it inherently asserts that I have no right to dream, to achieve, that who I was at birth is who I should be at death. The word bougie seems to stem from a screwed-up thought process that defines a place for everyone, a place they must always remain. I remember as a kid, when I talked back, I would be told I was “out of place.” And that was often a punishable offens...

This week I am contemplating the smile and the nature of happiness. Sunday I was walking in Carpenter’s Woods with our two dogs, Toby and Riley. As we swept around a curve in the trail, I spotted a thin androgynous figure moving towards us. As the person emerged out of the shadows I saw it was a young woman; her hair, bleached to the color and consistency of straw, stuck out at almost right angles to the red wool cap pulled low over her forehead. On her face, she wore an expression as devastated as Nagasaki after the bombing. She continued walking towards us with heavy steps, seeming to sink further into the soft earth with every step, the weight of the world’s woes piled on her back. She stared at us approaching through eyes dulled by the twin cataracts of sadness and disappointment. Riley, spotting her, ran towards her. Her mouth was a thin line of grim determination as she regarded him with a mixture of dread and suspicion. What new hell this? she seemed to be thinking. ...