What Words Should We Choose to "Market" Change?

"My children and I have privilege, but “privilege” is the wrong word to describe the meaning we are trying to communicate. It’s too philosophical… not practical enough. The use of that word is setting the entire conversation up for defensiveness, confrontation and failure. The people we need to understand the meaning, can’t relate to the word. So, we either keep pushing because we think we’re right or we figure out a way to adjust the message so it actually educates, raises awareness and accomplishes the results we need it to." - Excerpt from a post from Facebook, by Jason Keisau https://www.facebook.com/jkiesau/posts/3590627804298928

I agree, words do matter. Especially as a marketer, I agonize over the right words and making sure that the words resonate with the intended audience. I think carefully about what words will shut people down, and which words will drive them to action. It is a fine balance.

In the marketing world, we always say that if your words, ad, or message require so much explaining -- then you need to try something else. If a campaign, for example, is to get more than a few enlightened white people to change, empathize, shift their view, and stand with people of color (POC) - then the message has to be one that is clear, not easily misconstrued, and doesn't require that you need to have some patient black friends who are willing to take the time to explain it to you.

I think the problem comes when the sender - in this case POC - choose the words that come from their experience - which is totally right for them and represents well their reality. But when you try to deliver that message to white people, who black people will say have no idea about their experience, then words like 'White Privilege' and 'Black Lives Matter' are met with confusion at best and defensiveness at worst. The intended message is not received.

Those words are just as triggering and emotional to white people - but in a completely different way. The response is, "I may be white but I'm poor (or a woman,) and I don't feel privileged or like any one cut me a break." We have no concept that what you mean is white people are born with certain rights that we take for granted. And while that message of "white privilege" is supposed enlighten us, it gets completely lost on us because being deprived of "inalienable rights" has never been our reality.

Those Who Respond #AllLivesMatter, Don't Understand the True Meaning of the Words Black Lives Matter

These words are the perfect rallying cries for POC. Those words resonate, create emotion, and unite people who all understand it through their common experience. I feel like I have always been a compassionate, non-racist, open-minded white person, willing to listen. But I will be honest, when I first heard 'Black Lives Matter,' my thought was these words were going to take the focus off the cops who are over using deadly force. I thought, "Wouldn't fixing the cop problem with training save black lives and everyone's lives?"

The first time I heard the phrase Black Lives Matter used it was in the limited context that I understood - which was the police deeming that black lives don't matter so they shoot them. And I have relatives who are officers and many fine officers who I know would never shoot someone for their skin color. I could even name way more white people who were killed by the police because they were mentally ill, homeless, or drug addicted, rather than for being black.

The Words, 'Stop or I'll Shoot' Normalized Shooting Unarmed People

I asked, "Didn't all of those lives senselessly ended because of poorly trained police matter? Don't ALL lives matter? Shouldn't the focus be on getting the police to not use guns as their first line of defense? Shouldn't we change the words 'stop or I'll shoot' we've learned from every cop movie for years that helped normalize the behavior that shooting unarmed 'people' of all color in the back for running away is as acceptable?"

It took me two years of intentional time and effort to understand the larger context of #blacklivesmatter. No history class or anything learned in school or any thing I experienced gave me the whole context or an understanding of the nuances of the broader perspective of implicit bias and institutionalized racism. I am still working to understand all the context of 'Black Lives Matter.' But I still would not get it today if I did not have black friends, and if I were not brave enough to ask, and if they were not patient enough to explain.

What Are the Practical Words We Can Use To Make Complex Issues Understood By the Masses?

Maybe in part the institutionalized racism starts with the lack of any education about things like institutionalized racism or implicit bias. These are complex issues and many white people don't even know how they contribute to it or that they even are at all.

For another instance, I was date raped once and subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace many years ago - these are my own first-hand experiences. Men don't understand my experience, how could I expect them to? I don't think I really understood why these experiences were wrong myself until about five years ago. Being black or being white (or a woman or poor or whatever we are) and what we should innately understand about these different experiences, is not always so black and white.

I am not saying we should stop using the words 'White Privilege' or 'Black Lives Matter' because after you really understand them you know they are the exact right ones. And as discussions are able to happen these words, and the concepts behind them, are becoming more and more understood. But it is clear, as I'm trying to "whitesplain" to some friends the best I can what those words really mean, so many white people are just not there yet.

I hope there will be more tolerance for our ignorance and also more accountability for white people who do not even try to listen or understand.

But if we want to market an actionable message of change NOW to the masses, we have to think of some other strategies - and even other words or additional ones. Words that will be accepted and embraced by even the 60-year-old white woman in Southern Iowa who, watching the "riots" on Facebook Live, commented, "Minnesotans please go home and leave our Iowa alone." Literally thinking this was a 'Minnesota thing.'

Maybe Often We Should Just Choose To Use No Words

Right now, the masses watched George Floyd's life snuffed out in front of our collective eyes for nearly nine minutes, and we seem to be universally saddened, sickened, or enraged. Hopefully his life and death has most of us more willing to listen. What plans will we present to frustrated young people now that they finally have our ear? Along with these new tactics of revolt, what new approaches - like police kneeling on their knees in Des Moines, Iowa, and across the nation - will constitute our new responses and open conversations?

Content (words and images) is king on social media, they say. Hashtags are intended to unite people. Words matter more than ever. I hope we are all careful about the words we choose to represent our perspective and the words we choose to respond with to others. And until then, maybe our response to words we don't understand should be to hold back and use NO WORDS at all. Just take a knee and LISTEN.

Here is Another Misunderstanding, It's Not a 'Riot,' It's a Revolution

As we are now debating about whether things should be broken or if people's lives matter more then stuff, the words we are using to label the unrest already matter. Why do we need to call all people out protesting 'thugs' when only a few are looting? What is the difference between calling the unrest a 'protest' versus a 'riot' or just dismissing it all as 'rebel-rousing' rather than deeming it a 'revolution.'

Maybe instead of any social media commentary at all (especially as marketers or wordsmiths or teachers), we can go help pick up the broken pieces. Or just sit quietly and think about what words we can use to unite people, promote widespread understanding, and usher in real change in honor of George Floyd, and all the Black People and Americans who died senselessly before him.

What words will inspire the actions needed for these 'riots' to be recorded rightly in history as the 'revolution' that finally made ALL lives matter?