In Defence Of Talk

“There is a strand of thinking which suggests that talk and action are opposites, and you hear this idea within social change circles. It is a perception that comes from a valid place. Because there is a world of difference between saying we need change and doing what is required to make it happen… Yet the thing about talk is that it carries power… bell hooks argues that language is used as a way to recover from and push back against racism and its harms: ‘Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance’. Specifically, hooks tells us that: ‘Language is also a place of struggle’… For those committed to transformative social change, we can think of talk as part of the architecture of systems of harm and domination but also as a means to create a world that looks very different from the one we inhabit today… a world transformed.”