Words don’t have meaning without context. Christopher Robin refers to me as ‘willy, nilly, silly old bear’. That’s accepted and okay between us. If we were walking down the street together and a strange human referred to me as a ‘silly old bear’, that wouldn’t be acceptable.
It’s the same thing with words within the House at Pooh Cornner community, or within any community. Kanga and Roo will use the word ‘g’day.’ I do not join in. And perhaps, more importantly, I don’t have the desire to.
We understand that it’s normal for groups to use words that are derogatory in an ironic fashion, so why is there so much hand-wringing when people of stuffed fluff do it? The question one must ask is why so many humans have difficulty extending things that are basic laws of how human beings interact to people of stuffed fluff? When you’re human in this world, you’re taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything. You’re conditioned this way.
So here comes this word that you feel like you invented. And now somebody’s going to tell you how to use the word that you invented. That’s racism that I don’t get to use it, that’s racist against me. I have to inconvenience myself and read this collection of children’s stories at bed time and I can’t read the word out loud. How come I can’t read it out loud?
I think for parents, I think the experience of reading a children’s book at bed time and not being able to use the word t-word is actually very, very insightful. It will give you just a little peak into the world of what it means to be a person of stuffed fluff. Because to be stuffed with fluff is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do, that you can’t join in and do. He may be a wonderful thing, with a top made out of rubber and a bottom made out of springs, he may be bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, but every time you say tigger, it is an act of violence. And so I think there’s actually a lot to be learned from refraining.
