We need safer words. Last week, I said this to the conversation partners who gathered under a tent at the Wild Goose Festival to hear my rifts on somebodiness.

Even the letters of the alphabet are considered dangerous. Even when abbreviated, they are considered problematic. 

I give you DEI and CRT as examples. You will likely not be given the opportunity to elaborate. Say them and prepare for a screaming match to begin. 

Why do we feel the need to problematize words meant for inclusion and mutual understanding? Why can’t we come to terms with being and belonging together in ways that are safe, inclusive and non-dueling?

Recently, I have settled on three words: I am somebody. I say them to push back against race, that four-letter curse word claiming semantic sovereignty. Race suggests that groups of human beings all mean the exact same thing.

A creative impossibility, race says that we are mere duplicates, grouped as beiges, blacks, browns, reds, yellows, and whites. Copying and pasting from the work of Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, Brian Bantum described it as “a tragic incarnation.”  

Consequently, I need words that are habitable, which is why I proclaim the raceless gospel. Because T.S. Eliot said, “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”

So, I clear my throat and say it loudly, “I am somebody.” Back from the future “kin-dom,” I come to pick up any stragglers.

Somebodiness is not based on external validation but is proof of inherent worth and dignity. It challenges the false binary of nobodies and somebodies since we are all God’s children and thus, next of kin.

Somebodiness implies that I have somatic sovereignty, that my body belongs to me. In fact, you can call first dibs before societal pressures and definitions can get to you.

Even if they already have, you can still get away from the words that serve to keep us down, that injure and afflict our sense of self through weaponized language. Oppression is first a language. 

The linguistic determinism of subjugation shapes the way an oppressed group experiences life and sees the world. This is why such groups can only see themselves through false binaries that include black/white, chosen/condemned, center/margin, minority/majority, liberal/conservative and so on, as if being human is defined by a color, our damnability or a particular number, a social or political position. 

But there is so much more to being human and better words to describe us as individuals and in community. Safer words like “somebodiness,” “semantic sovereignty” and “somatic sovereignty” all give direction to the “kin-dom” that is coming.

In fact, the way of freedom is stuck between your teeth. From tongue lashing to tongue loosing, you are words away from self-emancipation from systems that threaten and call into question your somatic sovereignty. 

First step and first word are linked. You need only begin by speaking a new way of being into existence. 

Talk to yourself and then talk back to the world’s systems of dehumanization, marginalization and oppression. This interrupts that soul- crushing machinery.

It will require resilience as the climb from your gut to your lips is steep. But if we are ever to be delivered from “relationships of ruling,” then we must work to reach those words that affirm our dignity and our destiny to be free. 

And you are closer than you think. Liberation is just past your lips and on the very tip of your tongue.

So, take these words with you. Don’t leave them. 

Don’t save them for a rainy day or for another day when you believe them. That’s not how this kind of freedom works. 

You won’t know the day or the hour when the time comes for your escape. When I circle back, I will not wait for you. 

This is a “moral assignment”; take it or leave it. Somebodiness must be embodied and freedom is on the move.

I know that this may be hard for some of us to believe, but the words of oppression are fleeting. They’re just passing through. Never meant to be suitable, they are hand-me-downs, an irregular fit passed down to you and then passed off as you. 

These words that reduce the size of you to a category and sends your expansive soul to a corner of the room. Instead, you are free to move. 

You’re safe here. Say it with me, “I am somebody.” Now, let’s get going.