What we say can stick in the minds of others and impact them in ways we cannot foresee. Whether those comments are positive or negative, they show who you are as a person and what can become of you. Like many of our parents’ and those older in age have taught us, “If you do not have anything nice to say do not say anything at all.” When Toni Morrison said "Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence. [It] does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge," she was embodying what our parents have always taught us. Morrison was trying to say that when we use words that have once been used to dehumanize or belittle one another we limit what we, as human race, can become. Oppressive language is always
