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EL RESPETO is the self-enforcing rule at UMX. Give some, get some.

But in case it is in doubt, this is a place for those who want to think and speak honestly and occasionally at length, and I’d like to think in a thoughtful way. This is not anything I demand or enforce…those are just the type of cats who come around and end up sticking around. Or at least speaking aloud!

Here we do our best to communicate without using some of the common, lazy, hateful phrasing that is built on the pain of others or on excluding others, or of exploiting others. Sometimes these ways of speaking, figures of speech, jokes, or metaphors have been with us so long, we forgot where they came from or what they really mean, or how others perceive them. We are good at reminding each other when this happens. We do this with proper and appropriate force or gentleness in relation to the intent that motivated the speaker/writer. [Note: This is not to say that someone is allowed to be ignorant repetitively at everyone's expense and then claim their intent is benign or neutral. It means that if I can help undo a bit of ignorance in someone, I will. We all say dumb or even mean things. I want people to have the chance to learn. I need that chance, too.]

We like to use language to reinforce truths often disguised by the tongue we’ve been taught: that brown is beautiful, that black is too, that women are strong and able and carry a huge burden in this culture and often without recognition, that indigenous peoples are sovereign peoples, that the male is not the given standard for everything, nor the white male, nor the thin, beautiful, western, blonde, or affluent person.

We do not always succeed in using language so positively. Nor are we are always serious. We use language to have fun, too. But we approach our thinking and writing here with conscious motion, understanding words and language are powerful and to be used with care.

Oh, and if you are just the sort come to stir shit up, we will fall upon you en masse and without mercy.

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