Claude Brown, who wrote Manchild in the Promised Land, in an article said that people under forty in our society have never lived in an America where movie language was not liberally laced with obscenities. He said that profanity is rapidly replacing English as the language of the American people. Then he said, "Most people don't know it, but profanity is the language of violence."

People say, words can't hurt you. They can hurt you. Words can dehumanize. That's why in war the enemy is always described in language that is dehumanizing. You will never hear the military referring to the enemy as "brothers and sisters," or as "children of God." They couldn't kill them if they referred to them that way. You use language that describes the enemy as less than human.

That is precisely the language that is being used in our cities today. The language that is used in our society today is the language that has been coined in warfare. There are words that dehumanize. There are words that make life cheap and ugly. There are words that hurt people. There are words that profane what is sacred and holy about human life. You use them and they will affect your life, and the life of those around you.

But there are words that heal. There are words that build. There are words that create. There are words that unite. There are words that can redeem. There are words that can reconcile you to someone from whom you are estranged. There are words that lead to peace. Who will be the people in this society who speak the words of peace? "This day you will be with me in paradise."