When I was a kid, after basketball practice, I made the mistake of telling my mom I was starving. I was hoping for a big dinner, but instead, she gave me a lecture. She explained that starvation was a serious issue affecting many people around the world, and that children my age were really suffering from hunger.
She said that using the word starving to describe a minor discomfort was wrong, and she hoped I would understand the difference. I was too young to fully appreciate it, but I learned that words have meaning, and it’s wrong to distort them to fit our personal experiences.
That lesson came to mind when I heard Sen. Lindsey Graham recently use the term “lynch mob” to describe those who criticized Matt Gaetz, a former Florida Congressman. Gaetz had been nominated by President-elect Trump for attorney general, but his nomination faced trouble due to investigations into allegations of sex trafficking.
Although Gaetz denied the claims, many people raised concerns about his ethics, and the nomination was eventually withdrawn. Graham referred to those critics as a lynch mob.
But calling this group a lynch mob is misleading. A lynch mob refers to a violent group, often fueled by racism, that seeks to kill someone, typically Black men, without a fair trial. The term brings to mind images of mobs with torches and people being hanged. It’s a very strong and specific image of real, brutal injustice.
Using lynch mob to describe people raising concerns about Gaetz takes away from the true meaning of the term. When powerful figures like Gaetz or Trump use this language, it minimizes the real suffering of those who experience true violence and injustice.
If we keep misusing words like lynch mob or starvation, how will we understand the real struggles people face? How will we recognize when injustice is happening? If we blur the lines, we might lose the ability to identify and address real harm.