The Rhetoric That Wounds
Last week, the President of the United States stood in the Oval Office and said of young Black men in Washington, D.C.:
“They’re going to be criminals — they were born to be criminals, frankly.”
The words were not a slip. They were deliberate. And they echo a long, violent history of rhetoric used to criminalize Black birth, Black boyhood, and Black existence.
Governor Wes Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor, responded with clarity and fire:
“I respect the office, but I will never honor ignorance.”
He spoke directly to the youth, reframing the narrative: “You are a resource to invest in, not a problem to solve.”
Moore’s speech, delivered in Howard County, went viral—because it struck a chord. A chord that’s been vibrating since the days of slave patrols, Jim Crow, and the war on drugs. A chord that still reverberates through policy, policing, and presidential podiums.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about one comment. It’s about a pattern. A worldview, a presidency that has repeatedly used language to stoke fear, division, and racialized suspicion. From calling for federal troops in Baltimore to proposing executive orders that challenge birthright citizenship, the message is consistent. Some lives are less worthy of protection, some births less deserving of rights.
But we know better. We know that language shapes law. That metaphor becomes a mandate. And that silence in the face of rhetorical violence is complicity.
So we speak. We document. We archive. We respond—not just with outrage, but with authorship. Because the labor of memory is a form of resistance. And the work beneath the work is what makes justice possible.