Daily Herald opinion: First lady's insensitive remarks show the damage poorly chosen words can do

This editorial represents the consensus opinion of the Daily Herald Editorial Board

Words are important, we are often reminded, and as an enterprise that traffics in the use of words, we at the Daily Herald are only too familiar with the challenges of using them appropriately and carefully - and the opportunities, through insensitivity or simple shortsightedness, to wield them with embarrassing, sometimes harmful, results.

Yet, at times it seems also important to call out others whose business is to traffic in words but get caught using them to ill effect when they clearly should know better. Specifically today, we're thinking of leaders and would-be leaders in government.

The public record is awash with examples of politicians who have found themselves walking back statements after realizing that what they thought might be clever wordplay turned out to be embarrassing or hurtful. Last week, first lady Jill Biden offered up an image that outdid even her famously gaffe-prone husband when she appeared to equate the identities of Hispanic people with the food they eat.

At a San Antonio, Texas, conference for a Latino civil rights group, Biden praised Raul Yzagruirre, the group's former president and a recent Presidential Medal of Freedom winner with this comment: "Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community - as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio - is your strength," Biden said.

No one who is serious would question Biden's intentions with her remark nor her goal of emphasizing the distinctness of a culture, and Biden was quick to apologize when people complained. Of course, too, some of the complaints smack of political opportunism. At the same time, who can hear such statements reducing people in a prepared speech to cultural stereotypes and not wonder, "Did anyone, including Jill Biden, read this speech before she delivered it?"

Though she has been roundly criticized - including, as our Russell Lissau reported, by 11th District congressional candidate Catalina Lauf, a Woodstock Republican whose mother hails from Guatemala - one can only wonder about the uproar that might have followed such remarks from a Republican or if similarly tone-deaf comments were made about Jews, Arabs, Africans, Italians, Greeks or any other ethnic group.

Biden, of course, is far from alone with missteps of insensitivity. President Donald Trump raised such behavior to a high art, and only a week ago, Darren Bailey, the Republican candidate for Illinois governor, found himself apologizing after urging people just an hour and a half after the shootings in Highland Park to pray and then "move on." Countless politicians and celebrities have found themselves begging for forgiveness after offering ill-timed or ill-considered statements.

But this shouldn't let them off the hook. Indeed, the outcries that follow in such cases should serve as important reminders to all of us that the words we use and the images we conjure about each other have power that can sometimes hurt a cause more than help it. When our leaders and would-be leaders lose sight of this fact, it sends a destructive message to the public, distracts attention from important ideas and obstructs our ability to work effectively and respectfully with each other.