Dealing with Times of Crisis in Society
Dealing with Times of Crisis in Society
In Times of Terror, Teens Talk the Talk
Boys Are 'Firefighter Cute,' Messy Room Is 'Ground Zero' in Sept. 11 Slang
Their bedrooms are "ground zero." Translation? A total mess. A mean teacher? He's "such a terrorist."
A student is disciplined? "It was total jihad."
Petty concerns? "That's so Sept. 10."
And out-of-style clothes? "Is that a burqa?"
It's just six months since Sept. 11, but that's enough time for the vocabulary of one of the country's most frightening days to become slang for teenagers of all backgrounds, comic relief in school hallways and hangouts.
"It's like 'Osama Yo Mama' as an insult," offered Morgan Hubbard, 17, a senior at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, where students have picked up on the phrase from an Internet game.
"If you're weird, people might call you 'Taliban' or ask if you have anthrax," said Najwa Awad, a Palestinian American student at J.E.B. Stuart High School in Fairfax County. "Sept. 11 has been such a stressful thing that it's okay to joke a little bit. It's funny."
Language has always been as malleable and erratic as the day's headlines, and young people have always been some of the most innovative and playful in linking world events to their daily vernacular. But it's more than what it seems on the surface.
"When you have adolescent bravado and nothing can hurt you, underneath that is really a tremendous fear that everything can hurt you," said Alan Lipman, executive director of the Center at Georgetown for the Study of Violence. "What better way than humor to take these horrific ideas and make them go away?"
The center is doing an in-depth study of college-age and teenage students and how they got through the first such attack of their lives.
"My friends call me 'terrorist' or 'fundamentalist,' sometimes as a nickname," said Nabeel Babaa, 17, who came to this country from Kuwait when he was 3 years old and is now a senior at Sherwood High School in Olney. "It's not hurtful in the way we say it, 'cause we are kidding around with each other."
When Muslim students call themselves "Osama," Lipman said, they are trying to take back the power of being called such things, just like members of other minority groups who take negative words and use them on one another.
"They are trying to joke around,...