Classroom Language Brings in the Outside World

Language, for me, is a struggle between personal voice and the sets of linguistic structures in which we participate, and that have arisen over time. After sitting in front of a blank blog post for a little too long, I can safely say that we choose our displayed personhood when we choose which phrase to use of the range available whenever we want to convey subtly (or drastically) different meanings. I can think of a category of memories where this happening has became really apparent to me: encountering contradiction between my use of language and others' completely different verbal collocations. In short, the newness of contradiction has always thrown me for a loop, and no doubt has had the same effect on all of us. The most visceral memory I have of contradiction between my personal voice and social discourse was in sixth grade. What happened was actually pretty quick and simple, but it has stayed with me to this day. I was talking with one of my friends in a mostly empty classroom about the book we were reading for language arts (I believe it was Tangerine, though that's probably wrong...), and wanted to specifically indicate a character of color in the work. I found myself in a moment of complete aphasia in discerning which word I should use to best describe race to my classmate. Unfortunately, instead of using people first language or using the then more commonly used  and still possibly inaccurate term "African-American", no word came out and I instead described the character in other ways. An important reality was that the word "colored" had cycled through my head as a possibility, and though it existed I knew this word was not mine. Maybe it had entered my consciousness through a third grade MLK unit, subsequent touching upon civil rights, or Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. Regardless, I have never been able to reverse the realization that, as a human being, I am far less in control of my descriptive powers than I imagine, and that they are bound by the experiences that my social world presents me.