I am a strong believer in social justice and the idea of
standing firm on equality regardless of the adversity that might present. That
being said, I am not a big fan of offensive terms being thrown around as
insults or mockery. I know that its something that’s engrained in our culture
and we all hear it growing up, but it still doesn’t make it okay to use them.
I have a friend who loved saying words like “retard” or
“faggot.” Every time I’d hear him say it, I’d cringe a bit but never had the
courage to confront him about it because I was afraid of damaging our
relationship. I also feared the possibility of him taking out some aggression
on me by using terms that I wouldn’t like.
I saw myself forced to do some thinking. The more that I
became aware about oppression and how those terms only enabled it, the more I
felt uncomfortable whenever I heard him say them. I had to make the choice
between letting him know how I felt about his ill taste of hurtful words, or
just suck it up and let him continue doing his thing. Then I came to realize
that I had no choice but to tell him. Why would I want to hold on to a friend
if I wasn’t going to ever be comfortable around him? Needless to say, we had
the conversation and it made us both uncomfortable. Thankfully, in the end the
love that held our friendship together helped him understand my needs and
helped me be forgiving if he ever slipped up.
-CesarCOMM41
Hey Cezar,
ReplyDeleteI understand where you are coming from in regards to those words. I use to use those words in a way to just kind of fit in with everyone else, then I ran into the same situation you are talking about. Someone who was offended by those words came up to me and talk to me about how it hurt them and the impact that those words made on their life, and how much those words actually offended them. I now have changed the way I talk around everyone because the way this person stood up for what they believed in and told me how they felt. In these type of situations it is hard to stand up for what you believe in and you made a hard choice but in the end you help stop verbal abuse.
-Mike Ross