Spring Break
Sticks and stones
Lara Oliver
Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: Opinion
We're told from an early age not to let the words others use hurt our feelings. "Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails" was what my dad always told me to think about when little boys teased me. But, after having grown up, it's hard not to deal with how much words actually do hurt those around us.
We all know better than to say certain four letter words around our parents, but it's not those that I'm talking about. I'm talking about words that can be even more hateful, without us even knowing what we're saying.
"God, I wish this retard would stop being so gay and just get to the point."
Why is it that what I just wrote is considered appropriate for conversation, yet racial slurs, demeaning terms for women and insults to the handicapped are not?
What's really sad is that most people don't even realize what they're saying. "It's just another way of calling something lame" is an excuse one friend gave me when I asked her why she called her friend "gay" for not calling her back. Funnily enough, the same friend supports gay marriage and adoption rights for same-sex couples. She had just become so accustomed to using the term from high school that it slipped out whenever she couldn't think of a proper way for her to express her frustration.
Similarly enough, I'll admit it was until fairly recently in my life that I would find myself calling something "retarded" for the sake of not having a better term. As time went by, I began to feel guilty saying it and found out that I should have felt bad. I had apparently offended friends in the past with my lackadaisical view toward a term many people view as being as inexcusable as racial slurs.
I apologize again to you guys for saying that.
The recent outrage over Obama's slip-up when being interviewed on his bowling score and comparing it to the Special Olympics seems to have brought people's attention back to the absurdity of insulting an entire group of people just for the sake of having a stand-by insult-something that ends up making you look tacky. The fact that Obama is known as being a careful orator in his attempts to respect all those he's speaking to really shows us how difficult it can be, even for the most powerful man in the country, to separate offensive language from our vocabulary.
We all know better than to say certain four letter words around our parents, but it's not those that I'm talking about. I'm talking about words that can be even more hateful, without us even knowing what we're saying.
"God, I wish this retard would stop being so gay and just get to the point."
Why is it that what I just wrote is considered appropriate for conversation, yet racial slurs, demeaning terms for women and insults to the handicapped are not?
What's really sad is that most people don't even realize what they're saying. "It's just another way of calling something lame" is an excuse one friend gave me when I asked her why she called her friend "gay" for not calling her back. Funnily enough, the same friend supports gay marriage and adoption rights for same-sex couples. She had just become so accustomed to using the term from high school that it slipped out whenever she couldn't think of a proper way for her to express her frustration.
Similarly enough, I'll admit it was until fairly recently in my life that I would find myself calling something "retarded" for the sake of not having a better term. As time went by, I began to feel guilty saying it and found out that I should have felt bad. I had apparently offended friends in the past with my lackadaisical view toward a term many people view as being as inexcusable as racial slurs.
I apologize again to you guys for saying that.
The recent outrage over Obama's slip-up when being interviewed on his bowling score and comparing it to the Special Olympics seems to have brought people's attention back to the absurdity of insulting an entire group of people just for the sake of having a stand-by insult-something that ends up making you look tacky. The fact that Obama is known as being a careful orator in his attempts to respect all those he's speaking to really shows us how difficult it can be, even for the most powerful man in the country, to separate offensive language from our vocabulary.
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