i'm bored. clearly, the only solution is to post excessively.
This isn't really related to anything in particular -- sort of a train of thought spawned from a conversation with my mom yesterday.
I hate, hate hate hate -- and I don't use that word lightly -- the word 'faggot'. I hate it. It's rude, it's disrespectful, it's totally unnecessary, and I guarantee that if you use it around me, I'll lose respect for you, even if you're using it in a joking way. The same goes for using 'gay' or 'retarded' to mean stupid. Hate.
The reason I'm thinking about this is because my cousins were recently visiting from New Lenox, IL. New Lenox is pretty small in comparison to Chicago, and it's been long enough since I'm seen them that it was something of a shock for me to realize exactly how different the cultures are between Portland and New Lenox. Both of them frequently use 'gay' and 'retarded' when they mean stupid, and Ryan at least uses the word 'fag' on a regular basis. It just took me aback -- I was like, "Oh, right, I forgot that that's okay where you come from. Where I come from, that's not okay."
I got on my cousin's case a couple of times about saying 'fag', and he eventually cut it out, but my mom mentioned to me later that I may have been the first person in his life -- he's 15 -- to tell him that saying 'faggot' isn't right. And that sort of surprised me, too, but I guess it's probably true. My cousins are doubly disadvantaged .. well, maybe that's not the right word, but you know what I mean -- because not only are they from a small midwestern town, their parents are in the racing community (my uncle races trucks for a living), and the racing community has a tendency to be extremely closeminded and bigoted.
I'm not saying that I know all, and that my standards for what's okay to say are the standards that everyone should use. Like that quote goes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."* I'm just rambling here.
* Did you know that that quote wasn't actually by Voltaire, as so many internet sources cite it? It actually came from a book entitled Friends of Voltaire, published in 1906 by a woman named Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym Stephen G. Tallentyre. The quote came about as a way of describing Voltaire's attitude, and may have been inspired by a quote from one of Voltaire's letters, penned in February 1770 to M. le Riche: "Moniseur l'abbe, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."
I hate, hate hate hate -- and I don't use that word lightly -- the word 'faggot'. I hate it. It's rude, it's disrespectful, it's totally unnecessary, and I guarantee that if you use it around me, I'll lose respect for you, even if you're using it in a joking way. The same goes for using 'gay' or 'retarded' to mean stupid. Hate.
The reason I'm thinking about this is because my cousins were recently visiting from New Lenox, IL. New Lenox is pretty small in comparison to Chicago, and it's been long enough since I'm seen them that it was something of a shock for me to realize exactly how different the cultures are between Portland and New Lenox. Both of them frequently use 'gay' and 'retarded' when they mean stupid, and Ryan at least uses the word 'fag' on a regular basis. It just took me aback -- I was like, "Oh, right, I forgot that that's okay where you come from. Where I come from, that's not okay."
I got on my cousin's case a couple of times about saying 'fag', and he eventually cut it out, but my mom mentioned to me later that I may have been the first person in his life -- he's 15 -- to tell him that saying 'faggot' isn't right. And that sort of surprised me, too, but I guess it's probably true. My cousins are doubly disadvantaged .. well, maybe that's not the right word, but you know what I mean -- because not only are they from a small midwestern town, their parents are in the racing community (my uncle races trucks for a living), and the racing community has a tendency to be extremely closeminded and bigoted.
I'm not saying that I know all, and that my standards for what's okay to say are the standards that everyone should use. Like that quote goes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."* I'm just rambling here.
* Did you know that that quote wasn't actually by Voltaire, as so many internet sources cite it? It actually came from a book entitled Friends of Voltaire, published in 1906 by a woman named Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym Stephen G. Tallentyre. The quote came about as a way of describing Voltaire's attitude, and may have been inspired by a quote from one of Voltaire's letters, penned in February 1770 to M. le Riche: "Moniseur l'abbe, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."