Part 3: Eliminating one word is not going to stop another word from forming just like my mammaw would say that a woman was a floozy or a tart, today we would say she is a slut or a hoe. The words might not mean the same thing but they are used in the same ways. I do think that it is very ignorant of people to say retard, when they say it or mean it in a degrading way. My mammaw will say someone is retarded, but she is just stating a fact, she speaks her mind and doesn’t care what others will say and think. I think we all need to start acting more like that and maybe even thicken our skin a little. I am not saying it’s ok to say retard and putting down someone who has mental issues that they can’t control, but people will always offend you one way or another so if you try to build yourself up you will not have as far to fall.
Part 2: People are always going to be offended by what others say. I do not get offended by what people say most of the time because when I hear words like that I know that the person means them in a different way. To me, especially in this day of age it is not as much as the word that people are saying it‘s how it is said. I don’t know about anyone else but a good example of this would be the phrase “shut up”, this phrase can be taken many different ways this example is also shown in the movies Mean Girls and The Princess Diaries. I also think that if they did get rid of the word retard and changed it to something else like sponge cake, then people would just start to say things like “you’re a sponge cake”, or “this is so sponge caked”. It sounds stupid but I think you get my point.
Part 1: I am not going to lie, I do use the word retard in a negative sense when goofing around or joking with my close friends and family. Even though I do say this occasionally I am aware that it does offend people. I do not say it very often anymore but I used to say it all the time when I was younger. My mom was actually the one to bring to my attention that it was not a good thing to say a lot because it really bothers her. I have an older cousin that my mom used to be around a lot who has cerebral palsy and people used to make fun of him growing up by calling him a retard and it really made my mom sad and made her hate the word. I think that I would be a good idea to remove the word but I don’t understand how that can be done. Once someone creates and word or an insult it cannot be taken back. It would be like trying to get rid of all of the “curse” words in our language.
part 2
This exercise also applies to many different situations like when people compare statistics between the professional success of different races. In my stat class they were talking about comparing the success rate of different basketball coaches, one black and one white. Of course the white coaches numbers would be higher because he has been coaching longer. Blacks were not always allowed to be coaches of pro basketball teams. This inequality has all stemmed from when America really was made if you think about it. The Europeans came over here and claimed the land from the native Americans and of course they are not going to step down and say oh right our bad here is you land and all of the lives we took. This exercise really opened my eyes into the whole idea of how and why inequality exists. I feel like if everyone’s eyes would be opened like this some of the inequality that is around would lessen. I feel like it would never end because some group will always be on top of the mountain but we can try to at least make it more of a hill than a giant mountain.
part 1
I think that the king of the mountain exercise just brought to light the truth of the racial inequality issue. I was kind of shocked about how easily this exercise explains the different inequalities that are in the world. In order to fix these inequalities the “king(s)” would have to step down and we all know that that would never happen. If you were in a class with a bunch of kids, some you know and some you don’t know, and you had to choose who to you get to give candy to and who you don’t give candy to, are you going to give the candy to the kid who tries to take the candy away from you? Are you going to give the candy to someone you don’t know? Would you give that responsibility to someone else completely? Would you say hey best friend take this candy and give it to whoever you want, or would you give it to a complete stranger? No one ever wants to give up the power they have, why else would presidents want to rerun for extra terms? The only times that they ever want to give up their position and power is when they royally mess up and they cannot fix it.
Part 3: Another big thing with political correctness is religion especially around the holidays. I work at a restaurant and I was always half afraid to say merry Christmas to somebody because I didn’t want them to get upset about it. One of my friends worked at a retail store and her manager told her that she had to say happy holidays to everyone and she did so and was yelled at by a customer because she wouldn’t say merry Christmas. A couple of friends and I were hanging out a county fair and we were talking about a gay friend we had and we were speculating about another friend of ours who we thought might be gay. All of a sudden a woman at the other end of the table stood up and gave us a lecture about talking about gay people in public because she had a family member who was gay. What we didn’t understand is what we said that offended her? We were not talking bad about our gay friend at all. Unfortunately there is no way to please everyone. It would be nice if we didn’t have to watch what we say all the time and worry about offending some random stranger.
Part 2: I personally do not agree with most of what our president says or does but that is his right, he was voted into office and that is that. This need to never offend everyone just limits this freedom of speech. When someone is in a position of power they have to be politically correct or set themselves up for an attack. Many political careers have probably been ruined because someone said something about a race or gender that made someone upset and then all of a sudden that person is sexist, or racist. I remember during the last presidential election that whenever I or someone I know would say that they didn’t like Obama they would say that I just didn’t like him because he was black or a democrat. In reality I don’t agree with his political ideas.
Part 1: What do we need to be politically correct? That is easy to answer, no one wants to upset anyone and get on their bad side. Just look at public officials and elections. The candidates are always being criticized not only for what their policies are but to see how they are interacting or supporting different “races”, ethnic groups, gender, and other groups of people. If they say something that could offend one group the shit hits the fan. If the president were to get on TV and say that he thought that some type of religion was wrong or that he did not like lesbians or anything along those lines there would be a riot in the country. In reality the president, just like everyone else, is entitled to his own beliefs and can say whatever he wants, he has freedom of speech too.
People are terrified to offend anybody because then they will be labeled as a racist, or sexist. If the President were to get on the television and say that he didn’t like Catholics or any other religion I feel like the world would blow up and mostly everyone (except atheists) would not like him anymore because of what he said. All humans have the same characteristics no matter how their DNA is sequenced or where their ancestors are from. It is true that some behaviors are influenced by your DNA but I believe that most actions are influenced by how someone is raised and how they think and feel. It is impossible to put someone into a racial group just because of how they act, therefore it is equally impossible to say that someone acts a certain way because they belong to a certain “racial group”
To me I think we should just get rid of the idea of races, but this will never happen. It is however a nice thing to think about happening. Thinking about races reminds me of cuss words. Someone decided that they existed so now they are bad or offend people. Many things seem to be “taboo” subjects to talk about. For me I use cuss words in daily language and it doesn’t bother me, but here at school I met people that never cuss and were made uncomfortable by my words. I feel like this is what occurs when you first meet people and you are of mixed colors and ethnicities because, especially if you don’t know their specific background, you don’t want to offend anybody.
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