I recently read somewhere that teenagers do not have a fully developed ability to feel empathy.
Basically, they’re little self-absorbed spawns (for the most part) until they realize the world doesn’t revolve around them.
This was fully on display while I was at the mall last week, as well as every time I play online videogames.
There are words that I remember throwing around when I was young and I still hear kids throwing around today.
“That’s so gay,” “Don’t be such a fag,” “Why are you such a retard?” “Oh my God, that’s retarded!”
While at the mall, I heard a group of kids calling each other faggots, or the “F” word as I will refer to it here in. Now, if my saying that word offends you, well, it should.
I confronted those kids to ask them to please stop using those kinds of words. I was laughed at and called it right back, so I looked right at the kid and asked him if he knew anyone who was gay, he replied, “yes.”
“Would you say that in front of them?”
“No,” he replied and he and his friends walked away awkwardly.
I’ve been guilty of a few of those in my younger days; in fact, I excused myself from any wrongdoing because, well, everyone says it, so it must be OK, right?
Wrong.
Using any tag given to someone from the LGBT community in a derogatory way is disgusting, just as using any slur for a special-needs person is wrong.
If you use those types of words, even if you don’t mean them to directly reflect on the group they’re associated with, they still have a negative affect.
As a writer and photographer, I’m often asked to use hundreds of words from the English language, so why not become more creative when playfully attempting to insult someone?
Lame, dense, mindless, dull, laughable, ludicrous, dork, jerk, and that’s just thinking off the top of my head – those words, however, should not be used to attack someone with a disability or a different sexual orientation than you.
Think about this, are homosexual people or “F” words, as I’ve heard too many kids even in this town refer to them, best described by the words I listed above, or are they people with names and feelings?
Are special needs people anything but humans trying to do the best in life with what they’re given?
No one has a choice of whom they love or how they’re born, it just happens. So lets stop marginalizing groups of people who’ve done nothing wrong.
So don’t call anyone a derogatory name, perhaps then we could all continue to grow as a society.
Parents, if you ever hear words like those come out of your kid’s mouths, be it over a headset playing Call of Duty or with their friends, it’s not playful, it’s not OK, it’s wrong.
