This is just a great example of how there is gay and then there is GAYYY. See, I come from a family that is riddled with blue-collar people. My grandmother spanked her kids and all my uncles swear like sailors. I'm not saying hitting kids and swearing is right or wrong, but I'm just saying I am the product of a very open family. We say what we feel and in the privacy of our own home there is absolutely no politically correctness in our speech. We swear, and argue, and make jokes in poor taste constantly. And I think this is fine.
It's like my old English teacher told me back in high school when we were talking about the difference between saying "I am well" and "I am good." If someone asks you how you are doing, the correct response would be "I am well." I knew and understood this very well, but I told my teacher that it didn't change the fact that saying "I am well" still sounded awkward and I prefered to speak more colloquially. She agreed with me and basically said that in an informal setting, it's fine to speak incorrectly as long as you are effectively communicating your point--so long as you understand the correct way to say things and you use the correct way in formal situations like in writing or when you are meeting with a professional. So what does this have to do with being gay vs. being gay? Well, my point is that even though I grew up in a very blue collar house, I received a very politically correct education. In western Mass, where I went to college, being politically correct is a HUGE deal. Race and gender and fairness play into absolutely everything. I worked at a VERY progressive non-profit too--the kind where everyone is vegan and gluten free and agnostic and you better not say anything bad about the color blue because it might be someone's favorite. I'm not kidding, I once got scolded for referring to the two other girls I interned with as "the girls" because I was generalizing or being sexist or something. Can't clump people together like that I guess. Basically, I kind of felt like, as a man, you can't really talk about women at all to some people without them being offended. And I get it--but I also don't think it's worth it sometimes to be such an offended person. So even though I also believed in complete and utter equality and being nice to people, I still threw words around like retard, gay, even sometimes n-bombs while around close family and friends. And if you're looking at this saying OMG that's SO wrong, well, I have to disagree with you. You are one of the overly politically correct people that annoy me sometimes. You dont have to be a prejudice person to sometimes say things that could be considered prejudice. None of us are perfectly unoffensive. If you think you dont have an ounce of racism or sexism or any other kind of prejudice against people who arent just like you, you are lying. The important thing is you dont let it be a defining quality. And to be aware when youre being prejudice and know it's wrong even if you still are a little SINCE WE ALL ARE. It's like what Dr. MLK said, "There is some evil in the best of us and some good in the worst of us. And he who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love." Freaking out at people's non-p/c-ness is only meeting percieved negativity with real negativity. Don't attack them, teach them.
I think that just like it's okay to use informal language sometimes even if you know it's wrong, it's okay to use offensive words when there is no one around to be offended by them, so long as you don't actually hold offensive beliefs and you are not actively offending someone. There is definitely a fine line to walk as you may expect. You just have to be smart about it. We can't all be p/c robots all the time without spontaneously combusting. As bad as it is to offend people, it's equally as bad to walk on eggshells your whole life, having to be nervous about your word choice around every corner and in front of every person. I think it should be a two sided effort. One for people who are too offensive to stop being that way, and one for people who take offense too easily to stop too. It's no way to go through life. You have to enjoy it. And if that means throwing around a few "fucks" or "fags" or "retards" every now and then, it really doesn't bother me. There are people in my life very close to me who are of all sorts of genders, races, sexual orientations, mental capacities, so it's not like I don't understand how it could be offensive if you wanted it to be. Just don't be dumb about it. I have red hair and it doesn't bother me one bit when people call me a ginger. I am. A ginger has red hair. I have red hair. It's only offensive if I let it be.
I guess I don't know completely what I'm saying here. But at the same time I feel like a lot of people can agree with where I'm coming from. Maybe the gist is that I sometimes have a hard time reconciling my blue collar side and my politically correct side, and the truth is, I don't think there is a problem with either one of them. Which brings me back to the video above. When I or someone else calls someone GAY, we are not necessarily saying there is something wrong with their sexual orientation--at least not to me. What I'd be referring to is ACTING GAY (which there is also not necessarily a problem with). It's the flamboyancy and annoyingness that the dude in that clip possesses.
Who knows, maybe I'm just too much of my mother's son to see things correctly. Maybe we shouldn't use any words that could be seen as offensive. But there will always be someone who is offended. So maybe just don't use the words that offend the most people. But I think what the takeaway here is, is for some of you overly offended people to realize what Key and Peele just realized: You're not being persecuted. You're just being an asshole.
I'll conclude with a twist on one of my favorite Michael Scott quotes: You don't call gays gay. You call your friends gay when they're acting like fags." Makes sense to me.
I guess I don't know completely what I'm saying here. But at the same time I feel like a lot of people can agree with where I'm coming from. Maybe the gist is that I sometimes have a hard time reconciling my blue collar side and my politically correct side, and the truth is, I don't think there is a problem with either one of them. Which brings me back to the video above. When I or someone else calls someone GAY, we are not necessarily saying there is something wrong with their sexual orientation--at least not to me. What I'd be referring to is ACTING GAY (which there is also not necessarily a problem with). It's the flamboyancy and annoyingness that the dude in that clip possesses.
Who knows, maybe I'm just too much of my mother's son to see things correctly. Maybe we shouldn't use any words that could be seen as offensive. But there will always be someone who is offended. So maybe just don't use the words that offend the most people. But I think what the takeaway here is, is for some of you overly offended people to realize what Key and Peele just realized: You're not being persecuted. You're just being an asshole.
I'll conclude with a twist on one of my favorite Michael Scott quotes: You don't call gays gay. You call your friends gay when they're acting like fags." Makes sense to me.
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