We live in a society today that is much more sensitive than it was decades or generations ago, at least here in the United States. I'm not a very sensitive person about how cold or warm a room is, how dirty or clean a room is, generally OK with anything other people do as long as it's not affecting me. This includes use of controversial terms or controversial opinions, I'm not one to hold a grudge against someone just because they have their own opinion, but even for me some words cross the line, like using certain racial slurs or calling someone overweight or ugly in some way, direct offenses that could hurt someone's feelings or truly offend someone. I have to be sensitive about that kind of language, and we as a society should hold people accountable for saying things that incite hate and violence or shame or depression.
Where, though, do we draw the line of what is overly sensitive? Is there an established list available to everyone that lays out exactly what is offensive and what is not? It's unclear, and I learned recently several things that I did not know were offensive. Again, I'm humbled at things I do not know even about the English language, much less other languages. For example, MJ told me not to congratulate someone or comment to someone in anyway about eyelid surgery (apparently, a lot of people as part of cosmetic surgery, turn their single eyelid into a double eyelid). That's apparently a no-no. More specifically related to words though, "deadnaming" is strictly forbidden when speaking to or about transgender people. I do not know enough about transgenderism and the movement, so I have no judgment about this deadnaming, but apparently it is the use of a transgender's former name (before their gender change), which conjures up negative memories of the past when they were a different person, and it's often used in an offensive way to shame them or cause a negative reaction.
Other things are like saying someone is "off the reservation" to say they're a little crazy, which is offensive to Native Americans (I kind of get this). Saying someone is "uppity" apparently can be offensive like when Rush Limbaugh (conservative radio host) told Michelle Obama she was being too "uppity," which apparently was a term that Southerners used to describe black slaves who weren't acting in their place. The "peanut gallery" (often describing people who aren't in a conversation butting in and commenting on something) apparently was derived from theatre performances where black people were confined to the worst sections and not expected to make any noise. I didn't know any of these, but there are plenty more, mostly involving how a word was originally used. But am I supposed to know the etymology and origin of all the different phrases that are common in the English language? Do I have to examine critically every phrase that people use like "rounding the corner" or "tongue tied" or "chip off the block" or am I OK with just using these these words like how they're used in today's terms, where the person using them doesn't mean anything offensive when they say it?
For some of these things, it's just hard to know about these things because there are so many different people with different life circumstances, and I'm one of the last ones to know about something. I remember in high school, I inadvertently asked a female friend to pass a note to her boyfriend (I knew both of them) with the understanding that they see each other all the time, but little did I know they had just broken up and my request made the situation worse, even though I really was making an innocent request and didn't know better! (Some LGBT groups I follow say that they're tired of making everyone else understand, that WE have to educate ourselves and do better! Point taken, but is their some sort of continuing education program that I can get annual reminders or checkups? There seem to be new entries into the lexicon of sensitivity and offensiveness all the time.) I remember I once suggested that my sister was too obsessed with anime and that maybe she was like an "otaku" (Japanese anime fans) at which point she told me that was like a slap in the face to her. To me, learning Japanese, I didn't think otaku had that strong of a negative connotation, but apparently in my sister's circles it really is bad. Or at one point I was (admittedly) lecturing my sister about how to make friends and/or how to survive in college, and she accused me of "mansplaining." So any kind of advice/ lecturing even without any gender involved can be considered mansplaining as long as it's a man telling a woman? This maybe just my sister's misunderstanding of some of these terms, but it could also be a reflection of people her age knowing these terms and their view of the world and how they perceive others' comments. At some point, are we just limiting speech or even human interaction if we're not allowed to talk to each other?
No comments:
Post a Comment