Whatever happened to the saying we were taught as kids – “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”? Sure, in real life words can be terribly harmful, but once upon a time, when I was growing up, we knew how to slough them off and not allow them to hit us so personally. I remember a time not so long ago when name calling was cruel and inappropriate, but a person couldn’t get sued for it. Instead we were taught to rise above that kind of behavior. On one hand we were told to do the right thing and not engage in name calling, and on the other hand we learned to take the high road and realize that the name callers are those with the issues and it was in our benefit to simply ignore them and move on.
Now it’s not even just about name calling. It’s about labels and skin color and sexual orientation and religious preferences and more. Personally I get nervous saying anything about anyone for fear of being politically incorrect and hurting someone’s feelings, or possibly getting sued. If I meet someone with dark skin I don’t know if they prefer to be called African-American, Black, or a person of color, or maybe there’s another term that is not yet in my vocabulary. So do I just shout out “Hey you!” and hope I don’t get taken to court for that one?
I guess I’m just having a hard time understanding why we’ve all become so incredibly sensitive. What good is it serving us in the long run? Possibly it has to do with lawyers and lawsuits and greed. I don’t know, but I’m beginning to wonder if I can actually sue the guy at the grocery store for calling me ma’am. I may be over forty and have a few gray hairs, but that word does not aptly describe me! Suing him won’t help me to love my neighbor, but gosh, perhaps I can cash in on some of whatever the heck it is he has? Everyone else is doing it.
Then again maybe we should simply change every adjective, every descriptor of the English language into a series of words, or a basic phrase that is so carefully worded that it has no chance of hurting the other person’s feelings in any way whatsoever. Once again www.bored.com has come up with some real winners:
- Instead of calling Dad bald he should now be called folically independent.
- No longer is the sap next door an alcoholic, he’s an anti-sobriety activist.
- Someone who’s a coward is a person who is challenge challenged.
- A frog, which is a terribly insensitive word, should be called an amphibian American.
- A homeless person is residentially flexible.
- Someone who is incompetent is specially skilled.
- MANkind, HuMAN, and PerSON are Earth Children.
- A poor person is simply economically unprepared.
- Instead of calling someone stupid you should call them differently-brained.
- And for us white people – we really should be considered melanin-impoverished, it’s much kinder.
This really is ridiculous. As a nation this politically correct trend seems to only serve the purpose of pulling us a part. In today’s society I don’t believe that the majority of us are true racists, or really all that anti-anything. Most of us want to get along, we want to help each other out, and we want to be a part of a community and a country that make us proud. Maybe it’s time to quit being so sensitive, to buck up, develop a little tougher skin and try to find that place where ‘sticks and stone may break our bones, but words will never hurt us.”
Shelley's Sagacious Slants 