What's something you used to do/see/say but don't anymore because you don't feel it's right?
Me personally? I've become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women's expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I've matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I've come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of 'humor' really is, and I regret it deeply.
As a millennial, we grew up with the phrases "that's gay" and "that's retarded" (which meant the same thing) and obviously we had to learn to phase those out.
While I never once meant "that's disabled" or "that's homosexual"... We obviously don't say that stuff anymore.
I witnessed something at work a few weeks ago, that caught me off guard. One of the managers was asking for a favour off one of the lads in work, it's a blue collar job so it's never been PC,
"Carl, need a favour, can you do such and such"
"Can't sorry Steve"
"Go on lad don't be gay"
"Steve, I've been taking cock for the last 25 years and you asking me to stop for an extra hours work won't stop me"
I learned these real quick in the workplace as a young adult, around a coworker with a mentally disabled child, and with a coworker who was gay. The abstraction is what made using such crude language easy. As soon as I knew someone affected by the words, I snapped out of it.
Abstraction, come to think of it, is what permits a lot of bad behavior.
See, this is why we need more diverse representation in the media now. Manchildren always whine about "diversity ruining everything" when it's really a truer reflection of America's evolving demographics.
If hollywood could figure out how to make well-written diverse stories it'd remove the ability for bigots to obfuscate by lumping themselves in with people who just don't like the writing
Once upon a brighter time, gay was only colloquially used to convey happiness, unrelated to the sexual connotations there is today.
Such a sad time we live in where everything becomes a sensitive topic that can insult and hurt.
To clarify before I get cancelled to oblivion 😂 - you want your diversity, fine with me, good for you, but please there is no need to be a touchy one and reserve a swathe of labels to get insulted by when it can clearly be decided upon context if it was meant to be insulting or not.
Nah dawg. “That’s gay” means “I understand that some people enjoy this thing, but I have tried it a few times and find it gross and painful, but that doesn’t mean the people that do enjoy it have to stop doing it,” like improv comedy. “That’s retarded” means “this is something that people born with an extra chromosome or who have had a severe brain injury would enjoy,” like NASCAR.