New Meanings?

I haven’t watched SNL in over a decade.  I love to laugh, but that show hasn’t made me laugh in a very long time.  A friend showed me a skit the other day.  It was very funny, but for a odd reason.  It brought up multiple conversations about this topic.  Back when we were kids, words did not have the stigma that they do today.  We said, “That’s gay” and “that’s retarded” a lot.  We didn’t make fun of gay people or people with disabilities.  In the last five to ten years, it seems like people have gotten hypersensitive about almost everything.

To put it mildly, people have become such sissy-ass babies, it’s not even funny.  I don’t know what happened to people.  Yes, we need to be respectful of everyone.  That is common sense that people seem to have lost.  I don’t care what race, religion, or nationality you are.  I don’t even care which of the 3,874,192 genders you identify as.  I will treat everyone with the same respect as everyone else.  But is using one of those words disrespectful?  Yes and no.  It all depends on the usage.  If you call a kid with disabilities a “fucking retard,” that is bad.  That is extremely disrespectful.  If you are working on an older car and need to adjust the timing, you either advance or retard it.  That has been the terminology for that adjustment for decades.  That is not disrespectful.

Look, I have a son with disabilities.  I do not get offended when someone throws around certain words.  In fact, I cannot remember the last time I was offended.  People say all kinds of mean and hateful things.  People show a general lack of respect because they are only concerned with themselves.  My father told me as a child that I cannot control what people do.  I can only control how I react to what they do.  There is not one word in any language that offends me.  They are just words.  They only have power to hurt us if we give them that power.  There is an old saying: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me.  Wait, that doesn’t sound relevant to this conversation.  Oh!  It’s “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.”  As children, if someone said something mean, that’s what we would repeat back.  Stop giving words power over you.  Stop giving people power over you.  Are you so helpless that certain sound frequencies that hold no mass can crush you as if a moon was dropped on your head?  Quit being a bunch of pussies and take back your dignity.  Be respectful and kind, but for the survival of humanity, quit being such a sissy-ass fuckhole.  I say that with all the respect in the world.  In this case, it is called “tough love.”