Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes.

I'm not one for sensorship, I am however a fan of political correctness. I don;t see anything wrong with expecting people to be sensitive towards others and trying to watch what they say out of respect for someone else. I don't claim to be perfect. There is a lot in our everyday society that is just inherently sexist, homophobic, racist.. that I think it's easy to slip up with the little things. The bigger things however, I think are on us to use our common sense to know what is not appropriate.

My thoughts today are on the word faggot. I hate this word. This is a word that after I was outed in highschool that I heard and saw quite a bit. Also having done more glbt advocacy stuff when I was younger that word was thrust in my direction more times than I can count.

Now as adult, I have no quams about voicing my objections a little louder and with a little more anger.

This was a word that I have had to slowly and painstakingly educate my place of work was not an appropriate thing to throw around the office , even if you "don't mean it THAT way". I think this word will haunt me for a long time to come. While some might say it's just a word.. and don't give it power.. I say that this word is killing children and teenagers like me who face harrassment every day. This word must die.

This past weekend, when we were taking a break from some neverending yardwork we were flipping around the channels. We stopped on a movie Bad News Bears. This was evidently a remake. This was on in the middle of the day on TBS.. Two minutes into watching, a child on a the little league team was throwing around the word faggot at his opposing team. These were kids openly using this word during daytime tv, on TBS. wth?? I googled the movie and evidently it's chop full of moderately racist, homophobic and mysoginistic language. Why would a network who I understand to mostly air mainstream family type programs find this acceptable.

Then Sunday night we turned on the tv for a few minutes before bed and the tv was already on LOGO. Too lazy to get up at the moment we left on Ru Paul's Drag Race (quality programming I assure you.. ok, well not really). Anyway, 2 minutes into that one of these queens is throwing around the word faggoty to describe another contestants behavour. Then it struck me, if our communitsy shows the rest of the world that this language is ok to use, then why would straight America not use it. Don't we as glby people have a responsibility to educate and promote sensitivity towards other glbt'ers? I was so mad.

A couple months ago the movie came out called The Hangover. Everyone I knew went on and on about what a funny movie this was and how we had to watch it. SO, we ordered it through comcast on demand one night. 10 minutes into the movie they used the word faggot atleast 10-20 times. Now, how do people in my life not know that not only should they not be recommending this movie to me? But also that telling me how wonderful this movie is pretty disrespectful. Imagine a movie being filled with the 'N word' and then recommending it to an African American friend? I just don't get it.

I think glbt people do have a responsibility... A responsibilty to carry ourselves with respect and treat eachother in a matter that we'd like to be treated by the rest of society..