Sunriseticklee
4th Level Orange Feather
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2002
- Messages
- 2,760
- Points
- 63
As many of you know, I am a teacher. I have taught in many environments, dealt with many different types of children (and their parents) from all kinds of ethnic, social economic, and cultural backgrounds. And as a teacher, there are things you just don’t say to people. I don’t call it being politically correct as much as I call it being appropriate and accepting of the situations, circumstances and backgrounds of the people I work with. Everyone here is human with feelings and differences. Everyone is conscious of who they are, where they are from so to speak, and maybe even self-conscious of those things.
The people you would think to be less familiar of how to treat people, less familiar with seeing past societies stereotypes, less familiar with finding out how each person is as an individual on the inside… You’d think it would be the children. I mean, after all…children haven’t lived as long. They have less practice at it.
Amazing so, it is the children who need to teach adults a lesson in love, humility and acceptance. They learn by example of course. Once they conquer that one experience which dispels all of their pre-conceived notions, they usually let those stereotypes fade away. And if they are wrong, and you explain it to them (if they don’t know), they get it. They change it. You don’t hear them spouting out that they are tired of being politically correct, and that they have a right to sound as hateful as they want to sound because that is just the way they feel.
And you know, sure I have to get on to them sometimes for making fun of the children who just aren’t as “cool” as everyone else “seems” to be. Or the kid who is not quite the “norm”, but then again, what is normal? Everyone is different.
I don’t think I have ever had greater joys than I have had teaching my students this year. I moved from Atlanta last July into a small town in Nowhere, Georgia where the rebel flag is part of the daily attire of almost everyone. Where 60 years ago, some of their parents attended barbeques where my race was lynched for fun. And I was ready to do battle!
It wasn’t a week that I had been working there when someone anonymously called the principal and said I was calling the children crackers. The next week I was too mean and they kids were all afraid of me. The next week, how long has she been teaching and is she qualified. Where did she come from? Blah Blah Blah. But you should have seen those parents’ children. It took the kids about 5 seconds to see me walking down the hall before I heard them screaming my name and running to give me a hug. As tough as I act like to think I am, I enjoy being loved by my students. I’d be a liar if I said that I didn’t adore them just as much.
And in teaching American History, it was amazing to watch them get so excited and shocked, and interested in seeing and hearing the truth. How things really were, how so many things really happened. Things their book either failed to mention, or barely covered. You’d think the Trail of Tears was a cakewalk to a brand new resort if you could hear our book telling it.
The fact of the matter is, I think in all of our efforts to “protect” our rights of free speech, and not wanting to be forced to conform to the guidelines of what is politically correct, we forgot our lessons from childhood.
It doesn’t matter that my skin is black and your skin is brown. It doesn’t matter if I make 1000 dollars a week or 1000 a month. It doesn’t matter if you are from Germany and I am from Venezuela. We are all human and we all deserve to be treated in that fashion.
And it sickens me for some “adult” to come on TMF, or on T.V. or wherever they go and spew out stuff that even a small child can figure out is wrong. Then cower behind an amendment that was originally put in place because the danger of speaking against the king back then was death, NOT someone disagreeing with you.
If I wanted to be politically incorrect, I would say that Americans are the ones that are the savages, the heathens, and the aggressors. Don’t forget that after 9/11, dozens of innocent Muslims were attacked and brutalized and terrorized by Americans. Americans terrorizing other Americans, mind you. Where was freedom of religion then?
Don’t forget that we live in a country that terrorized the Native Americans, almost wiped them out, and forced them off their land to reservations (those who made it). Where was the right for them to live in peace without evil dictatorship then?
We bullied the Mexicans and the Spanish, and forced them out of Texas, California, etc. with war. Using our superior weapons we coined our actions as Manifest Destiny. God was the one who told us we needed to take everyone’s land and stretch from sea to shining sea. (It’s funny how we can praise God for our triumphs, and scorn Him for our failures and tragedies.)
We forced the Chinese and the Irish immigrants to build our railroads, and work in our dirty dangerous factories and mines for low wages and poor housing. We acquired over time 4 million blacks to live as slaves and work and cultivate a country that they could not even get citizenship for. We placed hundreds of Japanese in work camps in California for fear that they were part of the Axis cause.
We have done so many hideous horrible things to wipe out and destroy our own people that I can’t name them all. And yet, we call others savages, and heathens, and uncivilized, and evil tyrants!
We talk about our freedoms, most of which we gained on the backs of others who didn’t live to know the meaning of the word democracy. And after all of those lessons in our “glorious” history, we have solely learned to continue to treat people like they are beneath us under the guise of free speech. And then we get angry when they are offended by the garbage that we spout.
Call me politically correct or not…. But I won’t allow any of my students, black, white, green, or purple to say the word nigger, nigga or any variation there of. Cracker, spic, honky, jap, coon, etc…are not allowed in my classroom either. Racist and ignorant remarks aren’t tolerated. And CHILDREN GET IT. They know that it is wrong and debasing. They know that it is unfair to separate, discriminate, or judge somebody for who they are on the outside. They may mess up every once in awhile but they know it is wrong. THEY GET IT!
And we adults, we can’t accept that. We hide under the guise of refusing to let anyone force us to sound politically correct.
Say what you believe, right?
Speak out?
Regardless of how many groups you alienate or make feel inferior to you, as long as you can speak your piece, that is all that matters!
Regardless of how many people spend their lives wishing that someone would see past the fact that they are in a wheelchair, or that they are gay, or that they are female, or that they only come from a single parent home, or that they are a Christian, or Muslim, or whatever they are, you still have the right to look down your nose at someone else.
After all… that is the essence of America, right? Certainly that is what the soldiers died for and are still dying for. The right for YOU to speak your mind in a way that makes others feel inferior. They died for that?
Instead of seeing differences as something special, and unique, you can continue to use your freedom of speech to degrade people, and yell out how you have the right to think that what YOU are, or what YOU BELIEVE is everything a person should be.
I can’t say that I’m surprised that this sort of thing even goes on HERE at <B>TMF</B> as well. But I be damned if I’m going to cower and not call a spade a spade. Every time there is proof, and something is pointed out, it is deleted or edited, locked, or moved because things start to heat up.
Saying that it would be cool to have a master race is conversational. Stating that you are offended is argumentative.
Someone groveling and trying to paint a prettier picture over the darkness of the phrase is really disgusting. Especially if you are related to the people who died fighting against the poison that one race should be master over everyone else’s.
Watching that same person read his own derogatory and demeaning statements paints a different picture. That picture is that words are not just words. They actually have power and they CAN cut, hurt, separate and alienate people. Don’t tell me you are one way and your words show me differently. Don’t try to reason with me about how accepting you are, when you have posted statements that make you sound like you are a bigot.
If I was in class and the Master Race sentiment was expressed, all I would have had to do was explain WWII to my students and they would have gotten it. They probably would have felt ashamed, reflected on it, and became better people from the learning experience they had just received.
Point it out to adults, and you are forcing someone to be politically correct. They feel like their freedom of speech is being stomped on because they are actually having to think of someone else’s feelings and experiences besides their own.
Suddenly they realize that something that they have said could have been wrong, berating, improper, inappropriate, unaccepting of others, BUT that’s just too bad because they aren’t going to walk on eggshell trying to make everyone feel good. And damn it! That’s how they feel!
God forbid that there are actually other people around here that are human besides YOU.
Other people’s way of fixing our nation’s problem is to imagine that discrimination and racism is all in the past. We should cover it up, forget about it, act like it never happened, edit it, delete it, censor it. After all… it isn’t your fault that it happened. You didn’t do it. Why keep talking about it?
It’s hard to face racism, isn’t it? Because facing racism and bigotry and discrimination is never pretty. It doesn’t feel good. It is like a mirror. People see things about themselves, see scars, hear about the ugly incidents that occurred to real life humans. Those disgusting pieces of hell on earth that decent “normal” people wish didn’t exist, wish hadn’t occurred, yet turn their backs and shut their ears when they witness it happening again. Don’t want to get involved. It has nothing to do with you. It’s ugly. Cover it up.
Well I don’t want to cover it up. I don’t want to hide from it. And I don’t have to be quiet about it. People are so proud of spouting their ignorance; well it shouldn’t be wrong to point out the truth. And I feel that we will never improve as a country, as a society if everyone keeps dodging and ducking that painful layer of reality.
The reality is that these problems still exist, and that these problems are negatively affecting everyone. These problems are also happening to everyone; not just one race, or one group, or in one section of the United States.
Are you sick of it being brought up? Then you should be sick of it happening. You should be sick for the people who have to live with being treated like this everyday.
And when you are fighting for the right to get in someone’s face and call them a nigger, or a fag, or a Bible thumper, or a taco eater…. look at them and see just for once that they are humans with lives, dreams, problems, pain, and RIGHTS too. They have a right to be accepted for who they are regardless of how they look or where they came from, a right not to be discriminated against.
So what do you think? Is having to be politically correct killing your freedom of speech, or is it a way to make everyone feel like they can find some acceptance in a world where violence, drugs, and ugliness is getting closer to the norm?
You know how I feel.
Sunrise
Let's see how long it takes the cowards to try to pull this thread down and delete it.
The people you would think to be less familiar of how to treat people, less familiar with seeing past societies stereotypes, less familiar with finding out how each person is as an individual on the inside… You’d think it would be the children. I mean, after all…children haven’t lived as long. They have less practice at it.
Amazing so, it is the children who need to teach adults a lesson in love, humility and acceptance. They learn by example of course. Once they conquer that one experience which dispels all of their pre-conceived notions, they usually let those stereotypes fade away. And if they are wrong, and you explain it to them (if they don’t know), they get it. They change it. You don’t hear them spouting out that they are tired of being politically correct, and that they have a right to sound as hateful as they want to sound because that is just the way they feel.
And you know, sure I have to get on to them sometimes for making fun of the children who just aren’t as “cool” as everyone else “seems” to be. Or the kid who is not quite the “norm”, but then again, what is normal? Everyone is different.
I don’t think I have ever had greater joys than I have had teaching my students this year. I moved from Atlanta last July into a small town in Nowhere, Georgia where the rebel flag is part of the daily attire of almost everyone. Where 60 years ago, some of their parents attended barbeques where my race was lynched for fun. And I was ready to do battle!
It wasn’t a week that I had been working there when someone anonymously called the principal and said I was calling the children crackers. The next week I was too mean and they kids were all afraid of me. The next week, how long has she been teaching and is she qualified. Where did she come from? Blah Blah Blah. But you should have seen those parents’ children. It took the kids about 5 seconds to see me walking down the hall before I heard them screaming my name and running to give me a hug. As tough as I act like to think I am, I enjoy being loved by my students. I’d be a liar if I said that I didn’t adore them just as much.
And in teaching American History, it was amazing to watch them get so excited and shocked, and interested in seeing and hearing the truth. How things really were, how so many things really happened. Things their book either failed to mention, or barely covered. You’d think the Trail of Tears was a cakewalk to a brand new resort if you could hear our book telling it.
The fact of the matter is, I think in all of our efforts to “protect” our rights of free speech, and not wanting to be forced to conform to the guidelines of what is politically correct, we forgot our lessons from childhood.
It doesn’t matter that my skin is black and your skin is brown. It doesn’t matter if I make 1000 dollars a week or 1000 a month. It doesn’t matter if you are from Germany and I am from Venezuela. We are all human and we all deserve to be treated in that fashion.
And it sickens me for some “adult” to come on TMF, or on T.V. or wherever they go and spew out stuff that even a small child can figure out is wrong. Then cower behind an amendment that was originally put in place because the danger of speaking against the king back then was death, NOT someone disagreeing with you.
If I wanted to be politically incorrect, I would say that Americans are the ones that are the savages, the heathens, and the aggressors. Don’t forget that after 9/11, dozens of innocent Muslims were attacked and brutalized and terrorized by Americans. Americans terrorizing other Americans, mind you. Where was freedom of religion then?
Don’t forget that we live in a country that terrorized the Native Americans, almost wiped them out, and forced them off their land to reservations (those who made it). Where was the right for them to live in peace without evil dictatorship then?
We bullied the Mexicans and the Spanish, and forced them out of Texas, California, etc. with war. Using our superior weapons we coined our actions as Manifest Destiny. God was the one who told us we needed to take everyone’s land and stretch from sea to shining sea. (It’s funny how we can praise God for our triumphs, and scorn Him for our failures and tragedies.)
We forced the Chinese and the Irish immigrants to build our railroads, and work in our dirty dangerous factories and mines for low wages and poor housing. We acquired over time 4 million blacks to live as slaves and work and cultivate a country that they could not even get citizenship for. We placed hundreds of Japanese in work camps in California for fear that they were part of the Axis cause.
We have done so many hideous horrible things to wipe out and destroy our own people that I can’t name them all. And yet, we call others savages, and heathens, and uncivilized, and evil tyrants!
We talk about our freedoms, most of which we gained on the backs of others who didn’t live to know the meaning of the word democracy. And after all of those lessons in our “glorious” history, we have solely learned to continue to treat people like they are beneath us under the guise of free speech. And then we get angry when they are offended by the garbage that we spout.
Call me politically correct or not…. But I won’t allow any of my students, black, white, green, or purple to say the word nigger, nigga or any variation there of. Cracker, spic, honky, jap, coon, etc…are not allowed in my classroom either. Racist and ignorant remarks aren’t tolerated. And CHILDREN GET IT. They know that it is wrong and debasing. They know that it is unfair to separate, discriminate, or judge somebody for who they are on the outside. They may mess up every once in awhile but they know it is wrong. THEY GET IT!
And we adults, we can’t accept that. We hide under the guise of refusing to let anyone force us to sound politically correct.
Say what you believe, right?
Speak out?
Regardless of how many groups you alienate or make feel inferior to you, as long as you can speak your piece, that is all that matters!
Regardless of how many people spend their lives wishing that someone would see past the fact that they are in a wheelchair, or that they are gay, or that they are female, or that they only come from a single parent home, or that they are a Christian, or Muslim, or whatever they are, you still have the right to look down your nose at someone else.
After all… that is the essence of America, right? Certainly that is what the soldiers died for and are still dying for. The right for YOU to speak your mind in a way that makes others feel inferior. They died for that?
Instead of seeing differences as something special, and unique, you can continue to use your freedom of speech to degrade people, and yell out how you have the right to think that what YOU are, or what YOU BELIEVE is everything a person should be.
I can’t say that I’m surprised that this sort of thing even goes on HERE at <B>TMF</B> as well. But I be damned if I’m going to cower and not call a spade a spade. Every time there is proof, and something is pointed out, it is deleted or edited, locked, or moved because things start to heat up.
Saying that it would be cool to have a master race is conversational. Stating that you are offended is argumentative.
Someone groveling and trying to paint a prettier picture over the darkness of the phrase is really disgusting. Especially if you are related to the people who died fighting against the poison that one race should be master over everyone else’s.
Watching that same person read his own derogatory and demeaning statements paints a different picture. That picture is that words are not just words. They actually have power and they CAN cut, hurt, separate and alienate people. Don’t tell me you are one way and your words show me differently. Don’t try to reason with me about how accepting you are, when you have posted statements that make you sound like you are a bigot.
If I was in class and the Master Race sentiment was expressed, all I would have had to do was explain WWII to my students and they would have gotten it. They probably would have felt ashamed, reflected on it, and became better people from the learning experience they had just received.
Point it out to adults, and you are forcing someone to be politically correct. They feel like their freedom of speech is being stomped on because they are actually having to think of someone else’s feelings and experiences besides their own.
Suddenly they realize that something that they have said could have been wrong, berating, improper, inappropriate, unaccepting of others, BUT that’s just too bad because they aren’t going to walk on eggshell trying to make everyone feel good. And damn it! That’s how they feel!
God forbid that there are actually other people around here that are human besides YOU.
Other people’s way of fixing our nation’s problem is to imagine that discrimination and racism is all in the past. We should cover it up, forget about it, act like it never happened, edit it, delete it, censor it. After all… it isn’t your fault that it happened. You didn’t do it. Why keep talking about it?
It’s hard to face racism, isn’t it? Because facing racism and bigotry and discrimination is never pretty. It doesn’t feel good. It is like a mirror. People see things about themselves, see scars, hear about the ugly incidents that occurred to real life humans. Those disgusting pieces of hell on earth that decent “normal” people wish didn’t exist, wish hadn’t occurred, yet turn their backs and shut their ears when they witness it happening again. Don’t want to get involved. It has nothing to do with you. It’s ugly. Cover it up.
Well I don’t want to cover it up. I don’t want to hide from it. And I don’t have to be quiet about it. People are so proud of spouting their ignorance; well it shouldn’t be wrong to point out the truth. And I feel that we will never improve as a country, as a society if everyone keeps dodging and ducking that painful layer of reality.
The reality is that these problems still exist, and that these problems are negatively affecting everyone. These problems are also happening to everyone; not just one race, or one group, or in one section of the United States.
Are you sick of it being brought up? Then you should be sick of it happening. You should be sick for the people who have to live with being treated like this everyday.
And when you are fighting for the right to get in someone’s face and call them a nigger, or a fag, or a Bible thumper, or a taco eater…. look at them and see just for once that they are humans with lives, dreams, problems, pain, and RIGHTS too. They have a right to be accepted for who they are regardless of how they look or where they came from, a right not to be discriminated against.
So what do you think? Is having to be politically correct killing your freedom of speech, or is it a way to make everyone feel like they can find some acceptance in a world where violence, drugs, and ugliness is getting closer to the norm?
You know how I feel.
Sunrise
Let's see how long it takes the cowards to try to pull this thread down and delete it.
Last edited:
