**** Elections thread *****

[OngBonga]

If I'm a gay man, and someone calls me a faggot, my assumption is not "he's calling me a bundle of kindling that they burn witches with, how offensive". I'd think "he's calling me gay, which indeed I am".

And if I thought he was actually using the word in its correct historical context, I'd have a little respect for him for knowing such history.

[surviva316]

If I'm a gay man, and someone calls me a faggot, my assumption is not "he's calling me a bundle of kindling that they burn witches with, how offensive". I'd think "he's calling me gay, which indeed I am".

And if I thought he was actually using the word in its correct historical context, I'd have a little respect for him for knowing such history.

Hence the word "ignorance." You live in a society where there's an awareness that a word you use is offensive, and instead of choosing to educate yourself on why that is and seek to understand from your fellow people's perspective why it's offensive, you ignore all that and go on using it.

This is the problem with how we view morals. Everything is either categorically wrong or it's amoral. No, things are varyingly degrees of bad or (as is most ignored) good. One side is dissecting whether every action makes you a fascist shitlord or makes you meh. The other side is concerned about doing just enough to be blameless, and not giving a shit about the rest.

What should be perfectly clear to both sides is that it's good to take the care to know how your words affect others and it's bad to be hurtful toward other people for no reason other than their sexual orientation.