Thread: Triggering (Bullying): Teachers tell bullied kids to act less 'gay'
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Re: Teachers tell bullied kids to act less 'gay' - November 3rd 2011, 08:36 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marguerite View Post
I love that people are saying this is okay because they are against political correctness. 'Political correctness' is such a stupid term that people just go crazy over.

Sometimes doing the right thing just falls under the umbrella of political correctness. When people go overboard, and take political correctness to an extreme, that's ridiculous and ineffective. So is just opposing something because you don't want to support the 'political correct' stance, it makes you just as ridiculous and just as extreme.

If you actually support the teachers in this case, fine. But don't just support them because you want to zig where everyone else is zagging.

Let's put this in perspective.

"Miss, the kids are calling me a nerd." "ACT LESS SMART."
"Miss, I'm being bullied by racists." "ACT LESS BLACK."
"Miss, they're calling me four-eyes." "ACT LESS SHORT SIGHTED."

So if you actually think the answer to being bullied is to not be yourself, or to minimize parts of yourself to appease people who hate you because you're gay or religious or overweight or have a learning disability or wear clothes people don't like, great, take that position. But I doubt anyone actually thinks that.
You're twisting the context a bit with your quotations on "act less smart" "act less black" etc...

When someone tells someone else to "act less gay", it doesn't necessarily directly suggest that person is gay at all, but just behaving awkward in general, or simply that he, she, or it, is stupid, or dumb etc. I've heard people call all sorts of things gay... cars, houses, street names, shops, pencil cases, etc... I think you get the point. Never have I heard in my life "black", "short-sighted", used to describe behaviour, "smart" more frequently though, but usually positively and used as a compliment. Some things you can change, some things you can't. Being black, short sighted, or even being smart, you can't, not really. "Acting gay" here is referring to a certain style of behaviour, which can be changed. Here, the person "acting gay" has two choices (assuming the teacher doesn't help):

1. Either they stop "acting gay" which would draw less attention to themselves and perhaps get them bullied less, or
2. They start going to the gym, do karate, kick boxing and judo, and learn to stand their ground.

In my opinion, very practical advice, although personally I'd chose the second option.

And about the political correctness thing I threw in... I simply chipped it in because I felt like ranting. It did not alter the course of my argument. Political correctness or not, I'd not support the sacking of the teacher.

There are two meanings to "gay" in this context:
1. Homosexual
2. Stupid

If they were bullied not for "acting gay" (2), but actually "being gay" (1), it would be a different story. The difference is in how the words "being" and "acting" are used. The teacher clearly told the kids to "act less gay".

And please goddamit don't call me RATHIST or whatever. I'm just dishing out the facts as far as I'm aware of them.


"I don't care about politics"
Then politics doesn't care about you either. Truth. You've got to make your voice heard, if you want to be listened to. But that's too logical for some people, so let me go a step further. Not making your voice heard, leaves other people free to hijack it by speaking on your behalf, even if they don't actually give a shit about you. That's politics. So, make your voice heard. That's not a quote from anywhere. That's just me.



Last edited by NonIndigenous; November 3rd 2011 at 09:01 AM.
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