Offensive article about offended people
I don’t really remember what we were talking about, but a few weeks ago I managed to use the phrase “colored people” when talking to my friend. Now, I myself am not white. But this phrase kinda freaked out my friend, and she responded with “no, you can’t say that! It’s offensive! You have to say ‘people of color’ instead.”
I get it. About fifty years ago, segregation in America was overwhelming. And back then, “colored people” was a phrase used to separate whites from blacks. But if I use that phrase now, who is really going to be offended? Does rearranging the words change anything? Martin Luther King Jr. is not going to resurrect and cry in my cereal for using the phrase “colored people” instead of “people of color.” The only other thing one can call this group of people is “non-whites,” and that’s honestly way worse than using “colored people” or “people of color,” because it makes it seem like white people are the center of the world, which they aren’t. People waste so much time being offended about things.
This stubborn, unnecessary offendedness is also unbelievably littered over the dead and corpse-ish argument of “cultural appropriation,” that horrible phrase that describes people who are absolutely opposed to the sharing of cherished, ethnic ideas. Why do people need to keep their cultures all to themselves, and prevent their beloved values from spreading? One of the most commonly mentioned culturally appropriative actions is people wearing bindis that don’t belong to the bindi culture.
The story usually goes as follows: some Indian girl complains on the Interwebs about how her mom or grandma or something made her wear bindis when she was little. People at her school made fun of her, called her names, said she smelled like Indian food (which smells super nice, actually), etc. She grows up and “the same people” that made fun of her as a child are wearing bindis as a “fashion item,” disregarding their “importance.” I myself am Indian. This argument is utterly invalid because in reality, some Indians only wear bindis as fashion items (surprise, Hindus aren’t the only Indians ever), and it’s really just a sticker these people are putting on their foreheads.
Has the world really gotten to a point that people need to get angry and upset about stickers on foreheads? People change, and usually for the better. If I wore a bindi, it would be okay, because I am Indian. I myself never had to wear them as a child, and have only wore them to certain parties. It was never a badge I had to earn or something dramatic like that. I literally stuck it on my forehead and no one complained. But if people of other races wear it, it’s suddenly a huge deal, because they’re wearing it as a fashion item. It’s so stupid that people have to rage over these kinds of things, with the opinion that a culture is a huge, unbelievably important phenomenon that can only be admired and brought out by certain people. In fact, it’s more insulting to the culture to wind its entire legacy down to a bindi or a burrito or something like that. Cultures should be shared. We are all humans that should be advancing as a society, yet here are some adults with the same preschool mindset of “no, that toy is mine! I won’t share!” Maybe instead of cultural appropriation, we should have cultural appreciation, because many cultures are awesome and deserving of admiration and the yearning to participate.
While people are too sensitive about menial things, there are still some terms and phrases that I agree should never be used. The N word is a rather prominent example. Some words are so hateful and hurtful that they should never be uttered again. But tiny unimportant things like “colored people” (which I only actually said in the first place because someone complained to me about how they hated the phrase “person/people of color”) and wearing bindis should not be so effective in their affecting of people. If someone really has confidence in themselves and who they are, they should not get offended so easily. We are wasting our minds by getting angry like this. It’s idiotic to get wound up and annoyed by things other people say if these things are not directed towards you with ill intent. As long as the words and actions are not used in an oppressive way or in a manner that is intended to hurt, they should not be thought of as offensive. Next time you feel yourself getting angry and offended about something menial, ask yourself, “am I really offended, or am I just getting offended because I think I have to be?”
