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| This is not my living room. This living room is located on a yacht valued at 12.9 million dollars. But I'm going to *pretend* this is my living room although the picture really came from businessinsider.com |
A couple years ago we had friends staying with us overnight. We've known them for years and they were here for an annual get together. While here one of them used the R-word while admonishing one of their kids for something.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Use whatever language you want in your own house. In your car. Wherever. But in my house, in my living room, it is pretty obvious that the R-word is one that will stop conversation.
I was nice about it, and didn't need to explain where the error was and it wasn't brought up again. (As an aside, why is it that people who have a potty mouth can go to church and manage to not swear out of respect for all things holy or whatever, but they walk into my living room and can't control their mouth????)
So here you are. On my blog. It is like I have invited you into my living room to participate in the conversation. I don't want my guests to be offended and leave because I throw a crappy party and have rude guests. Please remember that my blog is my own personal space on the internet. Every day I hold an open house and expect that my guests will treat one another with respect and not resort to name calling, hate speech or personal attacks.
That is all. Now lets have another cup of coffee!
6 comments:
Very good points. I apologize.
I don't use the word, but it is still used in medical reporting, to describe anything that is slower than normal, as in intrauterine growth retardation. It originally was not considered a slur, but it has evolved into that through people using it with a derogatory tone. I do think that, giving them the benefit of the doubt, some people do not know that it has evolved into a rude word. Although the way you describe this, it does sound like the person used it that way.
I may have been perceived as rude the other day by a family with a child with Down syndrome because their daughter was being kind of loud during a movie and I turned my head 3 or 4 times that way. However, the only reason I did was because I knew my son and his friend were sitting over that way and I wanted to make sure that it was not my son being noisy. Also, I'm about half deaf in my left ear and have to turn my head to get my right ear going in that direction. Hopefully, since I stopped after the first few times they didn't think about it. :-/ I hate to be perceived as rude in a situation like that.
Leah, I hope that my using the 'R' word in my comment the other day wasn't seen as me actually condoning the use of that word. I detest it with everything that is in me. I used it to describe what my childhood friend Laurie was actually called and referred to by his family and by society back when I was seven years old. I hated that word back then, and I hate it now.
I sincerely apologise if I caused offense :(
Fatcat and Imogen, my reference to the use of the R-word in this post was for example only. In the post about inclusion there was a bit of name-calling going on and I felt the need to lay down some ground rules for friendly conversation. Imogen, your use of the word was in the context of the era in which the events occurred and was not offensive.
CJ, thanks for apologizing. It is appreciated.
Thanks Leah - whew. I was worried all night lol. Thanks for cleaning that up :)
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