Wow.
After reading the UNL Haters Tumblr page, I am extremely shocked and horrified
that people my age are making comments like this. They are not only making
themselves look bad, but they are making the entire student body look ignorant.
Someone from another school, another state, another culture will look at this
and form an opinion on the UNL student body without knowing that not everyone
is like this. Although I have a twitter account, I have never seen these posts
and I don’t follow anyone who makes comments like these. I would unfollow these
people right away and let them know that what they are saying is not right. The
majority of these comments were about the Asian population at UNL. It’s
apparent that those commenting obviously have no idea about the Asian
community. I don’t understand how people can make these comments and talk like they
do.
Language is a very powerful thing and one of the
sayings I can’t stand is “that’s so retarded.” When I hear people say this, I
cringe and have been known to correct them. It’s not right to make light of a
situation by using an insensitive word. There
are how many words in the English language and all people can choose to use is
hurtful words. I feel like people who use these hurtful words are being lazy by
not coming up with a better word to use to describe something. “The places from
which people speak that are socially constructed and thus embedded with
assumptions about gender, sex, sexuality, race, class, age, ethnicity,
nationality, region and religion” is known as social positions (Martin &
Nakayama, 2012, page 245). Whether or not people realize it, when they make
derogatory comments towards anyone that is different than them, they are making
their social position known.
I don’t know what can be done to
stop these hateful and derogatory comments, but it’s obvious that something
needs to be done! People can’t just go around making comments like this and get
away with it. It is extremely hurtful to others and makes them look like they
don’t know anything about other cultures/races/sexual orientations/etc.
Works Cited
Words Can Hurt. (2009, April 19). Breaking News, Current Events, Latest News and World Events
at allvoices.com. Retrieved
February 22, 2013, from
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/3011806-words-can-hurt
Stereotypes in America. (n.d.). The Studio@620. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from http://www.studio620.org/620/e_stia.php
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.
I was just as shocked as you were that people our age were saying/writing such awful things! I think that we can all make a difference somehow so this stops. People don't realize saying things such as these can hurt a lot of people.
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