Bigots in the news!

Bigotry is big in the news this week. Apparently, we’ve all been very busy being insensitive to each other—even more so than usual—and the victims of this insensitivity are crawling out of the woodwork to be heard and seen.

The two big events in bigotry this week deal with two very different groups. There’s the special people (apparently mentally challenged or disabled are negative euphemisms) who are up in arms about the usage of the word “retard,” in the new movie Tropic Thunder; and there is the entire foreign press corps who are up in arms about the Spanish basketball team posing for an advertising picture in classic team photo pose, with the exception of them each using their fingers to pull their eyes outward making them “squinty,” an apparent dig at the Chinese.

In the case of the movie (which coincidentally also has a white actor in blackface—HUGE props to the Black community for taking a joke and rolling with it instead of whining and bitching like everyone else!) the excuse for bigotry is that it’s all just a joke, the movie is outrageous and funny and supposed to be insensitive in a way that’s meant to be harmless. In the case of Spain’s basketball team, they did what they were told to do by a team sponsor and did not mean any offense by their gesture.

And that’s just it, that’s my question. Do you have to mean it in a mean-spirited and down-putting way for it to be bigotry?

I once watched a black guy with the patience of Job deal with an old white man who kept referring to him as colored. The old man wasn’t trying to be offensive. He was actually trying to engage the other man in a nice conversation—the problem was that every time he talked about the past, he felt it necessary to mention the way it was back in his day for the colored folk.

Old man or not, if the guy he was talking to had been more sensitive, it could have gotten ugly, but it didn’t. Eventually, the old man left and my friends and I sat open-mouthed at the black man’s patience. He must have recognized it on our faces because without provocation, he simply said, “He just didn’t know any better.”

I left that chance meeting with an extremely high opinion of that man for his patience and his reason.

I think if I had asked him, he would have told me that there has to be intent to be bigoted for bigotry to exist. But is that really so?

I also walked away from that situation ashamed that a white man in this day and age could possibly be that unintentionally ignorant. It’s not as if the information isn’t out there for us to digest. We all know where the line is and we all know not to cross it.

You can’t tell me that in the name of satire, the writers, director and actors in this movie didn’t know that the possibility existed for some negative attention. And you can’t tell me that in an entire gym full of Spanish basketball players making squinty eyes, not one of them had the thought cross his mind that they might be offensive to someone, somewhere.

And each proceeded, despite that potential for perceived bigotry. Their motives cannot be measured. In the case of the movie, their insensitivity has made it a blockbuster before it even opens. Did they offend for financial gain? In the case of the Spanish team, they did this for a sponsor—again, for financial gain—in the name of humor.

But which is it? Is it in the name of a good laugh—of us not taking ourselves so damn seriously, or is it in the name of the almighty dollar (or do I say the almighty euro now that the dollar isn’t worth much?)?

And either way, if the intent isn’t to offend, and the act is still deemed offensive by some, is it still an act of bigotry? Does that simply render it a matter of semantics? Is it ignorant but not bigoted?

And what about those of us who find it funny? If we laugh at something that might be offensive to someone, what does that say about us? The truth is that it’s a fine line and one that will never be clearly visible or stationary. I think, like the patient man I met who endured an old man’s ignorant racist terminology that sometimes, you just have to shrug your shoulders and understand that they didn’t know any better.

I think at other times you have to learn to laugh at yourself and the things that make you different from other people. If you love yourself and who and what you are, you’re a lot less likely to be offended by someone pointing out how you might be different from other people. I think, like in the case of the hero from my example, that personal pride and dignity carry you a long way.

Hypersensitivity only places a larger target upon you. Call it blood in the water, or showing weakness, but overreaction to an alleged attack of bigotry is almost more dangerous than the attack itself because it invites more attacks. You can turn the other cheek and educate the world while taking a higher road, or you can play the victim and be looked up in that way.

Sadly, more times than not, groups take the defensive approach. That’s been the way people have reacted to the two incidents that have occurred this week. There’s a lot to be said for just lightening up, for rolling with the punches, for taking a joke.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And that’s the hidden part of bigotry that no one ever talks about. If you’re proud of what makes you unique, if you’re proud of what separates you and makes you different, then having those differences pointed out shouldn’t be offensive. If you take pride in what makes you different, you are easily able to get the joke.

I’m not condoning either instance of bigotry in the news this week, but they make me wonder about the responses and the uproar. Learning to be sensitive to one and other couldn’t hurt, but taking pride in who and what we are and allowing others to demean us for our differences might take us even farther.

Well that's just retarded!

Ben Stiller, who hasn’t been able to elicit even the tiniest of laughs since Zoolander is set to release a new movie next week and across the entire spectrum of the politically correct world, panties are bunching over the repeated use of the word “retard,” throughout the film.

Yes, friends and family, it’s been at least a week since I last ranted about people being hypersensitive over silly little words, so fasten your seatbelts, grab a strong cup of coffee and enjoy.

I’ll start by saying that I’m coming from a place of complete and total ignorance regarding the movie and the usage of the word in that movie (nothing like writing and publishing on the internet a diatribe on a subject matter about which you’re completely ignorant is there?).

Then again, I don’t really need to know how the word is used in order to properly rip the people of this world who have nothing better to do with their lives than protest the openings of Ben Stiller movies. One more bomb and Stiller would be going direct to DVD in his next release anyway, but I’m sure the press for this issue will fill the house with frat boys and tragically, force us to endure yet another Stiller movie in a few months.

I’ve written at length about how words only have the power that we give them and how a word’s meaning and depth can and does change over time. As we become desensitized to a word, it’s edge disappears and it’s ability to be mightier than the proverbial sword is lessened. The word retard is one of those words.

Only the most base, most uneducated and ignorant portion of our society uses the word retard to describe someone with a mental handicap. It just doesn’t happen. The unwritten rule of thumb about a word like retard is that it’s perfectly acceptable to use as long as you’re not using it to refer to someone with a mental disability.

WhaHuh?

Okay, I know, that defies logic on many levels, but stay with me here. Retard doesn’t mean the same thing it used to mean. When we were a more ignorant people, we called mentally challenged people (and if you’re counting, I’ve used 3 different euphemisms for that population so far—I’m all about the hypocrisy) retards because of their seeming stupidity. Of course being stupid is an upgrade from being demonic which is what we thought of them right before we upgraded them to stupid.

Then, we grew up to be the medically advanced, forward thinking, feeling sensitive people we are today and realized that they aren’t stupid at all, their mind’s just function in a way that is different from the norm. We are now kind to those with mental disabilities. We speak loud and slow and use exaggerated lip movements to emphasize this point and shake our heads smiling at their parents or friends to let them know we are sympathetic—and that we would never call them a retard.

And here’s the catch. While we may still be slow-talking idiot fools in the presence of a mentally disabled person, we no longer think of them as stupid. We understand that their parents weren’t first cousins, they aren’t devil spawn, they aren’t purposefully being dense—it’s just something that some of us are born into and cannot escape.

That said, the word retard has retained its original meaning to us. When you tell someone they’re being retarded now, you’re telling them that they’re being stupid, acting foolish—you’re not comparing them to a mentally challenged person. That thought doesn’t even enter your mind.

But it’s still insensitive because of the past usage of that word! Right? Sensitivity sensischmivity I say! We all need to just get the hell over ourselves. Certain words just lose their sharpness over time. And I’m not saying that they aren’t still used as weapons, but come on people!

I’m guilty. I’ve called friends retards for doing something dumb. I’ve used the word gay to describe someone who was being or doing something different—and I really don’t feel bad about that one since gay actually means happy.

It’s a byproduct of our language. Words can and regularly do have multiple meanings, they carry different weights. The entire English language depends on context. It’s a grammar thing, not a political thing. A word used in hate by one can be used in jest by another and in description by a third.

That brings my back to my own ignorance. I don’t know how Stiller uses the word in his movie. Maybe he’s making fun of mentally disabled people? Maybe he’s so desperate for laughs that is his new tactic for box office success. Comedy today seems to be about outdoing the outrageousness of the other guy. Maybe making fun of the mentally challenged is Stiller’s way of one upping Will Ferrell’s recent movie where he rubs his balls on a rival’s drum kit.

I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m tired of being offended for people. Perhaps if we saved our outrage for events that really and truly deserved it, I’d be more likely to care, but as of right now, I simply don’t.

Kind of retarded, isn’t it?