A facepalm worthy movement coming out of Duke University is gaining traction online. With over 14,000 Facebook likes, the “You Don’t Say? Campaign” is a strange hybrid of self-righteousness and lunacy.
Colloquialisms spouted every day by individuals exercising their right to freedom of expression are now being labeled as oppressive insults to marginal groups. When does it end? Stepping on someone’s toes today can get you fired, labeled a racist, and now this “progressive” University is seeking to ban words altogether because someone might be offended.
The phrases in question cover the whole spectrum. Basically, if you’ve said something to someone in a moment of joviality, it’s hate speech. Innocuous phrases like, “Man Up,” imply that you think strength is defined by sex or gender. If you’ve said “No homo,” you’re saying that acts of affection towards someone of the same gender are inherently bad.
Another possible option, although far-fetched, could be that you’re making a joke. But don’t let the folks at Duke hear you! Considering someone else’s feelings is admirable, and should always be strived for, but this campaign is narrow-minded at best. Would they bestow the same painstaking courtesy towards someone of a different political party? Not likely.
What’s worse, this war on words shows no signs of stopping. On the group’s page, the moderators make plans for, “future renditions of this campaign [that] will certainly attest to other language issues including physical and mental ableism, racism, and more. There is no doubt that in the next year, You Don’t Say will address those other identities.”
Responses to the group have ranged from supportive to perplexed. One post reads, “I can’t say anything about an individual person, because it might be construed as offensive to a larger group… even if I had no intention of offending a larger group?”
An angrier response stated, “As a thinking individual, I don’t and didn’t need some children from Duke University admonishing me for ‘thinking any gender is inferior.’ Do you see what they did there? ‘Any gender.’ Not ‘either gender.’ It’s all about redefining terms, redefining life.”
I say that the You Don’t Say Campaign needs to man up and realize that their efforts, however well-intentioned, are horribly misguided and will only further divide people. Or maybe I’m just being gay. Either way, I support the first amendment rights of others to keep using the phrases they enjoy, as long as they don’t intentionally seek to hurt anyone.
No homo.
[about_faith]
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