Yes, but “gay” still means “gay” all the day long. It seems as if you and people like you are pushing for it to mean something else, but it’s not going to work as long as the vast majority of people understand “gay” to mean “homosexual”.
You have the right to use the word anyway you want, but don’t be surprised when someone bites your head off. They have the right to be pissed.
Is it so hard to believe that coming from a poor neighborhood can be a point of pride? Hell, that’s what a large chunk of country songs are about.
Words only carry the weight you give them. In my classroom, my students feel loved because I show them love, not because I use the right politically correct words. As a teacher of the English language, I would have to be both naive and a complete idiot not to realize that the language will change whether I want it to or not. I cannot stop this change from coming about. And to be honest, I wouldn’t stop it if I could. I am a believer that all languages, English in this case, are living, breathing, fluid, changing beings. That being the case, I cannot make it stay as it is. No matter how much you disagree with me, neither can you. My students know that I do not nor will I ever tolerate homophobic, racist, or sexist slurs in the classroom. They also know, however, that I am an open-minded and fair individual who will allow them the benefit of the doubt. You are correct that I do not permit the use of the word “nigger” or “nigga” in my classroom. You are incorrect, however, in assuming you know my reasoning behind this. As a word of its own, I have no problem with the word “nigga.” I find it neither offensive nor problematic. I see it as a word that black youth and musicians have claimed as their own in much the same way I refer to some of my female friends as “bitches.” It takes the power away from the oppressor and puts it in the proper hands. We can talk about hegemony if you like, but I see and hear my students using the word “nigga” in a positive way, not a negative one. The only reason I don’t allow it is because I would be instituting a double standard if I allowed the black students to say it but not the white students. I am probably old-fashioned in that respect. One of my white students used “nigga” the other day, and the black students laughed and didn’t care. If I felt this would be guaranteed in every instance, I might change my mind.
Answering your own questions? Wow, you and I are obviously two very different types of teachers. You do as you like, but make sure you have valid reasons for doing so.
I don’t see this as a valid reason. The Good Houskeeping Seal of Approval has never applied in any of the three high schools in which I’ve taught. Besides, I never said it was fine for polite or formal settings. I just said I wished matt wouldn’t take it so personally. That desire is based purely out of my affection for him.
Okay. You haven’t been in the ghetto lately, have you? Living in a 10-mile radius of the ghetto doesn’t mean you’ve been in it. Tell me otherwise, and I’ll be happy to concede this point while still maintaining my opposing opinion. My prior and current exeriences tell me that “ghetto” is most assuredly a point of pride.
This statement shows that you and I will never agree on anything. I’ve dedicated my life to these “silly children,” and for the record I’ve never met a silly child in my life. I have, however, met quite a few silly adults.
I have a good enough relationship with my students’ parents that I guarantee I could do this, and every single one of them would laugh their asses off, hug me, and then invite me over for dinner. I’m not saying this out of arrogance; I’m saying it because I’ve already had dinner at most of their houses. Teaching at-risk 9th graders who read on a 3rd-5th grade reading level requires a great deal of parental contact. Case in point, I told one mother yesterday that her weave looked a “hot mess” and it was time to visit the hair salon; she almost pissed herself laughing. A sense of humor goes a long damn way in teaching.
Lumping people into categories like this is a slippery slope. I’d be careful of that habit if I were you. Assess individuals as just that, and you’ll make fewer errors in judgment.
I’m not pushing for it to mean anything. As I stated earlier, language will change. Full stop. I’m merely an avid lover and scholar of this language, which means I will allow it to change and continue to be in awe of it while trying not to turn into some sort of Language Nazi over it.
Eh, I’ll take my chances. I’ve never been verbally or physically attacked in public yet. I must have a smidgen or two of social decorum left.
(I posted this once already, but I don’t see it. If it double-posts, all apologies.)
Grew up in the ghetto and had to face the stigma of it. Work in the ghetto. Live in the ghetto. I’m so sick of the ghetto that I can’t wait til I get out. Believe me, I know all about ghetto. So forgive me if I’m not impressed by your expertise on all things ghetto. I find it really amusing.
Yes, because we know children are fountains of wisdom and truth, who never call their peers “retard”, “nerd”, “fag”, and “fatty”. Pleeeease! When I hear someone call something stupid “gay”, I immediately think childish, adolescent, and immature. I do not take such a person seriously. And I don’t take anyone seriously if they proudly proclaim themselves as “ghetto” SERIOUSLY. I think “silly child”, whether they are one chronologically or not. If your students are calling themselves ghetto SERIOUSLY, you yourself need to stop being childish and actually teach them to think better of themselves. Humoring them is not doing a damn thing for their self-esteems.
I doubt this would happen. I doubt if you walked up to one of your student’s parents and said, “Hey you ghetto nigga”, you would get a hug and be invited to dinner. The fact that you think you would get a laugh proves my point, though. No one identifies themselves as ghetto SERIOUSLY. And if you disagree with this basic assertion, then I would have to question your abilities as a teacher. Really.
You cannot seriously sit there and tell me that “ghetto” is a SERIOUS (I keep emphasizing this, but you keep ignoring it) way of identifying ones self, as “gay” is. If I hear someone denigrate something as “ghetto”, I can rationalize that they weren’t denigrating me. “Ghetto” is an insult based on arbitrary critera. “Gayness” is pretty clear cut for the vast majority of people.
I expect you to disagree, though. Don’t know why you will, but you will.
Define “Elvis Fan”. Do you mean a screaming, makes annual treks to Graceland, knows every factoid of his life fan?
Or is a person allowed to merely enjoy his music, along with the other types of music, and musicians they like, without being a “fan” and losing your respect?
IMHO, judging a person’s respectability based on their musical taste or their taste in entertainment period for that matter, is kindof a “makes someone else lose respect for you” kindof thing for me.
That’s not to say that I won’t give my friends a hard time for their choices “you LIKED ‘Vertical Limit’??? Oh ugh, your taste in movies sucks”!!! But lose respect for them? naah.
I was thinking along the same lines! Um, because YOU’RE the doctor guy? And I don’t have any clue what’s going on, and wouldn’t want to say something if it’s wrong, and so on and so forth?
In other words, I think for a lot of us, it’s because we’re semi-awed, or intimidated by doctors.
When a person offers as a reason why they hold the view they hold on some complex, controversial, emotionally-charged subject:
I know, I know, I know. What’s startling is the universality of the “not that I know of,” response.
Generally, I’m sensitive to issues arising due to the nature of the patient/physician relationship; I don’t think this case is any different. Note that in my original post, the subject began, “This doesn’t cause me to lose respect instantly but…,” or something like that. It’s not that I don’t understand peoples’ motivations, but that, a priori, I’d never have expected nearly everybody (possibly everybody) to answer noncommitally to a list a questions that seem to demand a concrete response.
You should go stay at the Las Vegas Hilton. There you’ll get to see the Elvis-fan Trekkies and the Trekkie Elvises! 
Any of the various forms of the following “words”:
orientate
conversate
commentate (when not used to refer to sports commentators)
Also, as I mentioned before, I hate the phrase “shits and giggles.” Hard to respect someone who uses that phrase.
All apologies then. I concede to this point that you indeed are familiar with the ghetto. I am not from the ghetto. I am from middle-class white suburban southern America. My experiences of the last seven years in the ghetto are what I am basing my statements on. I will be neither presumptuous nor arrogant enough to claim my experiences as any more meaningful than yours and therefore my opinions as any more correct than yours. We have simply had two very different experiences in the ghetto.
So someone is a “silly” person if they are guilty of namecalling? Well, you called me childish, so I guess that makes you a silly person, and your opinion is therefore worthless. It’s not that easy, monstro.
That’s your decision. I don’t get to decide who I will take seriously based on what they say. It’s not a luxury I have in my profession. I am put in a position to care for, educate, and respect the rights of each individual to think what they want; I long ago realized that it is not my job to teach them what to think but to teach them how to think. I’ve taught gang members in the same class as Klan members and Jews in the same class as Neo-Nazi skinheads. I don’t get to tell them what to think. That’s not my job. I’m not Big Brother. Of course I use my own beliefs as an example for them to see, but that is all I can do.
And exactly how would I do that? “No, children, don’t be proud of where you’re from! Be ashamed of it like you’re supposed to! Be ashamed! Be very ashamed!” I will not shame children or “enlighten” them as to how they are “supposed” to feel. I don’t get to decide how they are supposed to feel. They do.
As I said, I won’t be so presumptuous and arrogant as to question your experiences. Obviously, you lack the same ability. But Monstro, you’ve resolved to questioning my abilties as a teacher? We’re a bit early in the game for you to be pulling that card.
You keep saying I cannot, and yet I can. I am not ignoring it. I simply disagree. While “ghetto” is never going to be a category on the census, it is a word many youths would use to identify themselves, in the same way many other children would refer to themselves seriously as “country.” I’m sorry if “ghetto” offends your sense of reality, but maybe it’s a regional difference, you being in a completely different part of the country than I am.
Whatever the reason, I don’t think we are going to come to any sort of mutually respectful conclusion that shows intelligent debate. You only seem interested in mud-slinging, which is neither interesting nor on-topic.
No. It seems I’m only interested in beating my head against the wall.
I’m giving up. If you think you’re somehow more enlightened by using “gay” as a slur, I suppose you have the right to feel that way. But I don’t think you’ve made a very convincing argument, nor do I think you have been especially honest with me or yourself. These two things makes this a very time-wasting discussion.
Oh, I know, I was answering in the same sense as you were asking the question, that is, it being more of a “why do people do this” rather than that you lost respect for the.
I thought, that from a patients POV, I’d try to alleviate your curiosity.
I guess the same sort of thing happens with other “authority” figures. I remember being really shocked by being asked out by a cop once.
It’s NOT that he wasn’t attractive, or that I was all “grossed out” or anything, maybe it’s just me, but his position in a position of “authority” kind of put him “out of my radar” as a normal man.
When he first asked I had a “huh?” reaction first, and THEN the “oh, OH”!!
I think that a lot of us view doctors in a similar way. Sorry, you’re not “human” to us 
Just kidding. At any rate, even though I normally try to ask semi-intelligent questions of my Doctor, I still give them the “duh, not that I know of” answers.
Generally mine are in reference to, as someone else posted, whether or not I was allergic to something.
Substitute the word “homosexual” for “sucky”, and you could be my junior school teacher back in the sixties …
I don’t see what quarrel Good Housekeeping would have with the original meaning of gay … the one I learnt as a child and had to “unlearn” when the homosexual community appropriated it. Now that same community has to accept that it has further evolved to mean “sucky”. Such is the evolution of language.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Yes, I did mean the “screaming, makes annual treks to Graceland, knows every factoid of his life fan” … nuthin’ wrong with the music, or the man.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Julie
"Saaaayy…pretty small *penis * there, seal .
I guess it was funny at first, but it’s tiresome now.
“So I was racing my Honda Civic…”
“A fetus is not a life”.
Lose respect instantly.
Bad restaurant behavior, especially during [but not limited to] a date: 1) being condescending, brusque, arrogant, or overly demanding towards the waitress or waiter; 2) flirting with the waitress; 3) being a lousy tipper.
I must confess, though, that if my date flirts with the waitress and she flirts back, I’m going to be tempted to be a lousy tipper myself that night!
Funny, I was just about to say that I lose respect for people who go out of their way to claim that GWB is stupid.
In the context of minor but corrosive dishonesty, like insurance fraud, over-claiming expenses, nicking the wheel-trim off someone’s car to replace yours. you know the sort of thing.
It’s gotta be done innt? (Well no actually.)
Everybody does it. (No they bloody well don’t you parasite.)
You are deliberately misinterpreting me here, for reasons known only to yourself. I am only reporting to you what my students mean when they use the word “ghetto.” They mean something of low quality, even kids who come from what passes for a 'hood in this town.
Another thing that makes me lose respect for someone: them lecturing me at great length when they don’t even know me, in defense of a specious point at that.
And my students feel loved because they know that I won’t allow them to be victimized by the insensitivity and verbal abuse of their peers.
You are correct; however, that is besides the point. The point is that the word “gay” has come to mean “homosexual” and the use of the word “gay” as an insult is homophobic, no matter how the insulter wishes to spin it. It hurts and upsets just about all the gay people I know to hear that word used in that manner; why isn’t that enough for you?
But it IS problematic, and to deny that is to be extraordinarily disingenuous. This word has several overlapping meanings and it’s difficult to assess when it’s acceptable to use that word. As a white, middle class person in a position of authority, you yourself have to be triply careful. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you really have no right to use that word, nor do I.
Yes, it is THEIRS and THEY can use it that way. You can’t. Nothing worse than a white person trying to cop to vernacular language they have no right to claim.
Here’s another things that makes me instantly lose respect for someone: being judged and found wanting, as a person and an educator, from a few posts on a message board. You are jumping to massive conclusions about me based on next to nothing, AND getting personal about it. Is this really necessary?
Mein gott, I was being facetious about the GHSoA. No need to get didactic about it. What I meant was… aw, forget it. You’re just being contrary now and I’m about done with this thread now.