Blueskies wrote:...people need to stand up and object to bad behavior....not stand by and say nothing so that the person continues to get away with it without repercussion.
If you were driving down the street and saw a man beating a woman on the sidewalk and have no way to call the police and they wouldn't get there in time anyway to save her....would you stop and pull the man off her or would you ignore it and keep driving by? Hate and abuse...bad behavior in words and actions ...should not have to be tolerated on the internet or anywhere else and people shouldn't have to just drive by what they don't like to see as in driving by all offensive and abusive posts....just like not driving by and turning a blind eye towards it on the streets.
Bobby is correct....if people object yet stay silent they do, in fact, end up condoning the actions.
Phyllis, with respect, this is why I wish you wouldn't indulge in your habit of endlessly moralising, insisting on the last word, etc, because you
do make statements like this - insightful, considered, thought-provoking - that get lost; people either don't read it because 'oh, it's another of BS's rants' or write off what you have to say for the same reason. And it's frustrating. I've said it before and I'll say it now - when you aren't being a pain in the arse, you have some good stuff to say; I wish you could lay off the other stuff.
That last line really got me thinking about lots of things to do with this forum, and a couple of other places I post. There's a lot of hard humour that goes on, humour that is at other people's expense. Some of it is banter between friends, some is just thoughtlessly insulting without any mean intent, and some of it is genuinely thrown out to hurt. The problem is, how do you tell the difference? Sometimes the friendly banter gets perilously close to a free-for-all, or gets too near the bone to be comfortable. But how do we know when that's happening? And the thoughtless stuff, even though it isn't said in a mean spirited way, is possibly even worse, because it normalises some stuff that can be pretty hateful.
I'm strongly of the opinion that if you make a mistake, you need to take what is thrown at you with good grace, and that you can cry at the jokes or you can grin and sling it back. But at the same time, I also think you need to make a stand about what you believe in, not be silent. Silence does indicate acceptance, or at least a lack of concern. But I also recognise that sometimes there is no point in saying something; you aren't going to change anyone's opinion on an internet forum. That's why I try to stay out of the political forums; I disagree with so much that is said in them, but I know that by getting into the argument, I'm only going to get myself wound up.
My dilema is, when to say something? When is the joke no longer a joke? When does 'hard humour' turn into bullying? When is it time to say 'enough now', and should I say it when the words aren't being directed at me? I don't have answers, but I'm not comfortable about it, and I wish I did. At the moment, all I can say is I don't give a damn who you love, who you sleep with, who you vote for, what colour your skin is, whether you have a Y chromosome or not, what your body type is, where you were born, where you live now, who you pray to or if you pray at all. The rest of it, I still need to think about some more.
Edit: Just read the rest of this thread. Sigh.
Why treat life as a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in an attractive & well-preserved body? Get there by skidding in sideways, a glass of wine in one hand, chocolate in the other, body totally worn out, screaming WOOHOO! What a ride!
I agree.
because if it does then this board is full of them when they voiced objection to Kanyes bad behavior.
