WordUp by Chad Gramling

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“The only thing that offends me is people who are easily offended.”

I often say this somewhat jokingly as a means of expressing the silliness of what it means to be offended. Most of the time, I am asked to repeat what I just said. I am not sure if it is because they 1.) didn’t hear it, 2.) didn’t understand it, or 3.) can’t believe I am saying it.

But honestly, there is a lot of truth to that statement for me. Over the last couple days, I have had to follow the mind-numbing rhetoric over Don Imus’s ignorant ramblings. If you missed it; he called the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos”.

As you can imagine, it offended a lot of people. Now I am certainly not defending Imus, but I must ask the question, “Why did it offend?”

Here’s the answer: Because those it offended allowed it to offend them.

As long as people continue to allow the words and actions of others to offend them, there will continue to be opportunities to offend. It is the root of selfish unrest and inane political correctness. I guess that means there are several talking heads that can rest easy knowing they will always have a microphone to magnify their blabbering mouths.

At this point, I am sure I have offended others by pointing out some simple truth, but such is life I guess. One will contend that “Hey Chad. You are a middle-aged non-minority who has no idea what it is like to be oppressed and treated as a second class citizen.”

Maybe that is true, but that does not mean I have not been subjected to words that were meant to offend me. I did go to high school and have lived in this world. In my experiences, offending tactics are done out of sheer ignorance. I was mockingly called “paperboy” because I delivered papers through elementary and middle school while many of my peers were in sports and out being kids.

It used to bother me. But my paper route was a source of income for a kid who came from a poor broken home that consisted of an alcoholic absentee father and schizophrenic mother. We were on food stamps, received expired food from food banks and had to rely on the generosity of others (who could look beyond surface circumstance) simply to stay alive.

That paper route provided food and clothes. It provided a means of survival. So when other kids tried to denigrate me by calling me a paperboy, I figured if that is the best they had, I was on pretty solid footing.

I refused to allow those ignorant words to fall on me as offensive. I used them as a source of strength. After all, that which does not kill me only makes me stronger.

Heck, nowadays, I am more offended by the electronic traffic light that makes me stop at an intersection and idly wait while I stare at a cross-section that has no oncoming traffic. I am more offended by a computer that tries to think for me by putting the curser in a form field after I have already moved onto a new one.

The simple fact is that people will always have opinions and those people will always continue to express those opinions because people are selfish by nature and they need to say such things to make themselves feel bigger than what their minute existence actually represents.

In turn, those who are offended will always tell people they’ve been offended because people are selfish by nature and they need to tell us they have been offended to make themselves feel bigger than what their minute existence actually represents.

It’s a vicious cycle of incivility.

Rather than be offended by the words of offenders, we should take the sword from their hands. Don’t let it offend you, pray for them. Maybe they’ll learn real truth and stop doing it. And if they don’t, oh well.

Life will go on.

[tags]Don Imus, Civility, Offensive[/tags]