censored

When the announcements played as I sat in Physics, I was shocked when a video was played with school faculty and students pledging to end "The R Word". I understand why people would want this medical term to be avoided, why they would feel offended, and why they'd pledge to stop saying it. Ultimately, they don't want students to be hurt or offended, and they took a drastic measure to avoid this. So drastic, that my peers have been pressured to pledge to put an end to a word just based off of how others feel. Now, while they may not frequently use this word, they now must tiptoe around their vocabulary and make sure that what they say is okay to everyone else. The simple "superman" to "superperson" as seen in The Word Police is something that must be carefully crafted as not to hurt anyone. Now, politically correct words are usually targeted at schools and the youth, such as seen through this announcement video. If the children have politically correct words, perhaps they'll grow into adults that won't offend one another? By attempting to water down the world around us, we overlook intent and focus on restricting speech. What people say isn't significant, it is the actions that people take. Last year as I prepared a piece for the Cranbrook gallery, I had been bouncing ideas off my mom as to what I should create. One morning at 1am my mom woke me up to an idea that had come to her in the night. She presented a sketch of a naked woman standing with her arms and legs apart. Naturally, this startled me, my mom being a Baptist woman, but what startled me more was that the word "censored" was placed somewhere unexpected. The word censored was placed over the womans mouth. Words are held to a higher standard than actions. It is our words that truly are censored, just look at YouTubes recent policy to ban the swearing of content creators. We carefully tiptoe around using offensive diction. We punish children for saying words or phrases that culture collectively deems as bad due to an unofficial ranking of how offensive it is. But, censorship causes us to restrict what we think, and to stifle original thought. Say what you will and take responsibility if you offend someone. As long as your intent is in the right place, referring to someone by the wrong pronouns the first time or swearing once or twice may be a disappointment but it shouldn't cause a huge issue.