It’s still free speech
For a country that loves “free speech,” we sure spend a lot of time being politically correct. Sure, some “free speech” is offensive and really shouldn’t be said aloud in mixed company. Wait, sorry … I used the word “mixed.”
Someone could get their feelings hurt by that. Did I mean “mixed” as in interracial; “mixed” as in genders; or “mixed” as in numpties vs. people with common sense; or mixed as in, “what the heck were they drinking and why?”
And can I have some because I just had my hash tagged for writing “mixed company.”
And what did I mean by, “numpties?”
Here’s a hint: It’s a Scottish term I learned. Get over it.
I used to be able write something in my column — my expression of Free Speech — like, “She was a hottie.” But then, I’m a sexist, right? Should I write something like, “For a non-gender-specific-type-person, they/it/(insert gobbledy-gook here) sure looked awesome in tight-fitting jeans?”; or “I hope they all catch a really bad head cold because I can’t express what I want to say?”
And do I really care about the 345 left-handed, harmonica-playing, Asiatic Yak look-a-likes (it’s safe to say that because they all entered an online contest with the possibility of winning dinner at some remote crawfish diner is Louisiana), half Norwegian/half Sioux Indian circus performers who happen to live a trailer park in Montana?
And no, dammit, I’m not supposed to write “Sioux Indian” because that’s not politically correct — I should just write “Sioux,” — except if some person (of any gender) reads “Sioux” and they don’t know what a “Sioux” is then they’ll think I misspelled a word (again), but I also realize “Indian” is offensive (unless, you are of course from India, the nation), and anytime, anyone, anywhere, writes about Native Americans they should write something like, “A person from the Sioux Nation of North America of Native American Tribes,” but that’s wrong, too.
I mean, I’ll bet you my next paycheck there was nobody — not one living soul — in the Sioux Nation who referred to themselves as the Sioux Nation of North America of Native American Tribes —because the Sioux Nation — before an unspecified skin color of people came along and gave them diseases, whiskey, really crappy “peace” treaties, and near genocide — didn’t call where they lived North America.
I don’t know what they called it, but I know it wasn’t that. It wasn’t New Jersey, either. That was another Native American nation.
So, I lose sleep over something that happened to me, an encounter I had with another human being (that term, I hope, is still safe to say without offending anybody), and I worry about how to write it because I know there is, somewhere, somebody, waiting to pounce on a phrase I will use that is not politically correct.
“You have something against people with facial hair. Are people with facial hair not equal to everyone else? You pig!” I’m scolded.
First off, she was 12; secondly, her mother (or some other non-gender specific person in her household) waxed that mustache for her every night; and thirdly, don’t you have a supermarket tabloid to write a letter to?
“I’m appalled you called a baseball player of Asian heritage, a name and I won’t dignify it by repeating that ‘phrase’. You pig!”
Yes, he played in Korea — for one year, but: Number one, I said the guy wouldn’t make an opening day Major League Baseball roster because he was yellow-tinted because he had jaundice; number two — and this is important — he’s not of Asian descent, he’s from New Hampshire and his last name is Lee; and number three, I think your mother wants you to return her undergarments.
“You referred to a woman driving a Jeep as a “Dream-Babe.” You pig!” I’m reminded of my transgression.
Okay, the Jeep is my concept of a dream vehicle and any woman driving such a vehicle, in my humble and “Free Speech” opinion, deserves that title. My fault for not making that clear in the first, I don’t know, 700 words of that column. And I will never, ever, ever, call a female-type person a “Babe.” Yes, that is sexist.
I’ll call them — and every other gender — a “sack of bones.” “I saw a dreamy sack of bones driving a Jeep the other day,” does have a certain ring to it.
