Originally posted by ap5:[..]
Let’s go down the rabbit hole.
Who defines “good taste” in a joke like Chris Rock told? Do I? Do you? Do we take a Twitter poll? Are we supposed to be completely well-versed in every single persons life story to know what might offend them?
Guess what - people will say things to you and about you and your loved ones that offend you. Sometimes intentionally and sometimes inadvertently. It’s life. Unless you’re 5 years old, you don’t get to slap or hit the person based on what they said. Period.
What Will Smith did was wrong and unacceptable. There is nothing to debate and there is no larger conversation to be had. He proved himself to be an immature and emotionally stunted person that likely has real mental health issues. He probably needs help. I hope he gets it.
Sometimes wrong is just simply wrong. This is one of those cases.
Originally posted by RUMMY:Interesting that there’s so much concern for Jada (and Will) but what about Chris? How will his future as a standup comic be impacted here? How comfortable will he be, getting up on stage, and worrying that he might offend someone.
Originally posted by ap5:The fact that you even ask the question of why we don’t get to hit people who say something you deem “offensive” shows there is no bridging our views on this topic.
Whenever your child, co-worker, school-mate, partner or spouse ever says something that you find “offensive” by all means exercise your view that you should hit them.
Good luck. And hire a lawyer. You’ll need it.
Originally posted by deanallison:[..]
Why don’t you get to hit someone if they say something offensive to you? It isn’t really a fair balance is it. Someone with major mental health issues could be tipped over the edge by a comment but you can’t give the person making the comment a slap? Doesn’t seem fair. There are more people dying nowadays of suicide than there is of assault. Whilst we can’t link every suicide on people being verbally bullied or abused certainly a good chunk of it is down to that particularly amongst groups like teenagers. So an offensive remark can actually be more dangerous than hitting someone or slapping them, so why is it ok to say something offensive without expecting consequences? I’m going to give you an example I’ve been resisting making but like I said earlier if someone mocked me called me something I’d either laugh it off or if it was some random person I’d probably just tell them to piss off. I have a daughter though with autism and I can tell you now if someone mocked her I would do a lot worse than slap them. I know some people will disagree but the alternative is they just get away with it walking away laughing and I’m just not accepting that, I think there has to be consequences for what they say as it could hurt my daughter emotionally, it would probably hurt me tbh so they should feel pain too.
Originally posted by KieranU2:[..]
It's not really about a fair balance but you can't physically assault somebody because of verbal abuse. I agree that language and words are very important - I do enough work in my professional life around this to tell you that - and whether they're misconstrued or not it can have devastating impact. But you really can't justify physical assault in any form. What discipline/standard does that set? Physical assault sets out more a dangerous example than verbal abuse. I'm not condoning the latter at all, but with physical assault comes more dangerous territory - you're giving kids a visual demonstration of why it's acceptable to 'set an example' on somebody. There's the argument that people in school were given the belt and that disciplined them, or hitting your kids would teach them a lesson. Actions have consequences.
I'm sorry to hear about your daughter and I've worked in the charity sector, specifically disability, with emphasis on the language of disability and terms you shouldn't say, accessibility, etc. A fifth of the country that is treated poorly by society and government where people think it's acceptable to offend based on a disability they were born with or acquired - it's abhorrent and I know it's very frustrating at times. But I would honestly hope that you didn't retailiate with physical assault. Campaigning is more effective and when you start introducing violence to make your point, it dilutes that. I'm not saying you should just accept what people are saying, but there is so much more you can than just hit somebody.
I'm not being awkward, but you can't suggest many suicides are down to verbal bullying and abuse without offering any research. Otherwise you're really just bending that point to satisfy an argument. But you have to remember that physical assault can lead to suicides as well. You're sort of normalising and justifying it, not realising that people can get PTSD - from a range of instances - but from physical abuse. Including domestic abuse, bullying, etc. There's more of a fine line than you realise.
Originally posted by deanallison:[..]
That’s honestly a great post Kieran, I know we’ve had our disagreements in the past but I can’t argue with anything you’re saying here. Genuinely well put and reasoned points.