Sunday, October 2, 2011

Talking Points #3

"2009 National School Climate Survey: Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT Students Experience Harassment in School" - Daryl Presgraves

QUOTES:

1. "84.6% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 40.1% reported being physically harassed and 18.8% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation." - The importance of this quote to the text is that with these numbers it is shocking or at least should be shocking how many kids are unsafe in their enviorment. A child cannot learn unless they are in an enviorment where they feel safe and comfortable. When stress is added to a child nothing gets accomplished and the chances of that child participating in class are slim to none. These children who have reported these incidents have had their own education taken away from them due to someone elses ignorance.

2. "As our nation seems to finally be taking bullying more seriously, it is crucial that LGBT students are no longer left out of efforts to address this public health crisis."- This is crucial to the argument in this article. While efforts have been made in decreasing the amount of bullying in schools by enforcing policies, there are still a shocking amount of kids who have reported issues. The majority of the problem stems from their homes. The children who are doing the bullying are coming from homes where their parents most likely feel the way they do and while they may not condone the actions, they may condone the attitude towards LGBT students.

3. "72.4% heard homophobic remarks, such as "faggot" or "dyke," frequently or often at school."- This stat is actually surprisingly low to me. To the article its relevance is necessary because it shows the casualty that people have when throwing words around like that. Even though your friends might not be of that orientation it doesn't mean that someone around you when you are saying these things aren't. Walking to class I hear these terms at least three times or more between groups of friends laughing and joking around.It just goes to show how much our society really hasn't changed all that much. It shocks me to see how much disrespect that our society allows. Even though those words aren't politically correct there is no fine or punishment for using them in a conversation with friends just joking around when there should be.

Question- Is it acceptable with you if your friends use that type of slang?

4 comments:

  1. This is my second attempt at commenting on your blog because this website is not cooperating. To answer your question, I dont think acceptable for anyone to use that kind of slang. It's awkward to confront a friend about an uncomfortable issue. I think that if you can't be honest with a friend about a problem then the friendship should be reevaluated.

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  2. Yes Mabel, but I feel that people are not honest to save feelings and lie to impress, because I have a friend like that. But I do agree if you can't be honest the friendship won't last.

    Ariel

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  3. It is definitely not acceptable for anyone to use that kind of language. Even when said jokingly it is simply counter-productive and can be a trigger word for people who have had that said to them while being beaten up or verbally abused. I think it is important to confront people who are using derogatory language freely and let them know how much weight their words have.

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  4. Going with what you said for the third quote, I didn't even realize that the term "queer" was socially acceptable now. I've always heard it paired with negative comments, so in my mind, it's still a negative term.

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