Here’s the situation:  Everybody is offended lately.  Well maybe I’m offended that you’re offended!  Ever think of that?

People are endlessly looking for the secret to a happy life and I’ve discovered it!  Don’t pay attention to the news!  Ignorance is bliss!  I hear about 2 minutes of news a day on the radio as I get ready and that’s enough to keep me up to date without my world being infiltrated with negativity.  I get that it’s good to be informed, but the news and Facebook feeds and media in general are so frustrating!  Every day there’s something new about someone saying or doing something that people are offended by and it’s gotten to be ridiculous!  There isn’t a band-aid big enough to cover everyone’s hurt feelings!

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve just gotten old and crotchety.  Like, if I had a lawn, maybe I’d be outside shaking my fist and yelling at kids to get off of it.  That kind of crotchety.  But really, I think the world has gone mad and I can’t handle it!  Who are these people who get so offended and when did everyone get so sensitive?

Ugly Duckling

Hal – I would never believe a girl this beautiful could have such a great personality.

Mauricio – Ugly duckling syndrome.

Hal – What?

Mauricio – She probably didn’t get pretty ’til high school, thus the personality had to develop out of necessity.  It’s an evolutionary thing.

Hal – You know what, I bet you’re right.  She’s way too pretty to be so nice.

Mauricio – Sometimes they’re ugly so long, when they finally turn pretty, they don’t even realize it; it’s like the ugly self image is so well ingrained.  That’s a real find.

– Jack Black & Jason Alexander, Shallow Hal (2001)

When you are [still] in your awkward stage at 19 and don’t have looks to rely on, you have to develop a personality in order to win people over (namely boys).  Along with a personality, you observe what is going to fly and what is not, and then you make sure to be laid back, so as to not give anyone reason to dislike you.  In my experience, being a prudish, offended, prissy girl was cause for mockery, so if you wanted to fit in, be accepted and have boys think you were cool, hearing crude jokes or inappropriate comments and not being bothered by them was just part of the territory.  This talent to brush things off came in handy since I went on to work in the construction industry and have for some 20 years now.  I still hear things daily that would make my mom’s head spin!  I might not want to hear everything anymore or be talked with like ‘one of the guys’, but it’s not often that I get truly offended by inappropriate comments.  Heck, most of the time I’m flattered someone would still make them to me!  I think my early training in not being offended has made me a little more calloused towards our PC culture than many of today’s precious little snowflakes.

‘Tis the Season to be Offended, Fa La La La La La La La La

We recently passed Halloween, which, as a Christian, you will hear many stances for or against.  My stance?  I actually haven’t cared enough to look into the root of it, because I’m always ok with free candy!  My problem with Halloween in 2019 though, is there are so many costumes deemed offensive.  If a guy puts on a dress and ugly make up, it’s offensive.  If you put on the traditional garb of another culture, it’s offensive.  If you dress up like a celebrity who is deceased, it’s disrespectful.  What about people who dress up like Mr. Clean?  Are neat-freak bald guys offended?  Or girls who dress up like a slutty cat.  What do the actual slutty cats think?  Yes, there are some costumes that do cross the line, but half of the fun in Halloween is dressing up so you don’t look like yourself.  Besides, didn’t imitation used to be the greatest form of flattery?

Now we’re 2 days away from Christmas and heaven forbid you wish someone a Merry Christmas.  That would be forcing your religion down someone’s throat!  Let me remind you that the only reason you get the 25th off is because it’s a religious holiday.  Maybe we should stop allowing people who don’t believe in Jesus to take time off?  Sorry, there goes your Easter holiday too.  How do you think that would go over?

What about the Christmas song that they want to ban from radio, ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’?  It’s an innocent flirty Christmas song, it’s not some dark ode to date rape.  Rather than taking it out of context, why not research it?  If you did, you would learn it was composed in 1944 by Frank Loesser, who originally wrote it as a playful call-and-response duet for him and his wife to perform at their housewarming party while their guests were preparing to leave.  Ooooh, menacing hey?

Let’s not forget about the controversial Peloton ad that had the internet up in arms this year.  A husband gave his wife a piece of exercise equipment for Christmas.  How sexist!  What is he saying?  Is he body shaming her?  Must she stay in shape to please him visually or sexually?  Is this a form of coercive control?  Everybody take a breath.  It’s a commercial from a business trying to sell a stationary bike.  That’s it.  Why must we read into everything?!

That’s the 2019 mindset though.  Everything has an underlying message of ill intent.  Not true.  We think if we ban something or boycott something else, we’ve solved the problem.  Not true.  Just because we lock something away doesn’t mean we’ve fixed anything.

Do I Offend?

I was telling a friend about a guy I knew, who jokingly messaged me “marry me!” after he found out I was watching his favorite sport on TV.  I laughed about it and of course, didn’t give it a second thought.  I knew the guy was joking and found it amusing.  My friend however, found it offensive that he would say something like that to me.  I tried to understand how it was at all offensive, but couldn’t and to this day, I still can’t, yet my friend was really bothered by it!

In another instance, I was telling a boyfriend about a guy friend who would always toss out a degrading greeting when he would see me or his other female friends.  I knew the guy was joking and didn’t actually think these things about us.  I also knew that what he said about me wasn’t true, so it didn’t bother me; it held no weight.  This is just how the guy is – a bit of a douche bag.  My then-boyfriend was super offended by it though and wanted to confront the guy to defend my honor.  Ummmm, no.  That friend had been around longer than that boyfriend and if I was really bothered by it, I would’ve handled it myself, but I wasn’t.

These sorts of situations, and the scads of offended people making news every day, lead me to wonder – how many times are we offended on behalf of other people when the person who rightfully should be offended, isn’t?  Are we just fighting a battle to make ourselves look better?

You Can’t Say That

I recently called a friend to ask that very question and more.  As a blonde haired…ok fine…as a dyed blonde haired, blue eyed, white girl living in Canada, I haven’t faced things like racism.  My friend however, could be subject to it.  He is, stay with me now, Indian/Native American/First Nations/Aboriginal/Indigenous.  I told him how I’d used the term Native American before and was quickly corrected that I couldn’t say that anymore, because it was offensive – it was Indigenous now!  I wanted to ask him if one was more offensive than another because it has changed so many times over the years or if they were even offensive at all to someone who could be/would be offended by it.  His answer?  It all just depends in which context they are being used.  That goes with most things, I suppose.  What stood out to me and goes with my point above is that the person who corrected my faux pas was not Indigenous, they were white!  Again I wonder, are we just trying to save face?

Do I dare enter into this next segment?…

Tread Lightly Rox!

Freedom of speech.  Great concept, however it seems like you only actually have freedom of speech if you’re in the majority with your ideals.  Anything counter-culture and people are quick to call you out.  Buy your wife a Peloton and you’re sexist.  Stand up for your beliefs and you’re a bigot.  Question someone’s life choices and you’re shaming them.  There are some heavy racism accusations getting tossed around so frequently and so flippantly lately, I think the weight of what you are actually labeling someone has been lost.

Racism is believing you are superior to someone else, based on race.  Unfortunately not every situation or friend group is going to be as diverse as a 90’s United Colors of Benetton ad, but we have to remember that that a) doesn’t make someone a racist, b) isn’t necessarily on purpose and c) we shouldn’t make anyone feel guilty for it.

An author I enjoy recently faced backlash after she booked a speaking tour featuring about 3 other Caucasian speakers.  People were calling her a racist and she had to issue an apology.  Touring with white people doesn’t make her believe her race is superior to others.  Maybe they were the only speakers available for those particular dates?

What about the uproar from The Bachelor never having a black male lead?  Let’s break it down logically for a minute.  It’s a TV show which thrives on ratings.  Those ratings are driven by viewers.  The viewers are predominantly white women (stats show about 80%) and producers generally pick a male/female lead based on viewer popularity.  If the larger demographic of viewers are Caucasian and they are attracted to Caucasians (which doesn’t make them racist either), then the producers shouldn’t be faulted for picking a Caucasian lead.  It’s a business; they want ratings.  I work with a Chinese girl and we’ve discussed attraction to other races before.  She has told me flat out she’s not attracted to white men.  Does that make her a racist?  No, she’s just not attracted to white men.  There are plenty of white men that I’m not attracted to either!

I Will Cut You

One tweet at the fingertips of someone with a little bit of influence can turn the whole world against you.  The problem with the power of social media is that is there are two sides to every story but once one side has been heard, we don’t often allow the other side to be told.  We are passionate about social justice but continue to handle it incorrectly.  If someone does something we don’t agree with, we want to cut them down, cut them off or cut them out, and immediately.  We’re quick to rally against someone for the sake of our cause.

And why do we feel the need to go out of our way to make an example of someone we don’t like?  So we don’t like a celebrity or a political figure; can’t we just do that in silence?  Why do we feel warranted to dig into their past to ruin them?  There’s a statute of limitations on crimes, there has to be a statute of limitations on how far into a person’s past you can judge their actions.  People change!  Am I the same person I was 20 years ago?  Not even close.  What about 10 years ago or 5 years ago?  Similar, but not the same.  Have I said or done offensive things in my past, maybe just because I didn’t know any better?  Oh for sure!  Will I continue to say or do offensive things into the future?  Oh for sure!  Does that give anyone the right to have me fired or defame my character?  And why don’t we give out warnings anymore?  When did it become 1 strike, you’re out.  Perhaps it’s time to give people the benefit of the doubt and extend a little grace.  After all, we’ve all had grace extended to us and are given second chances daily.  People do change.

Who, Moi?

When we get offended, we tend to think it’s other people who are the problem.  After all, we would never have done that or said that, but we don’t often realize that offense is rooted in other things; insecurity, self righteousness, pride, grudges.  When we give in to offense, we elevate ourselves above others.  We have made ourselves the judge and jury as to what is correct and what isn’t, but that’s merely just our opinion, it isn’t necessarily fact!

The bible says that we shouldn’t be offended or that we should overlook offense.  It also says that pride is a sin, so who is actually in the wrong here; the offender or the offendee?  Perhaps the next time we are offended, we should look at ourselves to see why it bothered us so much.

Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)  A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.