Rahm Emanuel shouldn't have used it. Rush Limbaugh shouldn't have used it. My co-workers shouldn't use it (and don't around me anymore). Don't add it to other words ("Repubtard"). Don't tell me you don't mean it like that.
Don't.
Don't use it.
When you use it, you're being hurtful to a whole group of people you've never even met because you're using a mean word in a mean way.
That group of people are doing their best to get along in the world despite huge hurdles that, some of them, are placed there by us - by our attitudes, by using this word.
Here's a post I wrote on my other blog last August:
If you know the word's offensive, why would you say it?
It's not about being PC, it's about not being a douchebag.
Deliberately using words that are hurtful, when you KNOW THAT THEY ARE HURTFUL means that you are not a nice person.
Two people who have children who fall into the category of people you have just insulted are sitting within hearing distance of you and you know it and you used the word anyway. And you'll use it again. Because you, YOU*, are a douchebag.
*Obviously, the YOU that I am talking about is a co-worker who doesn't read this blog. But I did tell her to her face that I thought she was being pretty horrid.
So, let's all sign on to stop using this word. Here are some alternatives: dense, ignorant, ill-planned, bigoted.
Leave your alternatives to this word in comments! We'll be doing good and improving our Bananagrams and Scrabble abilities at the same time!
