Being an old git, I remember being taught, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me'. Works well. The Precious Brigade might like to try it.
I am a very old git who remembers that rhyme too. As I have existed through life I have learned that the rhyme isn’t true. I don’t think people damaged by the results of the seeds planted by verbal abuse are members of the ‘Precious Brigade’, but rather they are victims of an attack.
Well of course you have. Who would have thought anything else? I was referring to name calling and how I did not let it affect me. Hardly seeds planted by verbal abuse, ffs.
May we revisit the rhyme in a more modern context?
’Sticks and stones may break my bones But names will never hurt me’.
The rhyme firstly refers to physical hurt, bones etc. Then it implies that names can’t cause the same physical hurt. However with the development of awareness of mental health, may I call it mental ‘hurting’(?) we realise the mind, indeed the emotions are capable of being hurt, but in a different way to hurt in the body, the bones. It is possible that we both come from the generation that once said to the mentally ill ‘pull yourself together’. Indeed in the past people suffering mentally might be called overly sensitive, or precious. However we as a society have learned that mental health is as significant as physical health.
Haven’t we?
That name calling, or abuse can diminish another and induce mental suffering. We don’t tend to say ‘pull yourself together’ now do we?
Abuse is a problem, online or out in the open. If certain diminishing tropes about certain races, or gender, are repeated enough without challenge, those tropes become common currency, and woven into the culture. It becomes relevant when for example a woman is interviewed for a job, or a descendent of immigrants is considered for University Entrance.
So my take is that verbal abuse is both an attack on somebody’s personal well being, and also a danger to the cultural fabric of society. If an announcement about abuse is made at a cultural event like football it is of help to both the wider culture, but also to a listening vulnerable individual realising they are not alone.
Sticks and stones may well not break my bones, but may well damage my life chances, and may well break my heart.
If this is necessary then so be it (sadly). I think there might be a better way of communicating it perhaps (it sets a horrible tone for the overwhelming majority who wouldn't dream of behaving that way) and still have the same effect?
But nevertheless reminds them that there is still a significant percentage of the population that do.
It is not a significant percentage, it is a tiny minority.
There will always be idiots; laws, tannoy announcements, public displays of moral virtue culturally imported from far-away places and attempts to create a neo-Stasi state 'to check peoples' thinking' will not change that.
Intelligence, like most things, will show a broadly Gaussian distribution. Twitter is the perfect demonstration of this, as are football matches.
The stupid, like the poor, will always be with us.
Should people be aware of how they can report abuse? Of course.
Should action be taken against people shouting racist abuse in public? Of course.
Should football become yet another area of life that is politicised because of the latest fashionable moral panic? That is another question.
Surely, there is a balance to be struck?
Racism and bigotry in general is rife in the UK - I'm a White, Anglo Saxon protes atheist, heterosexual and able bodied so do not know what it's like, but it is there in a significant percentage, ingrained in fact. Denial is a river in Egypt.
As as for the Major and his supporters on here - I'm assuming all are also white, heterosexuals so the worst that they can be called are ignorant c*nts. Sticks and stones and all that bollocks - but names can and do hurt beyond most people's understanding when the prejudice is all around and has been all their lives.
As usual, the righteous indignation. has blinded from what I actually posted. For the last time I was referring to Name Calling and how I dealt with it. At no point did I condone racism.
If anything, your post is pretty racist.
Put the soapboxes away and have a nice evening, each.
So you've gone on to a thread about efforts to mitigate racist abuse to exclaim that you have been subjected to name calling, which, in your case, wasn't racist abuse.
Did you bring up your previous name calling as an assertion and demonstration that people who are subjected to racist abuse should just ignore it because you think it's important?
Or did you post it on the wrong thread entirely?
Either way, it seems that you're a fucking idiot. But I'm sure being called that again won't hurt.
Comments
’Sticks and stones may break my bones
But names will never hurt me’.
The rhyme firstly refers to physical hurt, bones etc.
Then it implies that names can’t cause the same physical hurt.
However with the development of awareness of mental health, may I call it mental ‘hurting’(?) we realise the mind, indeed the emotions are capable of being hurt, but in a different way to hurt in the body, the bones.
It is possible that we both come from the generation that once said to the mentally ill ‘pull yourself together’. Indeed in the past people suffering mentally might be called overly sensitive, or precious.
However we as a society have learned that mental health is as significant as physical health.
Abuse is a problem, online or out in the open. If certain diminishing tropes about certain races, or gender, are repeated enough without challenge, those tropes become common currency, and woven into the culture. It becomes relevant when for example a woman is interviewed for a job, or a descendent of immigrants is considered for University Entrance.
So my take is that verbal abuse is both an attack on somebody’s personal well being, and also a danger to the cultural fabric of society.
If an announcement about abuse is made at a cultural event like football it is of help to both the wider culture, but also to a listening vulnerable individual realising they are not alone.
Sticks and stones may well not break my bones, but may well damage my life chances, and may well break my heart.
Did you bring up your previous name calling as an assertion and demonstration that people who are subjected to racist abuse should just ignore it because you think it's important?
Or did you post it on the wrong thread entirely?
Either way, it seems that you're a fucking idiot. But I'm sure being called that again won't hurt.