Twice this spring an NBA player has been caught calling someone a faggot on television.
Frustrated with a call on the court Kobe Bryant called a referee a bundle of sticks, the day after a Phoenix Suns executive told NBA commissioner David Stern he was a homosexual. Sunday night, Chicago Bulls forward Joakim Noah was caught by a TNT camera calling a fan the same.
While various websites are racking in the page views today exploiting Noah’s temporary loss of his cool, one can only wonder why all the commotion? Sports leagues and other entities are disciplining people for being caught using the coarse language, not for the act of using the language.
It would be a stretch to say every person has used the words faggot or fag to define something other than a bundle of sticks or a cigarette. So many people have that it’s not even considered that abnormal of a word to use to describe everything but its dictionary definition.
Words do hurt, all of us know this first-hand; however, our unseen actions should at least stand to rebuke or confirm the words that all of us slip up and use out of frustration.
If someone wants to call a homosexual a faggot, go ahead. Once that word is eliminated from public discourse others will surely take its place, which is why the emphasis should be on the act of discrimination or belittlement, not the word itself.
Where someone stands on the whole gay marriage issue is not the point. People should take umbrage at their fellow man being mistreated. Who people sleep with is their own business — as long as it’s not the woman I am dating.
Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb
