Rose Cottage Ltd

There are a few words that have become so abused during this administration that I thought it was time to debunk some of the nonsense. I’ve heard some of these words used as convenient labels, more in the last two years than in my prior 56 years.

Racist: a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.

It’s so easy for some to slap a racist label on someone – just because they disagree. This is happening in the country and the world on a daily basis. Calling someone a racist or accusing them of racism – is also a convenient excuse for not having a legitimate answer to an issue. What is most disturbing to me is that TRUE racism does exist – but the constant overuse of the word in situations having nothing to do with race, make it just “noise.” When you hear it used as a obvious, misguided excuse, the word loses all impact or meaning.

Reform: make changes in (something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.

Government and social activism groups really go to town with this one!

The word reform is often used with the topic of immigration. Actually the use of the word immigration is misused worse than the word reform since a illegal alien in the US is and never was a immigrant. The Obama administration and MANY in the US Congress throw out the word “reform” when what they should be using and doing is “enforce.” Our legal immigration system may be a long process, but why shouldn’t it be? It’s our country and it has entry laws that are expected to be followed. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to…

Discrimination: action that denies social participation or human rights to categories of people based on prejudice. This includes treatment of an individual or group based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or social category, “in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated”.

The above is the current and popular use of the word discrimination, but it has another meaning. Discrimination also means to weigh the facts and DECIDE whether something or someone is good for you (positive) or not (negative) and then be “discriminate” in making your future decisions. We ALL use discrimination every day – in every decision we make. We decide who our friends are based on their actions and how we feel about them. We discriminate if we go to a new restaurant and the food is bad – we don’t CHOOSE to return. Regarding groups – discrimination is at the least unwise – because you can’t judge all by the actions of a few. But if we discriminate based on one-crime, one-person, then we also can’t yell “Discrimination!” against a entire group – for the actions of one.

Phobia: A phobia is an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or situation that poses little real danger but provokes anxiety and avoidance.

The abuse of this one really annoys me because many people do have legitimate phobias. My sister has (to me) a way overboard fear of spiders – even tiny spiders! She doesn’t particularly like or in this case dislike them, she just fears their presence.

It’s currently and appallingly popular to call someone a homophobe because they don’t believe in homosexuality. Or an Islamaphobe if they don’t care for Muslims or ISIS – take your pick. This is a incorrect use of the meaning of phobia. As with the term racist, I don’t have to agree with ANYONE all the time. It’s not a requirement for us all to get along. I and anyone else should be able to live their life and if necessary state their case, without having a label applied to them. I should be able to speak my mind, realizing that some will disagree and guess what? THAT IS OKAY! The world will NOT end.

Words DO hurt. Name-calling in school hurt, being labeled hurts open discussion. So if anyone labels YOUR opinion know that they were never really open to your thoughts in the first place – because yours don’t align with theirs.