Ashley Dye is a senior journalism and telecommunications major and writes ‘The Dyessertation’ for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper. Write to Ashley at acdye@bsu.edu
We’ve heard it too many times to count: watch what you put on social media.
But that’s not the important lesson to be learned — it’s not just your tweets you should monitor in terms of offensive material.
The problem here isn’t that a person said something offensive on the Internet for everyone to see. The problem is that they said something offensive with such ease.
Whenever this happens, as a society, we should work to sort out what caused this situation.
We should start a conversation to lessen the tensions, to break through the stereotypes that created the ill-conceived statements. After all, ignorance plays a factor in racist, sexist and homophobic thoughts.
This can be achieved in part by simply habitually talking to and getting to know people who are different from you; it opens your mind.
Instead, the bigger push is for people to police themselves even more on social media, even if their accounts are private. This leads to an outcry for freedom of speech.
The problem shouldn’t be about people who feel like they can’t publish their opinions anymore. The goal should be about how we should all respect one another and not let misguided knowledge dictate our views of particular groups.
It’s true that everyone makes mistakes. Education is a growing process. We all have actions for which we have to apologize and hold ourselves accountable.
But too often, when people make their errors, the apology is not that their statements were offensive, but that they were sorry people found them offensive. They make nonsensical excuses.
It reads like, “I’m sorry you thought it was offensive ... but that’s not my fault.”
This puts the blame on the people they hurt. It seems as if they aren’t sorry that they did it, they’re sorry they got caught. It’s insincere, and it’s far from an apology.
And while it’s too late to take back previous statements, it’s not too late to prevent future issues.
Instead of feeling pressured to censor yourself, realize that this isn’t a matter of political correctness.
This is about being a decent, respectful human being.
