This story is already blowing up and depending one where you read it, you'll get a very different message. Already, after only 2 minutes of searching I've found various headlines ranging from "Woman Kicked Off Of Flight For Supporting Women's Rights" to "Woman Asked To Change Offensive Shirt Misses Flight." Now...I'm not a rocket scientist, but those express fairly different messages conveying fairly different levels of intensity. And likewise, causing very different uproar. Here's a story from the Huffington Post which seems to outline what exactly happened pretty well...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/woman-kept-off-american-airlines-plane-for-allegedly-offensive-shirt_n_1541972.html
Like the airlines says, I don't think this had ANYTHING to do with the political message. If the shirt just had the word "FUCK" I'm sure she'd have gotten kicked off as well. Furthermore, if the message wasn't about abortion or women's rights, this wouldn't be as big a story. For instance if the shirt was pro-life, I'd imagine either no one would care, or all the people outraged at this injustice would instead be hurling insults at the shirt wearer.
Secondly, it's not a matter of free speech, and stop over-reacting. If barring people from displaying crude language in public really offends you, why haven't you flipped out over all the websites that block certain words or star them out. Even the Huffington Post site, featuring the story, bars swear words from being posted in the comments section. Why aren't we upset about that? Free speech doesn't cover private institutions. You can't wear a "fuck you" shirt to work, and that's not an affront to free speech. You can't wear a "fuck you" shirt to a grade school, and that's not worthy of an uprising. You wouldn't be allowed to wear a "fuck you" shirt to any official ceremony...and that's not causing high schoolers or college kids across the nation to campaign for free speech. The fact is that we are barred from doing tons of things and it never bothers us, so stop acting like this is some gigantically unfair story which we need to stand up and defend our rights over...seriously, if people from other countries knew what we considered challenges to our "freedom" we'd be laughed off the world stage as the most obtuse people on the planet.
Why can't we just accept that maybe wearing a shirt with the word "FUCK" on it isn't the most appropriate thing to do in a largely public space. Maybe you don't think it's offensive...and that's OK, but some people do. And maybe you don't care if kids see it, maybe you think people should just look away...but some people also think acting like a decent person in public is worth more than saying "I'm gonna wear what I want. Deal with it and screw what you think."
It doesn't offend me. I don't care if you wear it. But I also realize that what i do affects the lives of the people around me. If I fart, the office smells. If I ridicule a co-worker, he has a bad day. If I screw someone over that I don't know, who knows what that leads to. If you wear a possibly offensive shirt, you may offend people. And if you don't care about offending other people, great....but I'd rather make the people around me more comfortable, maybe even help them have a better day, than offend someone and negatively affect their day so that I can feel comfortable knowing my right to wear the word "fuck" is safe.
And lastly, the woman wasn't kicked off the flight. She made one flight, was told she needed to talk to the captain, was told that she shouldn't have been allowed to board in the first place and that she'd need to change her shirt before boarding the next plane. She missed the next plane due to the delay, but was given a seat on the next flight out...after changing her shirt...
No comments:
Post a Comment