hi, your words actually DO matter

we've all heard something along the lines of "come on, it's just a joke, relax", "it's not offensive cause i'm just joking", the list goes on and on, but hey, hate to break it to you buddy, but words can have more weight that some actions and you never know how they can affect someone else, cause we don't know what happens behind closed doors.

i'm so sick and tired of having to explain this to people, cause i assume that we all have a little bit of compassion and humanity inside of us, buts sometimes i really really question it. since i started school in august i've heard so many horrible things from the mouths of my classmates, i hear jokes of unspeakable things, people that make fun of the holocaust, they make fun of the LGBTQA+ community, of people with mental illness, racist and xenophobic comments, and i can't take it anymore, im sick of it.

so, let's see why these are not just jokes.

let's start with the one that i was most surprised with, jokes about the holocaust.

we all learn about the atrocious thing that was the holocaust, i personally learned about it in second grade of middle school, and even though i was young, i could understand that it was a horrible thing and i remember thinking how it was possible for people to think like this, to support such a massacre, never in my life did i think about making fun of it.

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The Holocaust

By definition: Holocaust, Hebrew Shoʾah (“Catastrophe”), Yiddish and Hebrew Ḥurban (“Destruction”), the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.

I lived in germany for a year, so i know how the germans feel about the holocaust and how there's still a lot of a sense of responsability and guilt about it, they have so many monuments to remember the victims of the holocaust, it's illegal to do the nazi salute. so when i came here and people started to make fun of it i was completly shocked and dissapointed.

and i would love to think that this ideology has been left in the past, but there are a lot of people who still think like this, they're called Neo-nazis.

Neo-Nazi groups share a hatred for Jews and a love for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While they also hate other minorities, gays and lesbians and even sometimes Christians, they perceive "the Jew" as their cardinal enemy.

when i confronted the people who were making this jokes, they told me that they didn't actually agree with Hitler's ideas, that they knew this was a horrible thing, so, if you know the consecuences of all of this, why joke about it? seriously, there's lots of things that are funny, and you decide to make fun of this? even if you don't actually agree with nazis, you don't know if you're around someone who does, and if they hear you cracking jokes and taking this lightly, you're giving them a plataform and the courage to think that this stuff is okay, when it is absolutely not okay.

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LGBTQA+ community

as a part of this community i see how much hate they get, how much pain there is in every word that is directed towards us, for me, this words don't affect me personally, i have a strong character, i won't go crying to my room if someone calls me a dyke or something worse, but i don't know how others do, so i fight, i fight for those who don't have the courage to raise their voice and complain, i fight for those who are shy and can't say a thing, i fight for those who are still in the closet and don't say anything in fear of being outed or labeled, i fight for my people.

-Approximately 25% of collegue students who identify as LGBTQA+ have been harassed due to their sexual orientation.

-LGBTQA+ students are three times as likely as not LGBTQA+ students to say that they do not feel safe at school

-People within the community are four times more likely to commit suicide

people find it so easy to just open their mouths without thinking twice, to say "haha that's so gay", you don't know how this hurts, it hurts to be alienated just because you're not straight, you don't know the feeling of being scared of holding your partner's hand, becuase you don't know how people will react, you don't know how much it hurts to be questioned by your parents, to be send to therapy so they can "turn" you straight, it hurts.

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Racism

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.

this one particularly bothers me too, i'm mexican and i've heard horribly racist things against my people and my country and they do get to me sometimes, because i can't fit into my head the thought of someone hating me just because of my race.

in my classroom i hear racial slurs all day, classmates saying the n-word, hard r, even though they're not black, and yet again, when i question them about it, they say, "hey it's not like we actually have an issue with black people", so then i ask again, why do you use it?

black people are targeted everyday, they can't even carry a phone because it will get confused for a gun and the police will shoot, without hesitation. everyday i wake up and there's endless news of people get killed on sight, just because they're black.

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I really really just want to say, think twice before you speak, think about what you're going to say, remember that words do matter, and they do hurt.

I am exhausted of having to repeat myself, cause i know that it is annoying, but i don't care, i won't stop speaking my mind until YOU understand the power of your words.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ALL ARE AND YES I AM SPEAKING TO YOU.