Thread: Bullying
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mercedesjin (Offline)
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07-15-2009, 07:32 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM View Post
Let's just say he said that "people that wear baggy clothes are thugs". The fact that you felt discriminated against and stereotyped makes little sense to me because there is no possible way for anyone on this forum to know what kind of clothes you wear.

(It can't be because of your race, because people of all races wear baggy clothes.)



I feel like your are flip-flopping because you said people are responsible for the feelings others have. So the chef tells me the table called in first. I don't believe him, and I still feel discriminated against. Is he still responsible? It would be my argument that the chef was never responsible for my miconceptions and feelings in the first place. He did no wrong, so he has nothing to feel responsible for.



Crying isn't a natural response to pain, it is a learned behavior. Take a baby that always gets a reaction and picked up when it cries and take a baby from a crowded orphanage that was never held when it cried. If you were to give them both the same painful experience when they were a little older (I am not saying we should really do it) like a smack on the buns, and one toddler will more than likely cry and one won't.

Now, of course I am still responsible for my actions, but there are levels. If I call you a dummy and you cry, I am a mean person. If I call you a dummy and you commit suicide, am I a murderer?

I understand the concept that "you made me do something", but I think it's a cop out. Again, it becomes more clear if you push it out.

Let's say I cheat on my girlfriend...certainly a terrible thing to do. Let's say she is so upset that she kills me. Now I certainly made her upset, but does she then have no responsibility for her actions because I made her so mad she killed me?

Let's say instead of cheating on her, I broke a dish, and she got so upset she killed me? Is that my responsibility?

At what point are people responsible for their own emotions?

People say "I am an emotional person" and that usually says to me "I let people get to me, and don't take responsibility for my illogical [read: emotional] reactions to what people do or say."


No point in going on forever, but it is an interesting topic.
This is a forum. It's difficult to know what kind of clothes or what kind of culture a person is in to. For that reason, people shouldn't stereotype any group of people - for the only reason that there are going to be different groups of people on this forum. I don't know if there are any Asian people on this thread, but if I say, "All Asian people speak like chin-chang-yo!" then hell yes, they have the right to feel discriminated against and stereotyped. It doesn't matter that I didn't know that they were thee.

I think maybe you're assuming that my points are black and white. I think that people are responsible for others emotions, and because of that, should also explain different situations or circumstances if it turns out that they've offended another person. If I were sitting at a table - regardless of race - I'd be upset to see another person served first, and I'd want to know why. I don't think it's difficult to explain that someone called in first.

If you show me a person that has never cried in all of their life, then I'll believe your argument that people learn to cry or not cry when in pain.

It's possible that you could be a murderer. People have gone to trial for bullying others to death.

My argument is that no one should attack others, and that people are responsible for others feelings. If your girlfriend killed you, I wouldn't think she was right because she also attacked you. She could simply communicate about the pain that you caused her, you could apologize to her, and she could choose to stay with you or to move on. Attacking another person, verbally or physically, doesn't need to be in that equation.

I'll say again that my argument isn't black and white. I agree with you that there is a point when people can't be responsible for others feelings. I think back to the example I gave before, where the girl had assumed that the boy beside her had been talking about her behind of his back. He wasn't, and because of her own insecurities, she attacked. That's an instance when I say that logic should be more important than emotion. However, if someone were to say to me that I'm black, so I should be a slave - that I'm a woman, so I'm inferior to men - then yes, I'd feel attacked, and that person would be responsible for the pain I feel.


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