Today in one of my media classes my professor was talking about something that I thought fit right into the Bias chapter of Bugeja’s living ethics. My professor said that he has many friends who are homosexual. He said that his homosexual friends often make fun of him and other straight people by calling them “breeders”. Meaning that they are attracted to the opposite sex and therefore able to sucessfully breed. I thought this was funny and I could see why it made my professor laugh, since us “breeders” generally have words that use to refer to homosexuals. I thought it only fitting that they should have terms for us. After explaining this, my professor went on to say that one day in class he was joking with a friend, who happend to be homoseuxal and brought up the term. His friend was amused that he knew the term and they both laughed about it. However, an African American woman sitting next to him overheard the word and said that she found it offensive because this was a term used during the Civil War for a slave woman. Another woman inquired about the term and said that she found it offensive because it seemed to target women and that it was unfair since not all women decide to have children or want children. The woman stated that she thought this was unfairly labeling women as just being there for the purpose of reproduction. In this once instance something that was meant as a harmless joke between two friends had turned into a hurtful and negative things for others. I thought this was very interesting because chapter seven talks about this very sort of thing. Sometimes we have no idea that words that seem fairly harmless, may have negative connotations for others. It had not crossed my professor’s mind that his comment would hurt or offend anyone else. However, we are all human and when something like this happens, Bugeja advises that we not be afraid to apologize. It is a good idea to try to avoid such scenarios, but when that is not possible, it is best to be willing to learn from the mistake and make sure the people injured know that it was a mistake.
