I know that we like to keep things fun here (I like to keep things fun everywhere!) But it's been in the news so much and everyone's talking about it, so I may as well too!
We all know that there's been a lot of talk about race with regards to Harry and Megan and the race row between Lady Susan Hussey and charity founder Ngozi Fulani. Prior to that there was outrage about the World Cup being held in Qatar due to their stance on gay relationships. Then of course there's Islamophobia, mysogyny, misandry... the list is endless. It appears that these days, you can't switch on the news without hearing about some mistreatment aimed at a particular section of society.
I'm a straight, middle-aged white woman with two mixed race kids. I'm not at all naïve to think that bigotry and prejudice don't exist in the twenty-first century because they do. You only have to read/watch the news and listen to other people's experiences to know that it's still here. But the question is have things, got better over the years?
I was born in the mid seventies and grew up in the eighties. They weren't perfect times but they weren't diastrous either. At least not for me. I did experience what we now know to be xenophobia because I had an Italian dad and furthermore my mum, for a time, was a single mum, so there was a stigma attached to being a child from a divorced household. I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones despite this because i know other people had it worse. Today my children also have divorced parents but I've never known anyone to throw that as a slur at them. I also know children who have gay parents and they haven't been bullied or ostracized at school, whereas during my school days it would have been a very different story.
In some ways, I think that society has come a long way. But then in others I think that we still have a very long way to go. I'd like to know what everyone else makes of it. I know that this is a very sensitive topic so I apologize if anyone finds this post triggering. That was not my intention. Just one of my many ponderings!
A lot of you here are in agreement that things have got better over the years but there is still loads of room for improvement. Well I disagree. I would say that we're still at the same level of tolerance that we were say 60 years ago or so but in a different way. We are more accepting, no supportive of the LGTBQI community, but we call to cancel celebrities who don't share our views. We talk about equality but we look down on men who choose to stay at home and run the household while his wife goes out to work. We cut ourselves off from family and friends who don't share our religious/political views. Every day there's a growing list of words we're no longer allowed to use, and we shame people who use them even if they didn't know. There are TV shows that will no longer be broadcast for fear of causing offence.
I'm sure you all get the picture. It's like we take one step forward and another one back, so we're not really going anywhere. I think there will always be a level of intolerance and injustice in the world that will never go away. It's just that during different times, it will be felt by different sections of society.
A lot of you here are in agreement that things have got better over the years but there is still loads of room for improvement. Well I disagree. I would say that we're still at the same level of tolerance that we were say 60 years ago or so but in a different way. We are more accepting, no supportive of the LGTBQI community, but we call to cancel celebrities who don't share our views. We talk about equality but we look down on men who choose to stay at home and run the household while his wife goes out to work. We cut ourselves off from family and friends who don't share our religious/political views. Every day there's a growing list of words we're no longer allowed to use, and we shame people who use them even if they didn't know. There are TV shows that will no longer be broadcast for fear of causing offence.
I'm sure you all get the picture. It's like we take one step forward and another one back, so we're not really going anywhere. I think there will always be a level of intolerance and injustice in the world that will never go away. It's just that during different times, it will be felt by different sections of society.