At what point does a joke turn into hate speech?
“If you a man and your over 25 and you don’t eat p***y just kill your self damn it. The world will be a better place. Lol,” tweeted hip-hop artist 50 Cent on Sept. 29.
Did you catch the “LOL” at the end of the tweet? He was joking!
In later tweets, 50 Cent made excuses for his hate remarks. He said the tweet was just a joke. And like many people that let a hateful homophobic remark slip, he uses the “some of my best friends are gay” cover by tweeting that his mother was bisexual. We get the point. He didn’t really mean what he tweeted.
Apparently, people are not as angry at 50 Cent as I am for tweeting that “joke.” There was much more backlash towards Kanye West when he interrupted country artist and all-American sweetheart Taylor Swift during her VMA acceptance speech last year, or when the country band The Dixie Chicks said they were “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas” during one of their concerts back in 2003.
What I find to be the most surprising is that even with the recent increase of young gay suicides in the last couple of weeks, most of society doesn’t stand up to tell 50 Cent that “joke” he tweeted was inappropriate. The only ones standing up to 50 Cent are the gay community and its allies.
This might be because society is so used to hearing hate remarks disguised as “jokes” towards the gay community that people don’t see anything wrong with it. Even the government has, in a way, supported the mistreatment of hate remarks towards gays through continued support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).
Words are powerful. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is a statement that really does not apply to anyone. Words have had strong influence in many young gay teens’ lives in the past few weeks. These teens felt alone and tortured by simple “jokes” and decided to take their life.
The recent peak of gay teen suicides has inspired the “It Gets Better Campaign” started by Dan Savage and his partner. The campaign is a compilation of videos posted on YouTube where individuals share personal stories and say “it does get better” to young teens that are experiencing bullying and feel alone.
“It is too bad that we have to tell them to hang on and grunt it out; I wish we could just say you don’t have to put up with this s***,” wrote Jay from Santa Monica as response to an Advocate.com article that talked about the “It Gets Better Campaign.”
I implore anyone who feels alone and is contemplating taking harsh action to visit the It Gets Better Project on YouTube or to call The Trevor Project, a toll-free lifeline that is available to anyone that needs to talk to someone.
The Trevor Project
866-488-7386
thetrevorproject.org
It Gets Better Project
YouTube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject