Let’s admit it—the past few years have been a whirlwind of “anti-woke” regression. We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of walking through the hallway and overhearing the words “re****,” “n*****,” or “f*****” being thrown around like any other word in the English language. But what is with the lax attitude on hate speech? Why now, more than ever in our lifetime, is it socially acceptable to body shame each other and spew hate so casually?
Well, let’s theorize: was it the “snowflakes” of 2020 that made today’s teens want to defy anything remotely “woke?”Although the use of slurs has never truly been eradicated, it seems that people don’t care so much about letting one slip like they used to. Even back in the 2022-2023 school year, MHS Admin was holding assemblies on the importance of keeping those words out of our mouths. Where is that energy today? Is the hate around the halls supposed to remind us of the “good old days” of our parents’ youth, back when things just “weren’t so serious”?
It seems like nowadays we can’t go out to lunch without hearing someone call themselves or one of their friends “big” for simply eating a normal portion of food. It has become so normalized that it doesn’t even register that those words are daggers to the people around you, and to yourself. As a matter of fact, we can’t even go on our phones without seeing something that makes us feel icky. The moment you open social media (Instagram and X especially), It’s just hate comment after hate comment on videos of people simply having fun and being free. Nowadays, doing something against the norm is just an open invitation to get dogged on…