If anyone ever wants a slice of social justice and animated pictures of cats and TV shows, the website Tumblr is the place to go. This site is most popular for its politically correct attitude when discussing various aspects of our culture. However, the over-conscientious mindset can be a bit much, especially with the romance that bloggers seem to have with the word “oppression.”
According to this site, everyone is oppressed by someone else’s actions and words, whether they are subtle or aggressive. This is true for almost anything that discusses the obese, the rich, the poor and so on. But can people really feel “oppressed” by words? Most of the time, this word, like many, is abused and misused.
Textbook definitions of “oppression” seem to fit the label for the type of bullying that people face every day, but this word holds much more weight than mere harsh words. Oppression is the torment and anguish that people have suffered from abuses of power, such as segregating people into ghettos, enforcing slavery and persecuting and killing people in the name of a holy deity.
Those examples are more suited for the word oppression, not being misunderstood because of a mental disorder, or telling someone that they are ugly because of the color of their skin or size of their body. That is being a bully, not being oppressive.
Words can have a tremendous impact on others, and what we communicate to the world will always be out there once it has slipped from our lips or typed out. For as much criticism that can be discussed about Tumblr and its seemingly self-righteous, holier-than-thou perspective in regards to social issues, it is a quite progressive platform to start conversations about troubling problems in society.
While this site may be efficient for bloggers dishing out ideas and a great escape from the harrowing world around us, when does the discussion of social injustices go in too deep? Bringing up social issues and trying to fix them to make the world a more open and friendly place is a favorable goal, but not realistic.
If we try to over-correct ourselves, it could turn into a struggle of editing ourselves to the extremity that we lose the ability to have a genuine, authentic thoughts and statements. Everyone will offend someone at least once. Walking on eggshells to develop a more tolerant environment does not seem like a solid solution to the problem of “oppressing” one with words, actions in this regard must follow in its footsteps.
Although oppression is not just a person slaying another with verbal insults, there could be a more suitable word for it. We just have to crack open the thesaurus and ignite the fuel for another conversation.
