This boy, McKay Hatch, got tired of hearing the constant swear-words that form the bulk of most teens' vocabulary. Whatever planet he's from, we need to import more of his kind.
Why Do We Love Profanity?
By Brent Bozell
January 30, 2009
McKay Hatch is a 15-year-old boy from South Pasadena, Calif., who people clearly hate. He's received over 60,000 negative e-mails, most of them vicious, some including death threats that have spawned police and FBI investigations. What has this boy done that's caused such anger? Was he caught dealing drugs? Did he rage? Did he kill? No. He started a No Cussing Club.
And for that he is vilified. Hatch says some people are going out of their way to curse him at school, on the Internet and on the phone. They send him pornographic magazine subscriptions. Not long ago, someone ordered $2,000 worth of pizza delivered to Hatch's house. Then came the death threats.
Brent Hatch, the teenager's father, told reporters one death threat in particular crossed the line. "I was at the hospital with my wife, and we were visiting family, and some guy had called on my cell phone said, 'I know you you're gone, you're not there. I'm in front of your house, and I'm going to kill your family.'"
If the purveyors of profanity think that cussing is so harmless, why are some of them so unbelievably hostile to anyone suggesting a voluntary ban on the bleeps?
McKay Hatch isn't buckling. "It's really scary, because people are calling us all night," he says. "Sometimes we have to unplug the phone. You know, at first it was really kind of scary, but they're just bullies, and they want you to be scared. And so I'm not gonna let them win."(rest of article may be found here)
HE'S FIFTEEN. And braver than I was at that age, when my response to the trash around me (and I mean trash) was to just shut my ears as well as possible.
3 comments:
If I knew him back in high school, I would've joined his club! Because of the way I was raised, I grew up not saying those words, even though I heard many of them at school. It was by choice: I didn't want to offend God's ears, and I hated hearing those words myself.
In college, I even heard Christian kids using those words, and I began to wonder if there were many people left under the age of 40 who didn't. It gets very lonely after a while! Some people I knew in college began to replace cuss words with "bunnies" whenever I was around. I never said a word about their cussing; they just noticed I didn't do it, and respected that.
It's heartening to read this kid's "About Me," see how many people have joined his club, and see that there still are others like me out there. :)
I got in trouble in second grade for cussing - because another kid was playing a "spelling game", I was good at spelling, and he spelled ship, only it wasn't ship. I told him that [what he spelled] wasn't a word. So then because I'd said it, he told a teacher I was cussing. And I was the one in trouble!
One day in elementary school, some kids told me to say the word which is also a short form of "Richard." I only knew it as a nickname. They were thinking of the profane version. I said it, they started laughing, and I--befuddled--said, "What? It's just a name!" Then they tried to get me to say the other word for "donkey," and when I refused, they taunted me with, "It's just a name!" Then they started telling the other kids the funny word I just said. I was baffled and embarrassed at their strange behavior.
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