Picture this. Two teenage girls walking around the mall, both tall and slender, looking for some bathing suits for the summer. They walk past two other teens, overweight and shorter than themselves, shopping for bathing suits as well. Is it the girls’ right to offend them, calling them nasty names, making animal sounds or snyde remarks about their outer appearance and attire? Absolutely not. However, take for example a teenager working in a retail store. She’s assisting a woman with some dresses, and suggests a larger size. The customer would most likely get offended, but did the sales person mean to be offensive? Was she suggesting the larger size to be rude, or was she suggesting this because the current size did not fit properly. Having worked in retail environments my whole life, I can say no. She was being honest.

Being offensive is different things to different people. There’s clearly a difference between being offensive intentionally, and being misunderstood. One of the most important rights we have, is freedom of speech. It’s how we chose to exercise that, that most people have a hard time with. We have a right to voice our opinion, right or wrong. There’s no amendment to that right specifying what we have the right to say, because that would go against the right itself. People don’t have a right to be offensive, they have the ability.

Instead, think of this as a matter or respect. Each person is entitled to respect from everyone else. No matter who they are or what they’ve done. However, since not everyone’s opinion will match your own, there are always going to be people who feel offended by something you’ve said or felt. There are people who will always find something wrong with your opinion, since they don’t agree. But that doesn’t mean you should keep this to yourself. Your opinion is exactly that. Your opinion. And you are allowed to voice that. The deal is, that freedom of speech protects the right to voice your opinion, but not the opinion itself. The KKK can say whatever they want, but their ideas and opinions are not right or accepted. Unfortunately, these people are offensive, but they don’t share that opinion. As long as we have freedom of speech and free will, offensive comments and behavior will always be around.

We need to focus on being more respectfull and less judgemental of others. There’s always a way to say what’s on your mind without being hurtful or disrespectful of others.