I'm a little stunned I even need to write this chapter....

Some people seem to believe it's okay to say something offensive to someone. Or for our purposes, write something offensive in our stories, be it a racial stereotype or calling someone with a mental disorder "crazy".

There seems to be two common justifications:

1. "If you get offended by that, you're too sensitive. There are other people who won't get offended by that, so you shouldn't either."

2. "It was just a joke! Lighten up! You're taking things too seriously."

This isn't about a character who is actually a douche and supposed to be offensive because they're the villian/antagonist (Gaston! I hope you've seen the videos of Disneyland Gaston *grins*) or just a really disagreeable protagonist, because the writer will show why those offensive words/actions are, well, OFFENSIVE. And bad. And they'd have negative consequences for one or all parties involved. Writing an offensive character is usually a promotion AGAINST making offensive statements.

But then you get that one person who seems to believe one or both of those above justifications.

Okay... so going by that line of thinking, if I called your shirt ugly, there are other people who won't feel insulted by that, so it's okay for me to call your shirt ugly.
Or if you have cancer and I make a cancer joke and you don't take it well, you need to lighten up! Maybe there's some cancer patient who'd find it funny, so that means I can go around making cancer patients the butt of my jokes.

I hope you see the issue here. If not... I don't even know what to say to you right now.

Please gauge your writing with harsh scrutiny for any statement that can come across as offensive to someone. Those can be things like characters calling each other "retards", grouping all mental disordered people as "insane" or "cukoos" or "crazy", making any disabled person the butt of a joke, making generalizing statments about a race, culture, nationality, etc.

There can be tactful ways to pull this off, for example Toph from ATLA, who's blind, cracking blind jokes about herself. (yay Toph once again is a great example of doing it right! lol) But she's a strong character who uses her disability to her advantage (she likely never would've gotten so good at earthbending if she had sight and didn't have to rely on vibrations in the ground to "see") so she's comfortable with her blindness and finds it amusing/eyeroll-worthy how her friends sometimes forget she's blind because she can function as well as any non-blind person, if not better.

However, there's just a lot of content that can be hurtful to someone or belittle them, even unintentionally. That's why it really pays off to educate yourself in ALL types of people. School doesn't teach you this. Look at personal accounts. My friend was just diagnosed with fibromyalgia (a chronic pain and fatigue disorder), so I searched the #fibromyalgia tag on tumblr and found a blog dedicated to fibro and disability in general. Incredibly eye-opening how much these people suffer, being in constant pain so crippling that they're bedridden for days, or so fatigued that they can't get up to do the dishes. Having the strength to do homework is actually a big accomplishment, one they look forward to! It's so unfortunate how hard they have to fight to get through their day.

And then on top of that, having a disability gets a stigma attached to you. People can be so incredbily judgmental and ignorant:

"You're too young to have such painful joints!"
"Really? You think they'll stop hurting if I show them some ID?"

or

"It must be nice to stay in bed and do nothing all day."
"No.
It really isn't.
I used to really, really love my bed.
But now, bed means pain.
Bed means not spending time with family and friends.
Bed means nothing gets done and that on good days, I find a house that looks like crap and not only a sink full of dirty dishes, but an entire counter of them.
Bed means life interrupted and things missed out on.
Bed means pain so miserable that I can't even care about these things while I'm in the grip of it.
Bed means my life really sucks right now.
No.
It isn't nice at all."

"Person: you wouldn't be so sick if you worked out more
Me: my whole body hurts all the time
Person: thats because you dont work out!
Me: its extremely painful to move
Person: It wont if you would work out."

Moving from physical disabilities to mental:

"you're obsessed with your mental illness"
"i know right? it's almost like it impacts every part of my life"

"it's all in your head"
"I know right? it's almost like it's a mental illness"

^posts from http://fibromyalgiasucks.tumblr.com/ (go read more! I was so humbled by reading some of these posts, and they helped me understand my friend a little better! You all will meet someone with a disability or other issues going on, so I'd highly encourage you to check out some tumblrs or pages like that dedicated to these kinds of personal experience posts, be it on physical/mental disabilities, racial issues, LGBT experiences, or whatever it is you want to understand better.) This is the one time pubmed or wiki won't help. You can find out symptoms and such, but to get the heart of the matter, the emotional ordeals, you have to hear it straight from them.

My point here is that please don't be quick to judge someone. If you do it in real life, it'll trickle into your writing, too. There could be so much else going on that you don't know about, so find out the full story before you go making ignorant and offensive statements.

Even the healthiest looking people can be suffering. Disability isn't always visible, and neither is suffering. I know from experience how good people can get at hiding their mental and physical issues. I didn't find out about one of my best friends' depression until I got a phone call saying she'd been admitted to the hospital. I'd been friends with another girl for a good three months before I found out she had bipolar disorder. My friend with fibromyalgia is a competative bodybuilder. Seriously, sometimes you'd never know.

And now switching gears from disability/illness/disorders and touching on racism and racial stereotypes (and I'll do a double whammy and show you racism against whites today!):

"Irish Catholics were robbed of their country by Protestant invaders centuries ago. They fought and fought and eventually got the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland), however, thanks to the deliberate plantation of Protestants to eradicate the Catholic majority in the North, it was left under British rule. Since then, Catholics have been murdered, arrested, terrorised, tortured and driven out of their houses just for being Irish Catholics.

I moved from Northern Ireland in 2010 and to the day I left, the violence was not over. I couldn't wear certain colours in certain areas because I would be beaten. I had fake names depending on where I was stopped, as attackers can determine what religion you are from your name alone (and this is a trick I learned, too, for defence). I can recite my rights if I'm arrested because if I was stopped in certain areas I could be, on the assumption I could be Catholic. I know the subtle sectarian geography of the city of Belfast because if I cross the road in the wrong place I'm in enemy territory. I have been chased by a group of forty people, throwing fireworks at me, because they assumed I was a Catholic. Police were parked on nearby streets and didn't acknowledge the commotion. My friends and I walk past graffiti screamed "Kill All Taigs". A fifteen year old boy who lived half an hour from me was beaten to death by a group of adults for being Catholic. For fifty years, people have been detained without trial, tortured, beaten and wrongly imprisoned just for being Catholic, because apparently, being Catholic means you must be in the IRA.

Even now, I can't escape it. I have a noticeable Northern Irish accent, which is stronger when I'm around people from there and is noticeable as a strong accent whenever I'm not in the country. At airports, I'm always the one stopped and frisked if they hear my accent. At ferry ports, it's alway my car (which has Northern Irish registration plates) that's "randomly selected" for a search. All of this just happened to me, a person who got off lightly.

If you think that Irish people haven't faced oppression and abuse, you're wrong. If you think that Northern Ireland is past its troubles, you're wrong. It sickens me that this happens only a few hundred miles away from England and no one acknowledges it exists, because hey, they're just some terrorist Catholics, right?

Contrary to popular belief, racism isn't America centric. Just ask the Serbians and Croatians."

(Source: http://miraclesandmemories.tumblr.com/post/108312528085/blackwidow-natalia-thearmedgentleman I really encourage you guys to read the entire post! Very eye-opening.)

So I hope if you take anything away from this post, it's please don't judge a person at first glance or second or third, and don't bring those judgments into your writing. Don't think you know everything about them. Your characters can be totally ignorant, but they should eventually learn or suffer consequences from it.

Did you guys watch that video of the guy who gave a homeless man $100 and secretly followed him to see what he'd do with it? The homeless man walked into a liquor store, and the other guy was like shit... but kept following, and eventually found out the homeless man had bought a ton of food and was now giving it away to other homeless.

Don't judge. Don't be offensive because you think the other person laughed it off and seems fine about it. Maybe you really hurt them and they just don't want to admit it. If you're writing a character in a situation different from yours, make sure you do your research! Find personal accounts (primary sources, yo!). Be open-minded. Not everyone may take offense to your words or actions, but if there's one person who does, it's worth not doing.

Do you guys have anything to add? Have you ever read a novel that promoted an idea or statement that personally offended you? Why was it offensive? Share your experiences in the comments!