The Short Bus

In the summer we got a writing assignment. For this assignment we had to read the book The Short Bus and write a paper about it. Later on after school had started and time had passed the author of the book, Jonathan Mooney came in and had a presentation with us. Now I will be writing about the many different implications, both positive and negative, of being labeled different in our society. Also, I will describe and justify my ethical response to the use of words as weapons against others.
Being labeled in our society is not necessarily a bad thing, it could be good. A good thing that comes from this is it helps you understand if someone is mentally handicapped. For an example, if someone has a mental handicap they could be considered “slow” and that is a nicer thing to say than “retarded” so to speak. Also, another reason this would be good is because in many schools special services are offered to those who are “different”. Tutoring, extended times on tests, alternative courses, and even a dedicated classroom can all be offered.
But, in order to be qualified for those offerings, you would have to have the label of being mentally handicapped. My thought on this would be that many people that have mental handicaps already know that they are the way they are. They also usually accept the fact that they have a disability that many others do not have. On the other hand, there are unfortunately some bad things in this. Labels can be a very hurtful thing to a lot of individuals. Labels can add to prejudice and discriminations.

They could also prevent or discourage you from getting to know someone. Being called gay, retard, or even an idiot are all forms of discrimination. If someone is homosexual or mentally handicapped they can most definitely not help it, it was the way they were born. I’m sure that most people that have these “problems” so to speak already feel like an outcast and giving people labels just makes the situation a lot worse and more painful. Also, this could very possibly make you not want to get to know someone.
If all of your friends are giving a certain someone labels and making fun of them, there is a very good chance you would be discouraged in getting to know this person. That is not fair at all to the person getting the label or the person that would want to get to know someone. Another thing, when you are diagnosed with a handicap the handicap is not permanent. Therefore, you could eventually lose the handicap and still be considered the label in school and still have the special classes and extensions and such.
On the other hand, if you never had any handicap before and you develop one sometime in the future, you would not be able to have special tutoring, extended time on tests, alternative courses, and a dedicated classroom, etc… until you were diagnosed with the mental handicap that you could very possibly have obtained in the future. The second part of this essay I will give my ethical response on using words as weapons against others. I do not know where name-calling, labels, or being “different” originated from, but I despise it greatly.
I think name-calling, labels, and all forms of using words to hurt others are very unacceptable. All this does is hurt someone; it does not help the person who is saying the words, at all. A lot of the words people use to hurt others do not even make much sense. For an example when someone says someone is ghetto it that someone or something is trailer trash. No one really knows where this came from and it really does not make sense at all yet, people still use it to hurt others. Using words to hurt people can become a pretty big deal.
Recently, a handful of homosexual students committed suicide due to the bullying by others. According to ABC News Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge Tuesday, days after his roommate allegedly posted video on the Internet of him having sex with another man. The recent eruption of gay teen suicides has been across the country, from the East Coast to Indiana, Texas to California, where 13-year-old Seth Walsh, who recently hanged himself, was memorialized Friday night This could happen to anyone at any time if the verbal bullying does not come to a stop.
In this paper, I wrote about the many different implications, both positive and negative, of being labeled different in our society. Also, I described and justified my ethical response to the use of words as weapons against others. I think I gave my opinion pretty clearly. I also gave an example of what bullying others verbally could to do someone, thanks to ABC News.