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Originally Posted by Colors
*Bascially I found out that plenty of high school students generally don't give a shit about calling someone a "FOB"-fresh off the boat" or someone a "fag" or something "gay". And to a lesser extent, gender slurs and mental-disability slurs. The worst offenders are chronic due to the fact that their particular social circle is rife. Most of the others don't think about it much at all. And then there's the minority group which find slurs intensely offensive and demoralizing. Across the board, all student groups perceive that authority figures don't care about and/or ignore slur usuage.
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It's probably the case that authority figures ignore it a lot (but let me tell you that it is probably in many cases not that they don't care but because discipline is hard--that's my story, anyway). That said, I ALWAYS call kids out on homophobic and mental disability slurs. Those are the ones I hear most often (ie, "that's gay" and "that's retarded"). But I teach English, so word choice is a central topic in my class--so I try to observe those offenses as "teachable moments." That said, nobody gets to abuse one another in my class without being called on it (and in particularly egregious circumstances, written up for it).