Why does everyone suddenly seem to think it’s ok to say the R word again? I feel like I hadn’t heard it in years and suddenly everyone around me is using it, and I see it on Reddit all the time. Am I imagining it? Is anyone seeing this? I don’t even know what to say when it’s suddenly just everyone in a group and everyone acts like it’s normal.
Great ending to that piece on offense vs reinforcement of systemic oppression. Since this is the Chat community, I am interested in discussing some of the arguments in the pieces you linked.
In the Affinity piece, Stop Using Intelligence-Based Insults If You Care About Disabled People, they make the argument that essentially any intelligence-based insult is inherently ableist, even if not deployed against someone with a disability, but then use WW1-era eugenicists’ attempts to weaponize intelligence to attack the idea of intelligence at all, claiming
This is quite the claim, given that ‘intelligence’ as a concept has existed for hundreds or even thousands of years, and the author gives no historical evidence of it being founded with that meaning. It most certainly did not originate with Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, as the author tries to imply at the end.
It also somewhat contradicts the second link, Alternatives to ableist terms, which lists ‘ignorant’ and ‘inept’ (among others) as acceptable replacements for ‘stupid’. If any insult to someone’s intelligence is ableist, how can you offer replacements without them being ableist as well?
All words that can be used to attack a person, will always be more effective and more-often-deployed against marginalized groups, because of the intrinsic power disparity that exists that makes a group marginalized. And some should be marginalized (e.g. Nazis). And society has and will always need to attack people, because people do commit acts that need to be called out and even shamed over, to dissuade them and others from repeating them. Social groups that cannot attack intrusion are vulnerable to subversion by anyone willing to break with their social norms.
For instance, in the case of the now-toast GOP ghoul who insisted that women’s bodies can “shut down” pregnancies resulting from “legitimate r***”, is calling it “misinformed”, “incorrect”, “mean”, or “silly”, really the appropriate reaction? None of those convey, through their tone or meaning, the seriousness of the breach of acceptability that his statement is. Sure, they are correct, but it certainly doesn’t signal to anyone else that they’re going to face a harsh reprimand if they echo his rhetoric?
There was quite a lot of ink spilt publicly shaming him, not so much with technical refutations of the ways he is scientifically incorrect, but by viciously attacking his intelligence and character. He lost his reelection bid following that incident, but would he have if he had simply been called “misinformed”?
The Words and Offense piece differentiates between “oppressive slurs”, and non-oppressive ones:
But the Affinity piece does not seem to distinguish between them?
Is all language that attacks a person inherently bad? And if so, does that mean that it is never appropriate to attack someone (verbally), even in defense, even to stop them normalizing harmful rhetoric that “mobilize[s] an entire society in violent hate”?
I’m seriously not debating this with someone trying so hard to justify continuing to use intelligence based insults that they literally compare disabled people to Nazis (who are not, and never have been a marginalised and oppressed group like the disabled people they literally mass murdered. Fuck you) to try and make their logic work.
If you are actually willing and able to set your defensiveness and biases aside, feel free to read through the links I left in reply Vodulas, or continue to do your own research in to what disabled people have to say about the matter, not those who aren’t directly impacted.
Either way, I am here to reassure a comrade, not philosophise with ableds about ableism, you either listen to disabled people and do your best to be an ally, or you don’t, that’s your choice.
Whoa, I was not “comparing disabled people to Nazis”, I said that Nazis should be an oppressed and marginalized group.
I literally was quoting the links you recommended to read!
There is a disparity in YOUR SOURCES between how they are discussing slurs, and I am asking you what YOU believe, between those sources, is the answer:
I’ve removed my first comment, since it was too unproductive.
fwiw you’ve conveyed the same general question i have about the situation, albeit far more eloquently than i would have been able to
i am totally down to stop using words that disabled people find offensive, but i need alternatives to express that someone is being needlessly / purposely ignorant or otherwise harmful and is generally worthy of scorn and contempt
which isn’t to say that providing that is the onus on disabled people (it’s really not, their only real obligation is to express their experiences)… but it does make it a lot easier to action on the request
it’s also kind of interesting to approach this conversation both as an outsider, but also as someone who these words do apply to in some capacity