riotsnotdiets:

technicolortimecoat:

eateroftrees:

[or other problematic habits] …you should direct your rage at society for telling you that this shit is okay.

I mean really.  The problem is not that say, people are telling you to stop calling things “stupid” because it’s ableist, the problem is that society told you it was okay in the first place.

this.

I AGREE WITH THIS SO MUCH.

BUT.

(And I am totally open to being told I’m wrong, or I haven’t thought about the issue in a nuanced-enough way, here)…

I don’t think ‘stupid’ is ableist in the same way that words like ‘retarded’, ‘lame’, and ‘dumb’ are ableist.

From what I understand of the etymology of the word, stupid (from the word for “stupor”) was not a medical term used to describe/pathologize/oppress people with cognitive/intellectual disabilities. Its opposite, “wise” is a word to describe a type of intelligence based on life experience and general knowledge, NOT ability.

Here’s what you get from etymonline.com:

M.Fr. stupide, from L. stupidus “amazed, confounded,” lit. “struck senseless,” from stupere “be stunned, amazed, confounded,” from PIE *(s)tupe- “hit,” from base *(s)teu- (see steep (adj.)). Native words for this idea include negative compounds with words for “wise” (cf. O.E. unwis, unsnotor, ungleaw), also dol (see dull), and dysig (see dizzy). Stupid retained its association with stupor and its overtones of “stunned by surprise, grief, etc.” into mid-18c. The difference between stupid and the less opprobrious foolish roughly parallels that of Ger. töricht vs. dumm but does not exist in most European languages.

So, while calling a PERSON stupid is certainly MEAN (and, if you are commenting on their lack of intelligence based on ability, definitely ableist), calling SOMETHING stupid (aka “this stupid exam”) doesn’t seem ableist to me.

Of course, I’m all for the eradication of meanness, as I think we should treat everyone with kindness, so I’m willing to say that we should probably not call people stupid. I’m just not sure that ‘stupid’ is (always, or even primarily) a comment on one’s cognitive ability.

But again, I’m definitely open to dialogue on this issue, and definitely open to the possibility that my thought process is clouded by my privilege, etc.

The amazeballs feminists at FWD/Forward [RIP forever in my heart] consider “stupid” to be ableist not because it has been used oppressively specifically, but because it implicitly uses the concept of “intelligence,” which has been used oppressively. This is not to say that the idea of intelligence, which I would loosely define as cognitive ability, is inherently oppressive, but the dominant way of thinking about intelligence privileges certain types of intelligences over others. I subscribe to the school of thought that posits there are different kinds of intelligence (spatial, verbal, emotional, etc) and of course some people are going to be more intelligent in a particular way than others. But there’s a systematic privileging of people who have lots of the intelligences that let them do well in school (“smart people”) and concomitant oppression of people who don’t necessarily have ‘book smarts’ but might have really good spatial skills or whatever.

So calling an exam ‘stupid,’ to use your example, I would consider to be moderately ableist because it legitimates the concept of “stupid” as it has been applied to people and assigns it inherently negative characteristics. Probably what you really mean is that the exam is “pointless” or “annoying,” and it might be better just to say that? I’m thinking of this example as the ableism-equivalent of saying “this party is crazy” when you might mean it’s “fun” or “out of control.”

And to echo your disclaimer, Margitte, I’m also open to dialogue and definitely not an expert.

(Source: thenameoftheworms)

shobogan:

Yes, it is. It’s equating mental illness with horrific violence, and that’s the last thing society needs more of. It’s accepting the idea that one equates to the other when it’s profoundly false, when people with a mental illness are for more likely to be the victims of violence than to cause it. 

No, I don’t give a fuck about how “political correctness” oppresses you. You know what “political correctness” is? It’s considering your words and the effect they have. I’m sorry that’s such a chore for you. I’m sorry you’re too self-absorbed to examine your problematic vocabulary. I’m sorry being expected to be respectful is so very taxing.

Oh, no, wait, I’m really not.

(via hypotheticalthalamus)

tiaramerchgirl:

pastthestorm:

Sedentary Meanderings: The Merch Girl :: Tiara the Merch Girl- ~ I usually agree with your…

[snip]

A few thoughts:

First, I’d like you to consider that you may be seeing these arguments against ableist language more on Tumblr than in your offline life because it’s easier to discuss these things via the Internet than it is to call someone out offline. If I’m having a hard time articulating myself online, I can click into another tab, check my email, take a couple of minutes, reference a couple of other blog posts, and pause to think basically indefinitely because of the nature of the Internet. It’s much harder and much more intimidating to talk about these things offline, in real time, looking at someone’s face.

It’s also much, much lower-risk to try to explain this over the Internet to someone I don’t really know than to try explaining it to an acquaintance I’m fairly friendly with, who I take classes with and socialize with, because the ramifications of failure are so much greater. I run the risk of disrupting my social circles, of enduring prolonged hostility from this individual, of maybe even being raped because I’m a college student in America and that’s what happens here, a lot. If I fail with you, I unfollow you and that’s the end of it. I don’t know, maybe if I really enrage you, you’ll send me some mean messages. But you’re in Australia and I’m in the USA; you cannot physically harm me. That’s a big difference.

My understanding of the ableism inherent in “crazy”/”insane”/etc came primarily from posts at the now-defunct FWD/Forward, written by feminist/social justice bloggers who primarily <i>do</i> have a stake in these words because they experience mental illness or another type of disability. This is a really good post explaining why writing about and calling out ableist language is important; here’s one about their Ableist Word Profiles; and here are two about the word “crazy.”

The main thrust of the arguments against “crazy” (etc) are that: 1. these words are used against people with mental illness as a means of silencing or de-legitimating them, regardless of however else they’re used; and 2. regardless of whether you believe that these words are oppressive, marginalizing, and/or ableist, people who have had “crazy” used against them in this way are probably reading your posts on social justice, and by using those you are probably alienating a segment of your audience.

Firstly: I’m someone who has had the word “Crazy” used against them in a negative way, and in some cases could be legitimately considered as “crazy”, so it’s not like I don’t have a stake in the word or on perceptions of mentally ill people.

I get you that it’s a lot easier to call out people online then it is offline. But that just adds to my cynicism - it becomes “OK I’ve done my SOCIAL JUSTICE WOO!” but nothing happens offline to back that up. Picking on the words instead of actually working on changing those attitudes in the first place.

And it still doesn’t help people who are being alienated despite having a stake in those terms. Hell I got a “YES YES YES!” from my original post alone, which leads me to feel that there are many MANY people who are being alienated from this that shouldn’t be, and that we’re not paying any attention to them in the interest of language policing - which has now just become a badge of Look What A Good Internet Activist I Am. It’s not like any of the language policers were especially interested in helping me go through my deepest darkest times of depression…

My understanding is that many people believe that the language we use shapes the way we perceive the world; therefore, by challenging the language that people use, by asking people to reconsider the way they use words, they are challenging the underlying attitudes.

As to the rest of that—you’re definitely making valid points. I do think it’s the responsibility of the language-checker to examine their motives and making sure they’re not doing it in an oppressive way. There are definitely times that other concerns are more important. At the same time, language is also very important.

(via creatrixtiara)

kiriamaya:

I guarantee you that your ableism is not helping whatever social justice point you’re making. In fact, it’s helping to undermine it.

So please stop it. Please.

This includes people in the real world as well as the SJ blogosphere!

(SJ = social justice, fyi.)

(via flapjackstate)

tiaramerchgirl:

wild-cosmia:

thee marvelous fairycakes ❀: I’m starting to get really wary of language policing

verdigrisfille:

Here’s how I feel.

(1) “Language policing” cannot be a substitute for substantive change, but dislodging -ist language is important.  If you walk around saying “gay” derogatorily without really thinking about the rhetorical implications of what you’re saying, then you’re contributing to a problem.  That doesn’t mean that you’re a bad human being, and the whole point of calling people out on the language they use is to get them to think about what they’re saying.  If you’re doing a call-out right, it’s not to be holier-than-thou, it’s just to let someone know how language contributes to a broader problem that the person doing the call-out is still a part of.  Calling someone out should not mean that you stop thinking about one’s own entrenched tendencies.  Everyone always has work to do on themselves.

(2) “self-satisfied that we’re done our Good Activist Deed Of The Day and so no one can call us out on our rubbish” - If this is what you’re doing, you’re doing it WRONG.

(3) “Do we really want to alienate people with important and useful perspectives because they’ve learnt to use the word “crazy” for things that don’t make sense, or can’t get people’s pronouns right because their native language only has one pronoun for any gender, or has found the term “homophobia” useful while still dealing with a debilitating phobia of spiders but doesn’t see one degrading the other?”  I feel like this is the whole point.  You can critique someone’s language without devaluing what they’re saying.  It’s very simple - you engage people on multiple levels of their thought processes.  Focusing exclusively on how people say things is bad.  Focusing exclusively on “what” they’re saying (which I think is kinda inseparable from how they say it, but that’s my interest in rhetoric talking right now) is bad too, because it ignores the nuanced and entrenched patterns of thought that people have - which are themselves revealing.  

(4) Re: non-native speakers of English… Calling someone out is WAY different than being “nitpicky” about punctuation or grammar, because there other people whose lives are devalued by using words like “crazy” or “gay” in derogatory or problematic fashions.  I feel somewhat divided on this issue, because I don’t see the problem here as being the fault of the person who is speaking, but rather the problem of whomever taught the speaker that “crazy” was an acceptable substitute for “weird.”  Does that mean that we shouldn’t speak up and correct them?  I don’t think so.  Ideally we won’t ever have to say, “Hey, I’m guessing that someone told you that gay means X, but actually using it that way hurts my feelings and could you please use X instead of gay?  Thanks.  Now, about [insert topic of conversation here].”  But it’s not an ideal world, and people grow up and live in that world and absorb that world.  But they make that world too, and how they talk builds that world, and so changing the way that people talk changes the way that the world works. 

(6) What the hell is an “unnecessary extreme?”  I agree that it’s a difficult situation, because often allies are in a better position to call people out (because they don’t directly experience the trauma, slap-in-the-face feeling that comes with hearing your identity marshaled as a negative term) - but they aren’t part of the subject group.  Speaking for others is a problem that I struggle with, because I’m abled, cis, white, and so on.  SO long story short, I think that it’s acceptable for people of privilege to call other privileged people out on their racism, heterosexism, whatever, with the caveat that they are also speaking from a position of privilege and that they are obviously not the authority.  But there is NO SUCH THING as “unnecessary extreme” when a person of color, person with disabilities, queer person, trans person, etc. calls someone out, because saying that it’s “extreme” is like saying “your feelings don’t matter to me.”  So that’s my two cents.

tl;dr -

You gotta work for change on both rhetorical and “real” levels, but the two are intertwined.  If you’re a decent human being, you make mistakes and when you get called out you learn from them rather than taking it as a personal insult.  If you’re a decent person, when you’re calling someone out you still realize that you too are part of the same system of oppression and you have work to do as well.  You exercise discretion about when it’s appropriate to call someone out, and you do it in ways that don’t make the person you’re calling out feel personally victimized.  The whole point is to help each other work through it, imho.  And on both sides of the equation you learn from the moment and you move on with your conversation. 

But it also seems just “too easy” to ignore rhetoric and lexicon altogether. 

which is why language is important. the problem is that people catch on to the good-activist-deed-skim-the-surface thing (at least on the internet, which is what i’ve observed). i really deeply agree with yr first point especially, it’s just it usually doesn’t play out like that. we’re in a place where a lot of uncomfortable and self-reflective things aren’t brought up, in favor of back-patting once someone’s realized an ableist/cissexist/etc phrase to put out of use. what are we doing, outside of academic circles, to redefine the way we look at queer sexualities, race, mental and physical abilities, etc? somehow it rings hollow in actuality, outside the scope of scholarly/academic language and radical discourse. we know how we should act, but how do we, really? does it reflect our ideals? and the way we speak: is it always consistent? in reading i’ve found a lot of stuff to be hypocritical, condemning one thing while propping up another. the two are certainly intertwined in theory, but that doesn’t translate seamlessly into a) discourse, where people do get caught up unknowingly in their own biases and b) our lives, where changing “crazy” to “bizarre” won’t make us view & treat with any more dignity to those we regard as seriously mentally ill.

[i don’t really feel comfortable talking about the specific cases too much because i feel like i can’t get my thoughts to words adequately and i’m left feeling very unintelligent. (it’s likely the case that i am just inarticulate and unintelligent, but a lot of my mental stability/illness hinges on those self-perceptions and i just can’t linger there without crisis soooooo)]

language is critical, absolutely. but the way people should speak & act doesn’t always reflect reality, it’s not always consistent. from time to time, we all do it wrong (at least me, har har)

Also everything wild-cosmia said. I’m starting to see the “but that’s ABLEIST” kneejerks happening even within this conversation (not this specific post, but a few times in some of the reblogs). PEOPLE. Can we try to not play Spot The Buzzword (as irrelevancy coined) and try to engage with the issue at hand here?

Oooh, I really like everything verdigrisfille is saying. I think a lot of what Tiara is seeing and objecting to really boils down to “failure to exercise discretion,” as verdigrisfille said. Sometimes it’s appropriate to call someone out on -ist language; sometimes it’s not.

I think the flipside of the language policing issue is that for someone with a mental illness, seeing “crazy” used as a slur, especially within the context of social justice coneversations, can really hurt. I know that I’ve had a hard time recently both online and out in 3D land of becoming comfortable in a space and letting my defenses down and reacting really disproportionately to ableist language because I felt personally attacked. In spaces I don’t think of as “safe,” I keep myself primed to let “crazy” roll off my back. But when I let those defenses down, everything becomes personal and I find it really hard to keep my composure.

But there are appropriate times and venues for calling people out about that kind of language, for sure.

(via creatrixtiara)