A brief PSA on language
So many people have complained that it is asking too much of abled people to stop using words they consider trivial: crazy, insane, lunatic, idiot, moron, dumb, blind, etc.
I beg to differ.
You know what is really damn easy? Erasing these words from your vocabulary. All you have to do is stop saying them.
You know what is really hard?
Confronting people on their use of same language.
We aren’t even asking you to do the hard work. We aren’t asking you to tell other people to stop using that language. We aren’t asking you to confront other people on their use of that language. We aren’t asking you to explain why it is problematic, to answer people’s questions, to deal with their redirection tactics, or to handle the attacks on and harassment of the people negatively affected by that language that such confrontations always seem to draw.
You don’t have to take the brunt of it. You don’t have to deal with the negative consequences. You don’t have to face employment discrimination, street harassment, caretaker abuse, and other people’s general cluelessness about our lives. You get to sit tight in your privilege, enjoying it without even realizing you’re doing it.
All you have to do is cut a few words out of your speaking and/or writing vocabulary. That’s it.
We’re the ones who are putting our safety on the line trying to change the cultural system that oppresses us.
Two seconds to reconsidering what you’re really trying to say? Easy.
Changing other people’s deep-seated attitudes? Really damn hard.
How do you think we feel when you complain that two seconds is just tooooo haaaaard for you to take on?
notemily
| Friday, November 20, 2009 | 2:37 pmI’m working on it. I’ve used those words for so long that I do it automatically. The post on “idiot” helped challenge my assumptions about intelligence, but I’m still working on replacing those assumptions in my vocabulary. Years of ingrained habit take work to undo. Don’t get me wrong, though–I think that work is well worth doing.
FW
| Sunday, November 29, 2009 | 4:44 amI was doing so good. I don’t think I had a single ableist word on my blog, because I started it right around the same time as that protest post on feministing went up – so I had a fresh start on a new blog, and then 2 days ago I wrote a post – it was one of those emotional ones where it was all pouring out, and I called myself crazy in the middle of it, and I didn’t even notice until later – after I had submitted it to the feministing community blog. I can’t even change the one on feministing, (it hasn’t been approved yet anyway) and I don’t wanna change the matching entry on my own blog and then have the one on feministing have “crazy” right in the damn middle and the one on my blog doesn’t have “crazy” right in the middle – I’m afraid people will check out both versions and think I’m just trying to mess with folks, or something. So I don’t even know if I should change the one I can change…. So anyway, sorry for this long boring story. :)
You « I Am Not
| Monday, January 4, 2010 | 3:26 am[...] I’m going to pass over the issue with the word usage, because it’s been explained far better than I could hope to. Specifically, on FWD in their Ableist Word Profile series. I’m also going to pass over the difficulty of addressing such issues to people that either justify their usage of the terms or try to claim it’s oh so hard to break such habits as justification of not really trying, because this too has been explained far better than I could hope to. [...]