Why the little things matter.

[feuervogel]

Once upon a discussion with my libertarian now-ex-boyfriend, he told me that I shouldn't get so upset over "the little things," like "that's so lame" or the eleventy-millionth depiction of bisexual women as slutty, indecisive, or outright evil, because ... I don't know, I guess because sharia exists, or something. The Real Problems, as defined by a white, middle-class, straight, cis man, because bisexual women don't get to define our own problems, I guess.

sohotrightnow has this excellent post on why little things matter.

Do not ever forget that it started small, that the Holocaust was merely the logical conclusion of the gradual devaluing and dehumanizing of large swaths of people -- some people claim that focusing on microaggressions and trying to end them is reductio ad absurdum; I'd go in a different direction and call the Holocaust an increscio ad absurdum: a completely logical series of steps from one degree of devaluing and dehumanizing to the next, on up to the most horrifying and completely logical conclusion. But don't forget either that there were a lot of people, along the way, who did fight, who didn't simply accept the tiny little ways their society had told them, day in and day out, for their entire lives, that certain lives were worth less than others, that certain people were less human than others. Don't use the latter fact to write off the former, because if more people had spoken up from the beginning, if more people had examined their assumptions and their language and the casual everyday ways they devalued and dehumanized the undesirable, maybe the more dramatic actions of the Righteous wouldn't have been necessary. But don't let the former cause you to lose hope, to think that there is nothing you can possibly do in the face of widely-held, systemically-enforced, popularly-approved and -perpetuated injustice. And by God, don't let it be an excuse to do nothing, to ignore the microaggressions because there are "real" problems, "real" injustices: because -- I know I am saying this over and over again, but seriously -- if more people had stopped and examined the small injustices they were committing or simply ignoring from the beginning, there may not have been a need for a few people to give up their lives trying to stop huge injustices.

And as far as the casual throwing around of "lame" as a derogatory term, who does it hurt to make the effort not to use words others find offensive? Ask yourself, if someone said "that's so gay," would it piss you off? Would it add to the hundreds of papercuts of society-wide injustice perpetrated against the LGBT* community? If yes, then STOP USING LAME as a replacement for gay in that sense.

Comments

[thady]

Yes, this!

It was such a great post I think everyone should read and think about.

[feuervogel]

Thanks for linking it today :)

And, serendipitously, two more articles about the harm of language and the effects of institutionalized $ism crossed my RSS feed today.

http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2011/02/fox_news_worried_about_the_war.php
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/02/challenge.html (TW: transphobia)

[thady]

You're welcome!

And thanks for the links, I've bookmarked them.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

You should ask him whether expressions like "Hey, don't try to Jew me" in reference to not paying up, or the description of jury-rigged engineering as "nigger-rigging" are "little things" that one shouldn't get mad about.

Have you ever read about Raoul Wallenberg?

[feuervogel]

Based on my memory of that conversation, yes. In theory, he's reading this journal, so he can speak up for himself. I doubt he will, because there's no point in engaging the ideologues (a paraphrase from another discussion).

And affirmative action is unnecessary, the Civil Rights Act was unnecessary because the INVISIBLE HAND!!!!!, the ADA was unnecessary and had undesirable unforeseen consequences besides. So, clearly, working to correct the larger social problems is wrong, too. And let's not forget that social justice is just librul commie code for punishing the rich/white/men.

I hadn't, then I turned to the google. Interesting guy.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

Yup. Wallenberg was a major league badass. Sorta like Aki Ra and Wojtek the Soldier Bear.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

The problem I see isn't that the little things don't matter. The problem I see is that angry people make lousy ambassadors.

It may be that anger serves to communicate a viewpoint or an idea to people who are less angry, who can then play the ambassador role. I hope that's true -- the things that make me so eye-twitchingly mad that I can't imagine being diplomatic about them, are themselves the things that actually matter in my view. I'd like to imagine that my more moderate friends take my perspective and convey it to others in conversations where I'm not present, or at least think about the ideas when they're at the polls. But I think it's more likely that instead they tune out my bile and look for a way to change the subject.

[feuervogel]

I don't see how saying "could you stop using 'that's so lame/gay/retarded'?" is tantamount to bile. If the speaker is bothered by asking them to make a small change in their speech habits, that's the speaker's problem, not mine.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Sure! What I was responding to was not the particulars of this post, but the "my ex used to tell me I shouldn't get so upset about ______" frame. It's not obvious to me that getting upset about anything is helpful politically, even though that's difficult to put into practice.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

Conversely, bland people make lousy ambassadors.

I think you're right that too much bile will make people tune out, but being too nice will also make people tune out because then you're not being interesting. You need a good mix of passion and reason to make an argument that people will listen to. It's the contrast that makes things interesting; if the argument is one-note in either key, then it gets boring.

It reminds me of a production of "Danton's Death" I saw a few years ago where EVERY! SCENE!! AND EVERY! ACTOR!!! WAS TURNED UP TO ELEVEN!1!!!! Despite all the intensity, it put me to sleep because it was relentless. Contrast is what our brains notice.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

*lol* I can imagine a play like that. I think you're right. I see more people erring on the side of passion, but that might be because people who err on the side of blandness don't get much attention ;). Which could partly explain our political environment, I suppose.

[beth_leonard]

I don't normally use any of the words on that list except for occasionally lame and crazy/insane. I also add "stupid" and "idiot" to the list and don't let my kids use them. I encourage my children to use different phrasings when they want to say something or someone is not to their liking. My son has a friend who calls everything stupid, but he's not allowed to in our house.

I'm trying to figure out what alternate phrasings I could use that are non-offensive for those times when I want to say that something or someone is crazy or insane. I'll have to think more about it, but if you have any suggestions I'm interested.

Lame I use so rarely that I could probably find a way around it. It's used so seldom in my experience to apply to people with disabilities that I'd almost forgotten it could also have that meaning. At the ranch it's got a specific meaning with respect to horses, but I'd never apply that to people and it never dawned on me that the horses may get offended. I could imagine myself using it in the context of "My son's lame attempt at humor failed to cheer me up." I could probably just drop the word and the meaning of my thoughts would still be evident.

Personally, I'd add "fuck" to the list of offensive words. To me it connotes a violent act of sex, tantamount to rape, and I'd prefer people not to use it so regularly and casually.

--Beth

[feuervogel]

For something like the modern intensifier (crazy hot), the old standards extremely, really, very, etc work nicely. For other usages, context would be important. Michelle Bachmann is crazy: deluded, a liar, ignorant.

Mostly, it's about getting past linguistic laziness. Sure, lame/retarded/crazy is easy to grab onto and use, but English is a really versatile language with a lot of words. We can take advantage of that. Down in the second link there are some synonyms offered.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I often like "pathetic" as a substitute for "lame". It often works where I would have used "lame". As I do hang out in online disability communities, I do run across people who self-describe as "lame", so it definitely is in use still for the physical disability, even though it isn't most people's first thought for what it means. For that matter, while I don't use "spaz" when I heard the term in childhood, I didn't know its origin was from "spastic" for people who have specific medical problems that cause movement difficulties. I don't need to make a deliberate effort to avoid it, because it's not really in my vocabulary, but the people for whom the term does apply seem to be well aware of the connection and to have heard it too much.

I do sometimes self-describe as "lame" since it is a part of my personal potpourri of issues, although it's more intermittent since my issues with walking are not within my legs but based on the systemic issues. Although if I exert myself then I will appear lame if I then try to walk. Mainly I use it so I can point out that being disabled is so lame[1].

[1] Which I'm allowed to do because I'm legally blind. When you go blind it turns out that one of your other senses magically improves[2]. Usually it is your sense of humor.

[2] Not guaranteed to happen in all cases. The author takes no responsibility for people who blind themselves and gain no magical benefits. Some exclusions may apply.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't like using "fuck" casually at all, but my take on its literal meaning certainly doesn't correspond to rape. Not that I personally want to fuck all that often, but at least as I understand the word it does describe a particular sort of sex that people can legitimately enjoy.

[intravenusann.livejournal.com]

Apropos of very little: I don't get why it's so hard to just say something was "fucking stupid."

... So of course I post this and someone has posted something really intelligent that ends with a comment about not wanting people to so casually use "fuck" or "stupid."

[thesmallwonder.livejournal.com]

Am I missing something, I always assumed "lame" was being used in the following definition:

Weak and ineffectual; unsatisfactory: a lame attempt to apologize; lame excuses for not arriving on time.

[feuervogel]

That's exactly it, and precisely why it's ableist.

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this blog? http://microaggressions.tumblr.com That's what this post reminds me of.

It's like my beef with this (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/29/133311028/Extra-Extra) Wait Wait game. You might say it's a small thing, but it doesn't mean I felt any less insulted.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Fascinating link. Thanks!

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Just tossin' in my two... "Lame" and "crazy/insane" are valid to use. Unlike the other derogatory terms listed, they can describe anything; not just people.

I can say "That was a lame argument," and apply it literally and without reference to any minority group or as a euphemism for an actual derogatory word.

[feuervogel]

Did you miss the discussion with Katie, where I said not to defend the use of an ableist slur here? Go up and read Leora's comments. Disabled people are offended by the term. They ask people to stop using it. What fucking harm does it do you, an able-bodied man, to stop deliberately using a fucking SLUR?

None at all.

[kirin]

Thing is, I've heard people try to defend "gay" that way too. "I'm not talking about actual homosexual people, I'm just insulting this object, so it's okay." Yes, it's more of a stretch (there's probably not a definition of "gay" in the dictionary that doesn't mention homosexuality - yet - but people *try* to get away with defining it that way), but nevertheless.

Honestly, I admit I've had difficulty including "lame" in this category too, just because unlike the more obvious ones - gay, fag, cunt, not to mention the racial ones which have been on the outs for decades now - I had never actually heard people using it to refer to disabled persons in a derogatory manner *or* heard disabled people trying to reclaim it in a positive manner. But my experience is not the world, and there are people in the comments here and in the links who have a lot more contact with the disabled community saying it *is* still honestly used those ways. So there we are then.

That said, I'm still looking for good alternatives, because the closer something is to matching the connotations I'd have used it for, the easier it is to remember to use it instead. "Pathetic" is close. "Sad" works in some cases. Still pondering.

[kaasirpent]

I have a deaf friend who loathes the word 'dumb' when used in the context "blind, deaf, and dumb" (i.e., non-verbal), but I've seen him use it himself in the sense of "unintelligent."

It's a very fine line.

[feuervogel]

It's true. And, because I'm not a sociopathic asshole like several commenters here, if someone tells me that I've crossed that line, I'll apologize and stop that behavior. Not tell them "you're overreacting and misinterpreting and drawing lines where none exist." WHICH I WAS JUST TOLD IN A TWITTER DM, probably because they're afraid to own their asshole behavior in public. And also I can't DM them back, because they stopped following me. RUDE.