feuervogel | Why the little things matter.

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.

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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

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.

This one? Because while that author suggested "weak" as an alternative for "lame" the ETA said that "weak" is no good either. I do agree that getting in the linguistic rut of needing explicatives is a bad idea, and nearly all of them can offend someone. I also know it's hard, and a lot harder for many other people than for me.

--Beth

Weak is also less good for the same reason as lame; it implies the disabled are lesser. So a good tactic is to find a word that isn't obviously offensive or a slur on a group, and use that until you learn otherwise. It doesn't hurt me to use the broad range of English vocabulary, and that simple task can keep someone else from being hurt by my words.

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.

Pathetic is a good word to substitute. It's not a situation that comes up often for me, but I could see circumstances where I might have used lame. I never (seldom?) purposefully try to offend anyone so I'm glad this was pointed out because I don't want to do it unintentionally either.

--Beth

*nods* I've used various terms that had offensive meanings before I realized they were offensive. I use to use "gypped", for example, and had absolutely no idea it had any connection to "Gypsy". Sure there is some sound similarity, but countless words sound like other words without having any connections. I once read through a web site that was a database of slurs; it was fascinating. There were oodles I had never heard of. Even with the best of intentions you can certainly cause accidental offense, but I figure reasonable people will react by at least thinking over the position if the matter is brought to their attention and they are the offender and by understanding if I apologize and say I had no idea it was offensive if they are the offendee and point it out to me. I'm not going to generally deliberately offend people, but I'm also not going to try to memorize every possible way people could be offended. But I will try to take steps when I can. Plus, I prefer my language being a more accurate reflection of what I truly mean to say. Although sometimes figuring out what I truly mean to say isn't easy.

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.

Why the little things matter.

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