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

[leora.livejournal.com]

Yes, but we have every reason to believe that that definition exists precisely because the people with that disability were viewed in that way. It's not even as if such discrimination and problems are a thing of the past. People who actually are lame often do have to fight preconceptions that they are weak and ineffectual in other ways. Choosing to strengthen the mental association between a physical disability and a completely unrelated negative trait makes life more difficult for the disabled. It also makes it more difficult for people with those disabilities to discuss their disabilities.

As to "moron", I do not overly object on the same grounds as nobody should currently be labeled with that, however, you still should not be using the term. If somebody is of below average intelligence then it is extremely rude. If somebody is not, you should be properly distinguishing between that, stupid actions, and ignorance. I dislike when people call people things like "retarded" or say that something was a "retarded action", because it is insulting. It implies that someone who is mentally retarded would always choose poorly in their actions; this is not true. It means that they have less overall intelligence to work with, but says nothing for how they have actually used it. Their individual choices might be wiser or better chosen than someone who is smarter than them. Sure, on average, you would expect them to be lower, but that's not the point. When someone of average or higher intelligence uses their intelligence poorly that is very different from having low intelligence, which is what you are saying they did. They do not; they acted poorly. When someone has less intelligence, it says little about how that potential will be used; you have to look to what they then do with it. I would like to see people acknowledging those distinctions and it bothers me that people imply that every single action a person of low intelligence does would be poor when the evidence does not show that to be the case. They clearly are not using their intelligence when they imply this.