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

[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.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I caught it, but I just seriously believe that "lame" is not a slur. My whole thing is that I'm not in favor of ejecting benign adjectives from the vocabulary just because they can also apply to people.

[feuervogel]

And I am in favor of not being a bigoted asshole.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Agreed. What synonyms would be acceptable that carry the same meaning while being sensitive to disabled people?

[feuervogel]

Terrible, awful, pathetic?

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Dunno if I'd use those words in the same context... The closest I came to was "impotent", but that could be insensitive to a much larger population than the disabled. :p

Also, here's what I'd like to do (and I know it's impossible): Take the disabled people who are genuinely offended by "lame" and compare them next to the population of disabled people who really don't care. Then, because their opinion is also important, ask the group that doesn't care what they feel about the ones that do. That would all be very interesting data.

[feuervogel]

The marginalized can be unwitting participants in their own marginalization by perpetuating the dominant narrative which marginalizes them.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

So...my opinion is discounted because I (although, we) don't share their experience... But their opinion is discounted as well? Isn't this then one group telling one group how they feel the other should feel instead of just letting them feel how they genuinely feel?

[kirin]

Well, regardless of that, I wouldn't want to discount the feelings of the people who are offended just because there's a slightly larger group of people who aren't... that just sounds like a tyranny of the majority on a smaller scale.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I just don't want to cut off our nose to spite our face. Or suggest insensitivity when it's not really present.

[leora.livejournal.com]

First off, that would be a really badly designed experiment. You'd need to test each term against the community to which it applies, which is not "the disabled community". You'd want to ask the people who are lame whether or not they are offended by the use of the word "lame". It really doesn't matter whether or not the majority of people who have chronic pain find the use of the term "lame" offensive or not. It doesn't apply to them unless they are also lame. You would want to test "crazy" and "insane" against those who have mental health problems.

On a side note, to the best of my knowledge the majority of lame people I know are offended by the use of the term "lame" in that context, however, that is a very small sample and it is obviously biased by me knowing them.

I didn't used to be, even though I am lame, but now I know it hurts a friend of mine who is lame, and I also realize it reinforces the mental associations that physical disabilities equate to unrelated other deficiencies, and I have no desire to strengthen that meme. The encounters one gets with the public are too annoying and too stupid already. Disabled people regularly have people ask the person they are with things like, "So, what does s/he want?" Or they talk loudly and slowly to them when there is no issue with hearing. In general, there is an assumption of a lack of sexuality, a lack of cognitive power, and a lack of general ability that tends to go with having a visible disability despite there being no connection to those issues from that disability. The term "lame" used to mean issues with functioning beyond the physical only helps to reinforce that unconscious faulty association. Invisible disabilities have other issues. And mental health has too large a host of issues associated with it for me to even get started.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

Here's all I can really say: This is the first time I've ever heard of the term "lame" used--or received, for that matter--in that context. So while I'm open to it, it's going to be a while before I'm less "Wait, what?" about it.

[leora.livejournal.com]

That's understandable. Most young people know a lot more gay people than they know lame people.

[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.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

That's a little different because it originated as a derogatory term against people. I don't dig that use of "gay" either because of that.

"Lame" is an adjective that I have trouble believing is used with any reference to people. When I use (or hear) "lame", it's simply meant that the subject is hindered, impotent, or ineffective. Nowhere present is an implied, "...you know, like cripples".

[feuervogel]

Where does the term come from? OH RIGHT. A reference to people whose movement is hindered because of a disability.

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that's the full etymology of it, but like I just said, I don't know. Although even then, I still struggle to believe it was originally a slur and not an adjective.

[feuervogel]

JESUS H CHRIST ON A SIDECAR ARE YOU BEING DELIBERATELY OBTUSE OR JUST AN ASSHOLE?

[thegreyghost.livejournal.com]

I'm saying that we're probably at a stalemate since neither of us can verify if "lame" is at heart a slur. And I understand that words are going to be received differently than they're intended, but that's inevitable in the language we have.

Here's where I'm probably an asshole: I find this discussion interesting because we're basically arguing over hindering language by disabling a word...that happens to be about the disabled.

[kirin]

Dude, if you must have an etymology, have an etymology:

lame (adj.)
O.E. lama. from P.Gmc. *lamon (cf. O.N. lami, Du., O.Fris. lam, Ger. lahm "lame"), "weak-limbed," lit. "broken," from PIE base *lem- "to break" (cf. O.C.S. lomiti "to break," Lith. luomas "lame"). Sense of "socially awkward" is attested from 1942. Verb meaning "to make lame" is attested from c.1300. Related: Lamely; lameness. Lame-brain (n.) is first recorded 1929.

So yeah, the disabled sense far pre-dates anything else. But the point is, the etymology *doesn't really matter* if it's currently being used as an insult towards actual people.

[feuervogel]

Does it matter if lame originated as a slur? As Ben points out, gay didn't either -- it meant happy. The issue is that ACTUAL, LIVING DISABLED PEOPLE find it hurtful. That should be enough for someone who isn't a giant fucking asshole to stop using it.

Insisting that it's OK to use it, because $semanticargument, is being an asshole.

[leora.livejournal.com]

And, apparently, you don't care.

But lame, like spaz, and retard became a slur because it was used to compare healthy people to people with disabilities. To effectively say, you're so bad that you might as well be like one of THEM.

I don't actually see any way whatsoever that it is different from using gay as an insult.

[kirin]

Well, that's my point - I thought exactly that until it was pointed out by *people with actual experience in the disabled community* that it is, in fact, still used as a derogatory term towards people. Just because it hasn't been used that way around us doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And the point is that having fewer people use it in a derogatory fashion - *even if they didn't mean any reference to disabled people* - helps stamp out the cultural bias.

And again, lots of people who use "gay" as a random insult will swear up and down that they don't mean it to have anything to do with homosexual people, and neither do the people they're talking to. Doesn't make it not a bad idea.

(And actually, "gay" has a complicated history - after all, it originally meant "happy". It *became* derogatory when it was applied to homosexuals at a time when they were more universally looked down upon, and mutated from there to a random insult. And now the homosexual is trying, with some success, to reclaim it as a positive term.)

Anyway, the point is, I'm with you on being wary of going around excising things from the language just based on their historical derivation. But if people with real experience in the matter are saying it's still a *current* problem, then that's different.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Which means that we are destined for (if it hasn't happened already (probably has - many times)) a homosexual Christmas singing group so that they can joyously sing "Don we now our gay apparel".

Fa lala lalala la la la