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]

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