There is a definition of "lame" in the dictionary that makes no reference to any disability at all, and I know this has been covered in your previous thread and I completely disagree with most of the people who spoke out against it. Similarly, the use of "retarded" being like "stupid—" attaching a value judgment onto something that is used to describe a group of people is problematic both with good judgments and bad judgments. The problem is that people don't want to be boiled down to group and generic characteristics, no matter how you spin it, but its an unfortunate fact of life that our brains are designed to remember and associate salient characteristics.
I will defend to the death the usage of "that shit is so gay" and "you are so white" and "that's fucking retarded" so long as I know that the speaker themself doesn't hold the assumptions the language supposedly reinforces. If my friend says, "those shoes are so gay" but I know they're totally chill with homosexuality, then I don't give a damn, because the problem you're seeing is not something that's actually there.
If the problem is not actually there, and it's not reinforcing something negative with you, since you know better, and it's not reinforcing something negative with me, since I know better too, then you're just making an association, a misunderstanding that you shouldn't be and that was never meant to be in the first place.
In these cases, I really think that everybody should just be a little more chill. I think people should pick their battles, and there are much more poisonous paradigms in current society to be fighting against than the usage of "lame" and "retarded."
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chiming
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Date: 2011-02-02 09:53 pm (UTC)From:I will defend to the death the usage of "that shit is so gay" and "you are so white" and "that's fucking retarded" so long as I know that the speaker themself doesn't hold the assumptions the language supposedly reinforces. If my friend says, "those shoes are so gay" but I know they're totally chill with homosexuality, then I don't give a damn, because the problem you're seeing is not something that's actually there.
If the problem is not actually there, and it's not reinforcing something negative with you, since you know better, and it's not reinforcing something negative with me, since I know better too, then you're just making an association, a misunderstanding that you shouldn't be and that was never meant to be in the first place.
In these cases, I really think that everybody should just be a little more chill. I think people should pick their battles, and there are much more poisonous paradigms in current society to be fighting against than the usage of "lame" and "retarded."