I thought this went without saying.

[feuervogel]

But due to the comments on the LJ xpost of this, I apparently have to make it explicit.

COMMENTING RULES
1. DO NOT use slurs against marginalized groups. This includes lame and retarded.

2. BY NO MEANS DEFEND your usage of these slurs, because meanings change/etymology/it's a minority opinion/wtfever. If you do, I reserve the right to call you an asshole, a privileged jackass, or a jerk.

Thank you.

Comments

[doctorskuld.livejournal.com]

The people who are interpreting, in some cases, the use of this language being hurtful, are people who are misunderstanding intentions. If they are in the actual presence of such language and make their feelings known, then I do apologize for the misunderstanding. But a compromise needs to be reached both ways, and I feel that "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way" and "Okay, I was just checking," should be socially sufficient.

That aside, another issue of what is actually pissing me off right now is that akiko is calling out me and corneredangel as "dickheads" on her Twitter account. It's annoying to me that slurs against marginalized groups are not okay (women, racial minorities, people with disabilities, etc.) but slurs against say, males are? The association of "dick" with something that's bad is the same thing as associating "lame" and "retarded" with bad. Or is it just because males are privileged that it's okay to slag them for something they were born with and have to deal with? It doesn't make what you're doing any better.

The idea of turnabout has never been and never will be a viable or optimal reaction to marginalization. If she's going to be on somebody's case about usage of "lame" and "retarded" I find it extremely hypocritical that she's completely cool with calling someone a "dickhead."

It's this sort of behavior that really gets to me, which is why I think a good solution is just to equally slag everyone.

[matt_doyle]

You don't see why a slur that is targeted at a disadvantaged group is more offensive than a slur that is targeted at the group with more social power?

Again, your statement is that your freedom to use potentially abusive language is more important to you than stopping people from being hurt. Intent doesn't matter. It really doesn't. If you hit someone with a car accidentally, they are no less injured than if you hit them intentionally. And once you have been clued into the fact that your language is hurting people, an insistence on continuing to use such language means that every time you do, you are deliberately engaging in hurtful behavior. It's meaningless to claim that you don't mean something to be offensive when you know that it is offensive.

You may judge for yourself what kind of behavior that is. If you are honest with yourself, it's not too hard to figure out. If you persist in this, well, let me be careful with my language here and not use any slurs. You will be an insensitive, dishonest, and flagrant enabler of ablism and bigotry.

In any case, I don't get the impression that you're interested in listening to anyone else on this front. And I've said all that I have to say on the subject. Feel free to reply or not to this comment, as suits you, but I am done.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Are they? I find your claim of not meaning to offend a bit disingenuous.

If someone steps on my toes, and I say, "Hey, you stepped on my toes and that hurt." and they say, "Sorry, I didn't mean to." and then they try not to step on my toes any more, then I will believe them that their intentions were good and they accidentally hurt me.

If someone steps on my toes and I say, "Hey, you stepped on my toes and that hurt." and they say, "I didn't mean to, so I'm going to keep stepping on your toes and you shouldn't be hurt by it because my intentions aren't to hurt you." and then they go around stepping on my toes whenever they feel like it, then I'm not going to believe that they actually care whether or not they hurt me.

So, it does seem like at the very least, you don't care whether or not disabled people are harmed by what you do. If you did care, then why wouldn't you try to not harm them? Your actions are in conflict with your statements. I'm not clear why people ought to believe that your intentions aren't to harm others given that. Can you tell me why I should believe someone doesn't mean to harm me if they outright tell me they will take actions I have told them will harm me? Or why I should assume good intent from bad actions when I know someone is aware of the fact that their actions are harmful? Why shouldn't I use the most obvious assumption that they mean the effect that they have been informed will happen from their actions?

[kirin]

Arright, lemme try sneaking in one more point here that I'm not sure has already been covered extensively (lord knows everything else has). I believe that, _in a magical egalitarian world_, a plan of simply slagging on everyone equally might be perfectly valid and defensible. The problem is we don't live in that world, and in the one we've got slagging on different groups has different consequences. The reason using "dickhead" as a negative is _less_ damaging than using, say, "faggot" as a negative is that very few people have been deprived of their livelihoods for having a dick*, whereas quite a few face that problem for being gay. Or black. Or disabled.

Now, that said, I'd still say a completely neutral negative term like "asshole" is even better, since everybody has one of those.

It may also be possible that there's certain private venues where you can actually be absolutely sure that not only does nobody actually mean ill-will towards any of these disadvantaged groups, but also nobody is subconsciously biased against them, and nobody is listening who's having a subconscious bias reinforced, or who is themselves disadvantaged and having a subconscious self-loathing reinforced, or.... etc. And then maybe any old slur could be used and really, actually not cause any damage. But that's gonna be pretty rare.



*To head off an objection here, I'm not saying nobody has ever been discriminated against for being male. But in our society as it currently stands, it's certainly a less severe problem than that of other marginalized groups. Kind of by definition of "marginalized".

[feuervogel]

Unless you're talking about radical lesbian separatists, men who have been discriminated against are usually those who are disprivileged/marginalized on a different axis: gay men, trans* men, black men, Asian men, etc.

Yes, it's possible to be privileged on one axis and disprivileged on another, or on multiple axes. It's called intersectionality.