Hey, progressive types. Do you ever say anything like this?
‘Sexism in advertising is so lame.’
‘Denying people equal rights because you don’t like them reeks of insanity.’
‘This is going to cripple our progress.’
Can you perhaps see something wrong there?
My extra special favourite is when such turns of phrase are uttered during reflections on the speaker’s own bigotry.
‘I was blind to my privilege!’
‘I turned a deaf ear to those calling me out!’
‘It makes me crazy to see how ignorant I was.’
It’s especially spectacular when they’re talking about their ableism.
If you do not have the disability referenced, don’t use the word. I do not care if you think you are being thrillingly retro and ironic, because that is not how irony works. Irony requires that your audience understand that you are saying one thing and drawing on another meaning. If you are using an ableist term, you are basing your usage on disability=bad. You are not being ironic. You’re just being full of shit at the expense of people who cop a lot of it.
If you have a friend with the disability referenced in an insult who says it’s okay, you still shouldn’t use it generally, because your friend doesn’t speak for everyone with hir disability. For instance, a lot of people with mental illnesses are fine with ‘insane’ being used in a derogatory fashion, but it hurts a lot of other people. As a progressive, your language should be a reflection of your respect for people with disabilities, who are not a monolith. I would like to say that whether it’s okay to use a particular word should rely on consensus, but there are a few problems with this.
- PWD are not the consensus-makers in this society, and so any work we do is on the fringes.
- The feelings of those outside of whatever the hypothetical consensus matter, and I’m not about to set quotas or prescriptions.
- Standards and convictions change.
So if you really care, don’t use these words, because you cannot guarantee you aren’t hurting anyone.
If you’re one of those who likes to argue that meanings have changed and lame or whatever doesn’t have an ableist connotation anymore – well, that’s clearly not true, as should probably be evidenced by the entirety of ableist society. Even if it actually had moved far from its origins, that doesn’t negate the associations, the knowledge of its history that still cuts deep. And you should take a PWD telling you that a word is hurtful at hir say so, because it’s hir experience that matters here, not yours. You try telling me it’s not after living my life for just a day, feeling that sting, knowing how it is. You can only say there’s no ableist connotation because you choose to ignore the ableism; I never can.
Hearing lame used as an insult – lame especially because that seems to be the most in vogue right now – makes me feel sick in my stomach, and panicky, and afraid, because it is evidence that the speaker finds people with disabilities to be low. Low enough to be a source of synonyms for bad. Low enough so that the real people needn’t bother to think through their words. I feel scared and sick because I have been through no small amount of shit in my life as a result of the attitudes that kind of language betrays. Hearing those words from someone means that I’m not safe with them. I know that this is one more person who doesn’t consider me as one.
If you think you should use a word because no other has the same impact, well, you’re right about the impact. Your usage has such an impact because it draws its power from disability=bad. You are forming a powerful sentence from disablism, our deep-set pain.
It’s so much easier and better to just change your words. If you still insist on such usage, that’s lazy and cruel. If you’re not sure if your use of a word is offensive, err on the side of caution.
Another message to take away is this.
- If you are calling yourself progressive
- and you are harming people with disabilities
- you are not, in fact, progressive.
Previously in this thought process: In which homework is assigned and This is what an activist looks like.
Darnit! I was just working on…this exact post! Now I must frantically revise.
You stress a really important point here when you talk about the fact that when people who think that they are progressive use ableist or any exclusionary language or engage in exclusionary activities, it really, viscerally, hurts. Every time I muck up and unconsciously use exclusionary language I feel like a shithead for it, and I apologize, but that doesn’t erase the fact that I have harmed someone else and unconsciously reinforced an exclusionary culture.
A lot of people seem to enjoy defending their use of exclusionary language by saying “well, there’s no other word that’s as good,” and it’s like…are you not aware of the existence of the thesaurus? Are you really so lazy that you cannot take 30 seconds to find an alternative in the little book/website designed specifically to help people find new words to use?!
Pingback: Twitter Trackbacks for Next on the list of things that really annoy me « Zero at the Bone [zeroatthebone.wordpress.com] on Topsy.com
Your usage has such an impact because it draws its power from disability=bad.
I think this nails it–this is exactly what people who use ableist language have trouble understanding, for some reason.
This post is awesome and you should feel awesome for having written it.
*putting my hand up as someone who has been guilty of this*
I certainly don’t use ‘lame’ and ‘cripple’ in those ways (except perhaps unconsciously, which is not an excuse. I know it is on me to eradicate these from my language and no one should have to put up with me or anyone else using them.) Likewise ‘spastic’ or ‘retarded’.
I confess that I still use ‘blind’ and ‘deaf ear’ in ways that would not pass your test Chally. I am going to think about changing this now.
But I have a question, if I may ask – is it ableist for someone to say ‘I see’ when they mean ‘I understand’? Is it acceptable to say ‘I feel like I haven’t been heard’ when talking about wanting to get a point across?
What I have assumed about my usage of those terms shows up my privilege in spectacular fashion, no doubt.
another wonderful post. I cannot emphasize how much I enjoy reading your site. thank you so much for speaking up and sharing your experiences, views and desires.
-arvan
Word.
I have nothing more to add than that.
meloukhia: Please don’t feel you have to change your post if you just want to change it because it’s similar to mine! Yes, sometimes the harm just lingers on though one tries to make amends.
Thank you, annaham, I shall try.
I used to be worried about using ‘see’ and ‘hear’ like that too, Spilt Milk. I did some research and found that saying ‘I see’ for ‘I understand,’ for instance, is pretty regular among blind people and it’s not considered ableist when sighted folk use it. Otherwise this very post would have been massive hypocritical fail with its use of ‘see’ and ‘hear’! I would give you links but I had computer trouble a few months ago and lost them. To be honest with you? Not even I pass this test: I’ve removed everything but insane from my vocabulary and am working on that and on calling other people out on it. ETA: I also have this problem with ‘idiot’. I may be physically disabled, but I’ve still got able minded privilege. Glad you’re thinking and “listening” ;).
Thanks arvan, I appreciate all your enthusiasm. I have a lot of sharing to do!
Thanks Ouyang Dan!
I’m going to throw in some links some of you might find interesting. Firstly this discussion at Deeply Problematic. A piece at Womanist Musings on the word lame. And here’s a post of mine from a few months back – times, they have changed – which goes into some of the territory Spilt Milk is talking about.
Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. That’s all I’m able to say right now. I actually had a conversation on Twitter last night about this very topic – explaining to someone why “mad”/”crazy”/”insane” is not acceptable, especially to me as a mentally ill person. I’m glad others get it too. :D
Curious: What about “mad”/”crazy”/”insane” being used in neutral/positive slang, after the fashion of “mad skills”, “crazy talented”, etc.?
Really thinking about my word use and the language I use has definitely made me realize how thoroughly ableism, in particular, is structured into the English language. Like, the other day I was grasping for a word to use that wasn’t “insane” and I started to say “crazy,” not even recognizing what I was doing, until I realized that the word I really wanted was “ludicrous.”
Cheers Anji :D.
Aoede: Opinions differ among people with mental illnesses on that one. You can read some in comments at the third post linked in my previous comment.
Excellent post, Chally. I admit, I’ve only stopped using “lame” in this ableist way fairly recently, and I should’ve known better. (One of my impairments fits the original definition of “lame”). Even PWDs can be ableist.
Tangent alert: My favorite use of the word–no, really–is in “The Pied Piper.” In some versions, one of the children is lame and too slow to follow him–and is saved. (Unfortunately, the only version I can find right now is Robert Browning’s, which does the “disability=sad and tragic” thing). In some versions one of the kids is deaf and follows along out of curiousity. In one of the brothers Grimm versions, one kid is mute (or, rather, deaf, because he or she “heard nothing”) and can point out to the adults where the Piper went, while another is blind and can describe the trip.
Thanks, Tera, and also for that interesting stuff on The Pied Piper.
Aoede – I as a mentally ill person find that offensive, but I’m not sure I can pinpoint why. I think it’s because that’s still taking my lived experiences and applying them to something which is not in fact ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’ in the way that most of the world understands those words. We have to look at where words originate – like saying “That’s so gay”; kids will tell you “but the meaning has changed now” but the original meaning is still offensive.
Spilt Milk’s question about the use of “I see” brings to mind Elgin’s Native Tongue books in which “I perceive” is used instead. One of the things I do like about those books is the way they make you examine how you yourself use language, particularly with regard to the question of whether the words you use actually mean what you intend them to.
I recently had the horrified realisation that my unexamined use of the phrase “they’re a bit special” falls into the same category as using retarded etc. via a language drift driven by the quest for an umbrella term to refer to educational services for kids with “learning difficulties, a behaviour disorder and/or a disability” (link). I wouldn’t be able to use “special” to indicate that I thought someone’s behaviour was not entirely rational or that they were having comprehension difficulties if the word hadn’t picked up negative connotations* via the aforementioned association – people wouldn’t understand what I meant. So I’m not saying that any more.
*and I rather suspect the question of why that happens goes right to the core of the issue of the way disability is perceived. One hopes that one day words with such associations might cease to have negative connotations.
I know, PWD can’t be allowed to have any language for ourselves, can we? It must be co-opted and made to be something bad. *sigh* Also, I need to get around to reading more Elgin one of these days.
Pingback: Down Under Feminists’ Carnival: I learned the truth at 17, that love was a patriarchal construct keeping me down « Ideologically Impure
In the Navy, most people don’t hesitate even slightly to use things like “retard,” but someone in my unit recently started insisting on the more PC “differently abled,” and makes it a point to remind others that “retard” is incredibly offensive, and that more proper terminology should be used.
As in, “Are you seriously that differently abled that you can’t put your cover on straight?”
I’m not sure how to react to that.
Um yeah… Also because most PWD find “differently abled” a patronising euphemism.
Pingback: Lots (and lots) of link love « The Feminist Texican
Really interesting post. I’ve already made the effort to remove most of these words from my vocabulary over the years, but the ones I really never thought about before now, at least not in this way, are the ones referencing mental illness. I definitely say that things are “insane” or “crazy.” What’s interesting to me now in thinking of my use of these terms, is that in my mind, I sometimes divorce them from meaning “mentally ill.” At least, that’s the rationalization I think I’ve been using. My mother is schizophrenic, and I don’t generally refer to her using “insane” or “crazy” – I call her “mentally ill.” Of course, just because I’ve somehow changed what “insane” and “crazy” mean to me (general terms of badness, rather than specific ones referencing mental illness) doesn’t mean that everyone – or anyone – else has done the same.
Thanks for this post. You’ve made me think about my word usage, and I will work on finding new ways to express things I’ve, up until now, called “insane” and “crazy.”
Thank you for reading and I’m glad you found it helpful, Wendy. :)
Awesome post. It’s really made me think a lot more about the words that I use. I am definitely guilty of using some of those words. And stupidly some of them I never thought of as being offensive – but they are. I have always found it upsetting when people use words like ‘insane’ and ‘nuts’ but I hadn’t thought a great deal about words like ‘lame’. Again, thanks for the post it’s really made me think about the language I use.
Glad to hear it, Boganette.
Pingback: Twitted by RaisingBoychick
Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!
I’ve never fully thought about how offensive ‘crazy’ and ‘lame’ could be! Truly, it is the ignorance that lets these words thrive.
I have always been offended when someone uses ‘retarded’ for an annoying, stupid, etc. situation or person, and also the other that I haven’t seen mentioned, when used as an insult, ‘gay’. These are some words that people are much too aware of for the ignorance excuse. They know that what they’re saying is wrong, but they do it anyway. For the shock factor, maybe? I’m not sure.
Thank you for enlightening me, and I’ll be sure to spread the word!
Wow, that was unexpected but happy-making! :)
Pingback: Ableist language in the name of this site?
Pingback: Read other blogs! | Dis/Embody
I’m sorry, but this irritates me. Maybe it’s just because I like to pick my fights but this just seems so nitpicky. Using the word ‘blind’ is bad? It means you can’t see something, literally or figuratively and it seems a perfectly accurate description for people who aren’t literally blind but were figuratively. The same with ‘deaf’. Also, ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’? Why would anyone relate those words to mental disabilities? I have mental disabilities and I know the words “slow” (which I don’t mind because it’s true) and “retarded” (which I might, depending on the context) but I have never heard the words ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’ used about anyone literally. I would personally find those words really insulting, moreso than ‘retarded’ if applied to someone with mental disabilities so when people use it as a figurative term, I don’t care. I use the words when I’m describing events that were really cool, or a person that does something I would be scared to do.
I think there is such a thing as being too politically correct and I have a hard time believing that I might insult somebody by saying ‘I was blind to this aspect of my personality’
I think people need to pay more attention to context
Yeah, the figurative usage of blind is used to mean ‘unaware’ ‘unknowledgeable’ and negative things. That is why it is problematic, and the same goes for deaf. This isn’t just me speculating and trying to be as PC as possible, this is me having taken the time to research and engage with the ideas of, you know, people with these impairments. Well, people use the words ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’ about PWD all the time, and I know some PWD who use them self-referentially, and others who find them really insulting when it’s not mentally ill people using them, and often both. Just because it’s outside your experience doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, and a lot! If you want to use ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’ to describe really cool events or whatever, that’s your choice as a person to with mental disabilities (assuming you’re referring to mental illnesses) to use language however you like that might in other contexts be applied to you. I don’t have a problem with that. Maybe you could have a read of the Ableist Word Profile series at FWD/Forward?
Also, the word stupid/dumb is right up there if we’re going to include all the words. I am a huge advocate for not using the word “retarded” but find myself using the word “lame” quite a bit, usually with a little voice in the background saying “that’s still not a great word!” I think it is important to not use such derogatory words, but at the same time, as a mother, I do feel a bit insane or crazy at times and I feel that I’m using the terms correctly without offending anyone. It is all a matter of perspective. I think the word “hate” is offensive and I try to teach that to my kid.
Well, some people do find that offensive, but perspective certainly does come into play, yes.