Comments on: Addenda

By: Shiyiya

Shiyiya — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:17:54 +0000

Okay, I have two things I want to say, which I actually had to write down so I wouldn’t forget the as I was reading through the comments. Thank you, memory-like-a-fucking-sieve.

A) I have serious issues with PCness because I have no fucking clue what to call anyone anymore. I mean like, in terms of descriptors. It seems like black is vaguely out of vogue but african-american is frequently not an accurate term because not everyone is american. Or african for that matter. And not all africans are black anyway. Person of colour? but then you get into ack coloured has been offensive. And that’s just one group. I really really hate hurting people so I try to use the least offensive terms possible, however this is difficult when I have no idea WHICH TERM THAT IS.

B) The stuff about Roma made me think of a pet peeve of mine: when people talk about six million people killed in the holocaust. No, there were ELEVEN million people killed. Six million of them were jewish. Just squicks me when people write the five million Roma and homosexuals and political dissidents and people of mixed race and so on and so forth out of history. Argh. Article in the local paper did it recently and I raged a bit.

By: Genevieve

Genevieve — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:02:35 +0000

Yay! I just made a person-A-esque comment on Alas last week!

By: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » No, being fat isn’t identical to being black. No, that doesn’t make fat activism illegitimate.

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:36:53 +0000

[...] also: Kate Harding and Red No Three. (I didn’t read Red’s post until after I wrote this one, but [...]

By: mugbymomma

mugbymomma — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:11:54 +0000

When I think of the times that I have been called on my bullshit, and i definitely have, I felt uncomfortable and defensive. When I think about it later, I often realize that I’ve stumbled upon my privilege. Privilege and internalized oppression makes me feel uncomfortable with myself. In the end I’m glad, because it’s one more step to becoming a thoughtful, caring person. In the moment I try to say, “Thank you that was hard for me to hear, and I’m sorry.”

Really all the discomfort comes from self-reflection and the realization that some of the oppression I want to fight in the world has made it into my head while I was unaware.

By: Zilly

Zilly — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:55:49 +0000

“Occasionally, there are times when we believe that comparing the rhetoric of haters or particular expressions of bigotry is instructive, but comparing the systems of oppression themselves is always a losing proposition.”

Ooh. Thanks, I finally understand what this is all about. I have read every blog post about this topic that popped up during the last few days (including comments) and yet I only kept thinking, “Okay, but what exactly are they reacting to??” until I got to that one sentence. I may just be the most ignorant person on this planet though, so that would explain why.

I still don’t get the appropriation issue, but I guess that’s a little off topic here.

By: Jae

Jae — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:08:53 +0000

I’ll bet a Yankees fan came up with that one.

(ducking)

LMAO!

By: meowser

meowser — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:33:09 +0000

Though I must say New York Met as a slur for Hispanics (because there are lots of Latino players on the Mets), made me go “Wtf?! Who actually says that?!” Being a Mets fan I’ve heard quite a few douchebags insult Latino players and spout wild conspiracy theories about how the general manager is trying to create a team with no white players, but for someone to actually make a neat little racist phrase up?

I’ll bet a Yankees fan came up with that one.

(ducking)

By: sweetmachine

sweetmachine — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:07:33 +0000

And I get that some people find it offensive, and I try not to use it, but like 6 e-mails, and posts discussing my character eventually were totally uncalled for.

Shinobi, I have an older brother and a younger cousin with moderate to severe developmental disabilities and a mother with an acquired cognitive disability. My entire childhood was filled — I mean absolutely filled — with the words “retard” and “retarded” flung at my brother and myself in the most malicious manner possible. Every time I hear the word “retarded” used as casual slang, I feel like someone has slapped me in the face. And people do it all the time without giving it a second thought. I understand why you would feel attacked by the response you got — but keep in mind that when people react in what seems like an excessive way to the word “retarded” (or “lame,” which is definitely still used by people in certain areas, btw), it may be because they are reacting not only to your single use but to a lifetime and abuse and judgment.

By: JoGeek

JoGeek — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:58:58 +0000

The purpose of communication is to interact with other beings, not with ourselves. Communication breaks down when assumptions are made about meaning, because it isn’t important what I think a word means, it’s important what the person I’m talking to thinks it means. No amount of usage will assert my connotative meaning of the word over their interpretation, any more than the Ugly Tourist can make themselves be understood by simply talking louder. Yeah, there’s some responsibility on the listener to ascertain what the speaker means, but basically if you have to stop and define or defend your use of a word over someone’s offended sensibilities, your communication has failed. Wouldn’t it be easier to just stop using a word with expired 90′s trendiness that happens to also hint that differently abled people are clueless?

http://www.thesaurus.com

By: missa

missa — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:49:54 +0000

Shinobi, I hear where you’re coming from. But the key is to be conscious enough of a word’s history that, if confronted, you are able to modify your language when necessary. If a person or group of people says they find a word offensive it should not be a big deal to not use that word in their presence or in their space.

Sure, language is dynamic and words can gradually come to mean something entirely different from what they meant before. But this is not a debate about clinging to archaic definitions. It’s about recognizing that language can be a powerful tool of oppression and recognizing that some people’s experiences with and reaction to that language will differ from your own.