Why Not to Use the Word Lame: I Think I'm Starting to Get It

Another progressive blogger and I have had a few discussions about how we don’t see the word “lame” as really a big deal. However, we both concluded, it wasn’t really our fight and the stakes weren’t as high for us as they are for disabled people. So, that’s fine — we decided we were willing to believe disabled people when they said the word hurt them, and stop using it on the blog, and try to stop using it in real life.

I think I’m starting to get it now, courtesy of reading this occasionally frustrating thread at Pandagon.

The Pandagon thread is a consideration of safe space, or lack thereof, and what kinds of language are legitimately policed (everyone seems to agree there should be no pejorative use of the n-word) and what kinds of language are not legitimately policed. It was really, really starting to bug me that there (and in another location where the issue had been discussed) everyone’s go-to example for hypersensitive use of language policing was the word “lame.”

“Ugh,” said the aforementioned fellow progressive blogger to me over IM when I pointed out this dynamic. “If people are going to make an example of what’s oversensitive PC policing, maybe they should gore one of our own particularly feminist oxes, rather than picking on the language sensitivities of a related but not identical out-group?”

(Yes, I just paraphrased the fuck out of fellow progressive blogger, herein called FPB for short, which is why hir dialogue suddenly started sounding like my academic writing.)

So I started in from that point. But people’s constant defenses of I! Should! Be! Able! To! Use! The! Word! Lame! kept coming thick, fast, and with ever-more-desperate indignation.

Some of it came from people who themselves identified as “lame,” and you know, I’m not going to pick on them. If they want to change the character of disability rights activism, then that’s something they certainly have the right to do, and if the consensus ever shifts, I’ll re-evaluate.

But a lot of the arguers weren’t themselves disabled people. They just really, really, really wanted to be able to use the word lame. It’s fun, after all. And colorful. And also ACCURATE!

It’s not okay to call a coward a pussy, or a bad thing gay, they argue, because there’s nothing bad about having a vagina or being homosexual. But there IS something bad about not being mobile! In fact, it’s no fun at all, just totally miserable. All other things held equal, isn’t it better to be not-lame than lame?

(Yep, I’m basically paraphrasing someone, but because these arguments are very prevalent, I don’t think it’s fair to either quote them directly or name them. My purpose here is not to shame an individual, but to describe and argue against a common attitude, even though this individual did happen to express it at a particular time that was meaningful to me.)

And you know? I think I’ve made those arguments before, though I tend to do that kind of reasoning things out in private rather than on blogs because of my beliefs about what allies should and shouldn’t do. (I do not think it is a productive ally action to complain about tiny details that the ally has no particular investment in.) Certainly, I’ve heard these arguments. Recently, I was moderating a discussion in person, and someone made the comment that “writers shouldn’t cripple themselves by…”

I caught another audience member’s wince.

“Excuse me,” I interjected, “Can you rephrase?”

The gentleman did. Later, I caught up with him at a party, and said, “Hey, thanks for taking that in stride.”

And he started to argue with me — “Well, you know, we should be able to use that metaphor, because it’s accurate, it’s not a good thing to be crippled and–”

I interrupted, “OK, but even if that’s true, we know that it’s hurting the feelings of people who are in the community. And we don’t want to do that. Right?”

He nodded. I smiled. I moved away.

But while that was the logic I was using for a long time — that it didn’t really matter what the logic behind seeing this as an insult was, or if I disagreed with that logic, I still shouldn’t be an ass by using words that a number of disability activists have made clear are hurtful and perceived as ableist — I think I get the deeper logic now. Finally.

Let’s start with that point from earlier that it DOES suck — in this society — not to have the same freedom of movement an abled person. (Although of course, here, we’re already starting in with ableist assumptions, because a big portion of the reason it sucks is because society is set up for people with bodies we consider normal.) OK, so let’s rephrase. Having functional legs is useful. Therefore, the state of having legs which are not as functional as other legs is not as nice as the state of having normally functional legs. (Again, there’s some ableism around the concept of normal, but moving on.)

But even accepting that impairment to mobility is itself a sucky thing, MAYBE DISABLED PEOPLE DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING THE CULTURAL GO-TO FOR THINGS THAT SUCK.

And maybe — since people have been historically all-too-willing to relieve disabled people of the burden of having to live through all that suckiness — just maybe disability activists know what the fuck they’re talking about when they say that the constant condensation of visible disability with “suckiness” as a metaphorical cultural touchstone has real, concrete, and evil ramifications on the lives of people with disabilities.

Just maybe.

I think I’m starting to get it.

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99 Responses to Why Not to Use the Word Lame: I Think I'm Starting to Get It

  1. 1
    Lexie says:

    Yeah, as a disabled person, I do get tired of being the go-to group for both all things sucky and for the PC protesters to use as the group of ridicule. (“Oh, now the disabled people think they are a minority that deserves protection! As if!”)

    You are on the right track, but here is the thing about saying something like “the logic of having a mobility impairment totally sucks is self-evident.”

    It’s not, really. People with disabilities most of the time do not go around saying, God! It sucks so bad that my legs don’t work! They are just who they are, a whole person with varying characteristics, some of which society has labeled as a disability.

    Take being gay, for example. One could argue, and some have, that this is a form of disability and that it sucks. Gay people inherently have things to deal with, like fertility issues or the fact that they have to find different ways to socialize within a smaller range of people (the arguable 10% of the population that is gay). Or, to get really technical and TMI about it, they might have to find different ways to be intimate with each other. Doesn’t this inherently suck? Isn’t it logical to think that being gay is inherently inferior to being straight? Isn’t it easier to be straight? And that isn’t even counting the artificial attitudinal barriers of being gay. They can’t marry, or get on each others health insurance plan, or adopt as easily as straight people. It must suck so bad to be gay! Its logical that gay must mean sucky!

    Right?

    Well, no. What LGBT people have done exceptionally well (and are still working on) is to show people that their lifestyle and sexuality is on a continuum of normal. That gender does not have to be binary and people should be able to express gender in a way that feels comfortable for them and that is a normal part of the human condition. They are not mentally ill, or some kinds of freaks who have a horrible condition, they just are who they are…humans.

    So, people with disabilities are the same way. The body comes in all shapes, sizes and conditions and all are part of the normal condition of human existence. Disability is a normal part of life. Do some things suck about a specific disability? Sure. Just like it must suck for LGBT people who want to have children and can’t go about it as easily or as cheaply as heterosexual couples can. Just like everyone on the planet has something about themselves that they can’t control that sucks. (Run faster, be better at math, sing better, not be bald, whatever.) It goes beyond saying that logically, being lame sucks but we shouldn’t hurt disabled people’s feelings by using that word. It goes to trying to get people to stop singling out one physical (or mental) aspect of ourselves as being sucky and having that thing define who we are–our entire life experience. To us, whatever characteristic we have that makes us disabled is just a part of our whole selves, and most of us are quite fond of our whole selves, thankyouverymuch. Many people will tell you that being disabled has given them experiences and opportunities that they wouldn’t exchange for anything.

    In my case, my PC word peeve is “blind”. (I’m deaf blind) I’m not talking about the word “blind” itself. I’m fine with people calling me blind and prefer it to all the many euphemisms people come up with like “sight impaired” or whatnot. I hate it when blind (or deaf for that matter) is used in place of the words unknowing or stupid. i.e. She was blind to the fact that her use of the word “lame” was offensive. Blind people actually do not walk around in the dark completely unaware of what is going on around them. We actually know stuff. My point is, I think it is a matter of looking at the word (lame, blind) and really understanding what you are using that word to mean (sucky, stupid). Is that a fair use of the word? Does it really represent the people that are usually defined by that word? If not, maybe it is time to think of some better, more fitting words to describe things.

  2. 2
    Jeff Fecke says:

    I think on that thread two things are getting conflated. One is the idea of “safe space,” which I am working on a long and probably confused post on (the issue is flaring, and involves a blog I used to contribute to, and I have thoughts, however muddled, so I feel like I should share. It’s probably a bad idea).

    At any rate, one can critique the idea of the safe space and discuss whether said safe spaces can stifle discussion. One can suggest that there’s a difference between saying, “One shouldn’t use the word lame; it’s ableist,” and, “You used the word lame, therefore you hate disabled people and should shut up.” That’s a legitimate line of discussion, and an important one.

    That doesn’t mean, however, that one should simply use any old words one wants to without being called out on them. I’ve defended my use of the word “insane” because, as someone who suffers from mental illness, I believe that I have some claim to the word. But that doesn’t mean I should be able to use it without question, or without defending it. And that definitely doesn’t mean I should be able to use words that I don’t have claim to, words like lame, without being questioned.

    I do think it’s important for people to be able to state their opinions without having one’s word choice picked apart for signs of transgression. If I see someone use a word or phrase that’s inappropriate, I try to correct it as Mandolin noted — correcting the phrase without shutting down the discussion, or passing judgment on the person who is writing or speaking. We all have our own blind spots, and learning isn’t always easy.

    But there’s a difference between saying that if a commenter uses the word lame we should be patient, and saying that if a commenter uses the word lame that it’s just free speech, and we shouldn’t mention it at all. The former is tolerance — the latter is accepting intolerance.

  3. 3
    Jeff Fecke says:

    Also, everything Lexie said.

  4. 4
    Mandolin says:

    . The body comes in all shapes, sizes and conditions and all are part of the normal condition of human existence.

    Yes, I’;m actually aware of this line of thinking. I tried to eclipse it by writing “(Again, there’s some ableism around the concept of normal, but moving on.)” — but it’s good to have it expanded out, and by someone who probably said it better than I would have.

  5. 5
    Mandolin says:

    (the issue is flaring, and involves a blog I used to contribute to, and I have thoughts, however muddled, so I feel like I should share. It’s probably a bad idea)

    I’m interested in these thoughts, particularly as they contribute to or contrast with my perception of what’s happened there in the year since I’ve been reading.

  6. 6
    PG says:

    I’m slightly anxious about the extent to which we dull our language and culture if we treat like the n-word words that were never used to denigrate a group and that have a useful descriptive function. For example, I can see why it would be insulting to a blind person to hear people at a baseball game yelling, “Hey, ump, you must be blind” when they disagree with a call, because it’s using blindness as a derogatory ew-if-you’re-that-you’re-bad word. Or the song discussed here, which doesn’t even get its reference right (Helen Keller could talk with her lips just fine). But what about metaphors like “Justice should be blind”? Should we remove imagery of “blind Justice” — albeit blindfolded — from our public spaces?

    ETA: While I don’t get to decide what people want to call themselves, I do think it generally works better to use a specific term to denote human beings rather than gutting the language of a word that would be used for them. For example, I think it’s better to refer to a racial group as “African-American” than to say that we should stop using words like “blackmailed.” This kind of ties into whether we’d be wanting to use a particular word to describe humans in the first place. I don’t refer to people with mobility impairments as “lame” or “crippled” in the first place. Why not stop using those words for people?

  7. 7
    Lexie says:

    PG-

    I think you are right, in a perfect world it would make sense that these words not be used for people if that is how it started to begin with. Unfortunately, we deal with history of a living language and connotations don’t just disappear.

    For example, it is rare and entirely unacceptable to hear the n-word used to refer to POC. However, what would happen if we used the n-word for something else? What would that something else be? I can’t say for certain, but the history of the language suggests that it might be used to, perhaps describe something that is “less than” in some way. Lazy, unproductive, perhaps. Even if the n-word came to mean “super-duper fantastic!” it would still bring painful memories to those abused by it and would probably still bring up images of racism for everyone else as well. You can call people who can’t walk “mobility impaired” or whatever instead of crippled. But crippled still means broken and “less than” and still conjures up the image of a disabled person. And then you are on the euphemism treadmill. What has to happen is that people need to get the prejudices out of their heads in the first place, and one way to do that is to be conscious of the language you use and train your brain to watch for these words that are usually a sign of some kind of prejudice.

    As for blind justice, I would argue that even though in that case “blind” means “unbiased,” it still is a derivation of unknowing. (To tell you the truth, it reminds me of these guys in college that used to ask me out and when I would say ‘No,’ they would get all huffy about how I was supposed to be so unbiased because I couldn’t see what they looked like or whatever. These guys were sometimes not traditionally good looking in a sense. Not that it is bad to date people who are not traditionally good looking, but what they were really saying is, hey! You are blind! You can’t judge me or have a say in whether you’d like to go out with me, you should be lucky I’m asking out such a lowly blind person as yourself. Blind people are just as biased or not as the next person. And unknowing or unseeing should not mean the same thing as unbiased anyway.

  8. 8
    Mandolin says:

    they would get all huffy about how I was supposed to be so unbiased because I couldn’t see what they looked like or whatever.

    Wow, that’s really revealing and astonishing.

  9. 9
    Jenny says:

    Hmm.. I kind of think Pandagon has a point here: having stumbled across shakesville a few times, they seem rather policing about the language used and I echo PG’s concern about dulling language. However, I’m not sure about the word “lame”, I rarely use it, but in my view, lame seems less harsh than cripple. However, I respect those who are uncomfortable with it and understand the need to point this out in polite company.

  10. 10
    PG says:

    Lexie,

    While not being able to see in a literal sense doesn’t remove all biases, I guess I’m not sure on how we would portray metaphorically the idea that justice ideally does not distinguish between the rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, etc., except by portraying justice as not being able to see those qualities of people. I have been told before that I’m not very imaginative about getting out of the status quo, so I’d honestly like to know what your suggestions about this would be.

    The same seems to come up with “black” referring to something that is dangerous or difficult — blackballed, blackened reputation, etc. Do these ideas really come out of a negative association with dark-skinned people, or do languages used even among peoples who’d never encountered someone particularly dark-skinned (say, medieval Nordic languages) associate the color black with night and the unknown?

    As for the guys you didn’t want to date, I wonder at the kind of person to whom it never occurs that women might reject him for his personality instead of his appearance. I guess that could be comforting to the kind of person who doesn’t want to change, since certain personality changes such as becoming a more polite, well-informed, or thoughtful person can come about through determined effort, whereas one can’t move very far from a baseline of appearance.

  11. 11
    Lexie says:

    What is interesting is how you (PG) use the metaphorical justice as “seeing” or not seeing rather, beauty, wealth, poverty, etc. Seeing is still being used in exchange for the word “knowing” or awareness of. It kind of reminds me of the “colorblind” argument. The concept of nonbiased justice is not necessarily that it doesn’t “see” or “know about” poverty, beauty, race, whatever. It’s that it doesn’t “use” these things as factors in justice. Likewise, a person who is nonbiased about race still sees/knows that a person is of a different race, but doesn’t use that in an unfair way to deal with that person.

  12. 12
    Jesse the K says:

    Thank you. I hope this turning point is contagious.

  13. 13
    PG says:

    Lexie,

    No, I think the idealization of “color-blindness,” for example with regard to race in policy setting, is not that color won’t be used “in an unfair way to deal with that person,” but rather that color won’t be known. As Roberts put it in his refusal to allow schools to integrate schools by assigning students partly on the basis of race, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Stephen Colbert is not really exaggerating what conservatives mean by this when he makes his frequent claim, “I literally don’t see race. I am told that I’m white.” Ward Connerly’s latest initiative is to forbid states to document race at all.

  14. 14
    Devonian says:

    Aren’t almost all of our insults taken from (mostly) old-timey mental health jargon and the like?

  15. 15
    Emily says:

    I am curious about Lexie’s example: “She was blind to the fact that her use of the word “lame” was offensive.” Would it be similarly problematic to say “she was unable to see that her use of the word ‘lame’ was offensive.”?

    It seems to me that “unable to see” is an uncontroversial definition of “blind.” So really, the problem is in using the word “see” to mean “understand/be aware of” (which Lexie explains in comment 11) rather than in using the word “blind” to mean “unable to understand/be aware of.” Or rather, if there is a problem with the latter, presumably there is also a problem with the former?

    This seems to me to be a bigger critique that requires a bigger overhaul of more different parts of our language than I would have initially thought. What about sayings like “See here,” or “look here,” (ok, both of those sound to me like things people affecting a Brittish persona would say and are maybe not used all that much in everyday language). Or just “look” as a sort of filler word (which I think I use a lot, as in “look, I’m not trying to be an ass, I just haven’t thought this through all the way”).

  16. 16
    chingona says:

    Stripping out every metaphor that has any link at all to anything negative certainly would dull the language, but I actually find being more conscious about using “lame” or mental-illness metaphors has forced me to think harder about what I really want to say, use more of my (impressive) vocabulary, and generally express myself better. I still say things are nuts or crazy (Some of my best friends are mentally ill and they use those words too!) and I still say lame in real life, but I find it worthwhile to work on it. Not that the primary issue is my personal growth, but I did want to address that in the context of feeling stifled or limited in language use.

    And there have been plenty of times where I have not at first understood why something was offensive, only that it was offensive, and later come to understand the perspective of the other person. Frankly, if it doesn’t put me out too much, I’d rather air on the side of not insulting people.

    I was thinking about this particularly after the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. Yes, the shooter probably was not the most stable individual, but lots of people aren’t “stable” and don’t express it in that way. Antisemitism and racism are not mental illnesses. They are hateful ideologies. Why was it so hard for me to say that and express myself in a way in keeping with that idea?

  17. 17
    Sasha_feather says:

    Thank you! Wonderful.

    I love that moment when I get to go from just doing something because I know I should, to understanding why. I’m glad that’s happened for you, and I’m so glad you’re passing your knowledge on!

  18. 18
    chingona says:

    Also, in the context of what I understand to be going on at Shakesville (haven’t read regularly there for a bit now, and generally don’t feel like getting involved, but since this is all coming up in a context), I think it matters how you call people out. Saying “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use that word” is different than accusing someone of being a bad person for using an expression that is so embedded in our daily speech that it’s easy not to even notice it.

  19. 19
    Jesse the K says:

    Emily, I think there’s a difference between somatic metaphors, which come naturally to us because we have bodies in the first place, and disabling metaphors, which devalue some of us based on the kind of bodies we have.

    Countless words for understanding and knowledge reference all the physical senses people typically come with. They are deeply embedded in our language and literature. That’s why most blind people I’ve read or met use “see” freely: I see your point, she spied an error in your logic, he looked on my resume with great enthusiasm. My objection is when blindness, or any impairment, becomes an epithet unto itself.

    Devonian, there are many juicy insults that aren’t based on bodily difference. At a recent WisCon panel, we enthusiastically dreamed up quite a list and then some more. It’s actually a ton of fun imagining these!

  20. I think you (inadvertantly) illustrated why a lot of people object to this sort of effort to police inappropriate or offensive language. In the antepenultimate full paragraph you made a point (I assume) of false-starting twice before throwing up your hands and saying “well, I’ve done all the policing I’m willing to do here.” That kind of seems to support the notion that it’s impossible to word things in such a way as to be non-offensive, presumably not your point.

  21. 21
    Mandolin says:

    Or, alternately, the paragraph was designed to describe an even-if-we-takei-it-on-your-terms argument. Such as “even if we agree that men are inferior to women, it doesn’t follow that” x.

    Even if we agree that this statement — which can be disagreed with using the following arguments from disability activism, as partially enumerated by Lexie — is completely and unproblematically true, then the insult still is not peachy.

  22. 22
    Anna says:

    If I were going to teach anyone anything about Disability Rights Activism, it would be that wheelchairs, like all other assistive devices, are not bloody tragedies. My husband’s quality of life (and my marriage) improved ten-fold at least when he stopped insisting he didn’t need a wheelchair and got one. Now! We can go out and do things. Now! He has energy throughout the day. Now! he can run his own damned errands, and is looking at going back to work for the first time since he was a teen. We’ve lived near the ocean for over two years now, and it was only when he got the chair – last November – that we went for a walk along the waterfront. Gosh, such a horrible thing, this chair-with-wheels that allows him to get out of the house without having to plan it a week in advance and pay for it in pain.

    No one thinks my glasses are a tragedy, but gosh – wheelchairs are awful.

    I’m sorry, I know this is a side-thing to the focus of this conversation, but wow, am I ever tired of reading elsewhere “well, wheelchairs would be a bad thing, don’t you think?” No, actually, they are awesome.

  23. 23
    Sophie says:

    I’ve been trying to articulate my thoughts on this topic for ages and you’ve captured them exactly. *bookmarks for the next time someone gets all huffy at having their language curtailed for “no good reason”*

  24. 24
    Kay Olson says:

    Thank you, Mandolin. Yes.

    Amanda at Pandagon refers a few times in that linked post to “irreverence” as her preferred alternative to “safe space” and “political correctness,” and I see that as the false dichotomy that led to my no longer spending my time reading there. Each blog does have its own tone, and I appreciate that. But it’s a selective irreverence being called, ironically, “diversity of tone.”

    I also find the reiterative nature of working out safe space at Shakesville exhausting to even follow along on, but I’m rarely an avid comment reader anywhere that threads go long. Still, I recall with true joy the times I’ve read McEwan stating that her blog community is meant to be a safe space for disabled folks as well as all the other groups typically noted in any list of people whose cultural or political concerns matter in a bloggy editorial sense. What the means to me is that my issues matter there too, explicitly, as part of a basic feminist consideration of humanity. I am neither forgotten or considered peripheral to discussions on race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, gender, age or any other group because I’ve been grouped as important along with everyone else. In my mind, that makes each conversation larger and, well, cooler.

    The main practical result to safe space declarations
    (or even less overt commitments to consider every group’s concerns without categorizing a few as crucial and others as getting in the way of irreverence) is that when those big news moments inevitably come up revealing societal prejudices in MSM, the blog discussion doesn’t end up feeling like a second assault on anyone’s right to exist. (A mentally ill person tasered by police, a transperson murdered, immigrants maligned and disrespected.)

    I believe what most rankles people about “lame” and discussions of its usage on all sides, though, is that it’s the sort of term rolled out when something else is being talked about. Some disabled people feel thrown under the bus in service of some other topic, and many interested in that other topic feel sidetracked. I personally feel it’s like having a discussion in a crowded room about, say, pasta, and a person who dislikes pasta suddenly (virtually) points to me or another person in a wheelchair and says “Pasta sucks like that person’s life.” Feels pretty random and absurd, right? But how many times do you read past that without thinking how nice it would be to have just talked about pasta? By the time someone speaks up to complain about word usage or ableism, it was already out there and the discussion was already about pasta and the contextual history of ableism, at least a little bit. It seems unfair to be critical of those who note the shift for the less aware readers, imo.

  25. 25
    Doug S. says:

    [ha ha only serious]
    I think the derogatory use of the word “suck” is a problem. The origin of the term “suck” as an insult comes from the association with a male performing fellatio. In other words, when we say that something “sucks”, it is bad because it is like a man who performs the act of sucking another man’s penis, which is something we consider to be degrading and humiliating. The use of the word is an insult to homosexual men everywhere.
    [/ha ha only serious]

    Seriously, like “sucks”, as far as I can tell, “lame” as an insult has been completely disconnected from its meaning of “disabled”.

    Additionally, the “euphemism treadmill” inevitably turns clinical, “neutral” terms into insults. “Mentally retarded” was a neutral replacement for such terms as “idiot” and “imbecile”; today, it’s an offensive term of abuse. I don’t think any term will stay neutral for very long. Even “special” is turning into an insult these days…

  26. 26
    Jeff Fecke says:

    Kay is spot on as per usual.

    I think one of the problems with lame specifically is that the general derogatory usage of the word has come unmoored from its etymology. I know that when I would use the word in the past, I didn’t give a second thought to its origin. It had sort of just become a word synonymous with sucky or boring or annoying. And I think many people have lame categorized in that way, and get annoyed when they’re told not to use it.

    Which is, of course, their problem, not the problem of the person bringing it up. Because however disconnected from its roots it may be, lame became a derogatory word specifically because it referred to disability. The word itself is problematic, and it’s one that I’m working to eliminate in my writing and my speech for exactly that reason.

  27. 27
    Mandolin says:

    Seriously, like “sucks”, as far as I can tell, “lame” as an insult has been completely disconnected from its meaning of “disabled”.

    Disability activists seem to be, in bulk, saying differently. Why should I cede expertise about this to you and not the people who are experts?

    (Maybe you are a disability activist, and this is a perspective you bring up in that community. I don’t know. And, yes, it would change my response to you.)

  28. 28
    Mandolin says:

    Kay:

    I personally feel it’s like having a discussion in a crowded room about, say, pasta, and a person who dislikes pasta suddenly (virtually) points to me or another person in a wheelchair and says “Pasta sucks like that person’s life.”

    I found this paragraph (the highlighted sentence in particular) very helpful. Thank you, Kay.

    Jeff:
    I’ve defended my use of the word “insane” because, as someone who suffers from mental illness, I believe that I have some claim to the word. But that doesn’t mean I should be able to use it without question, or without defending it.

    Ditto.

  29. 29
    Robin says:

    Other synonyms for lame that could be offensive: feeble, weak, thin, poor…

    Then there are words used to mean “good”: sick, ill, dope…

    Are those considered offensive too?

  30. 30
    Anna says:

    Doug S, it’s almost like people treat having a disability like it’s this horrible thing, and that people with disabilities aren’t human.

    That’s the subtext I see in comments about how all words that describe intellectual disabilities are going to turn into insults. Of course they are – people treat people with disabilities, mental or physical, like they’re subhuman.

    Part of asking people to consider their language (and really – it’s a request. No one can make you not use these words) is asking them to consider that people with disabilities exist. When I see comment after comment elsewhere saying “I hadn’t even HEARD of Ablism!”, I wonder where the heck they’ve been hanging out that there are NO progressive people in their circles talking about people with disabilities.

    (Then I remember the confusion people look at me at when I go to progressive-focused meetings and ask for things like “wheelchair accessible” locations, and transcripts of videos for the Deaf. *sigh*)

    Part of bringing up the ablist nature of language is reminding people I would expect to be our natural allies that we exist, we’re not your pity cases, we’re not here to make you feel better or support whatever notion of “Good Charity” you want. Most of us our living our lives. All we want is some respect for those lives. Maybe we don’t want to be turned away from voting. Maybe we don’t want to be told that our doctor-prescribed medication is banned from our graduation. Maybe we don’t want to be told that if we get a job, we’ll lose all of our benefits that pay for the care we need to live. Maybe we don’t want to be unable to leave our home because the elevator has been shut down for the next three hours, and no one thought to warn us. Maybe we want some bloody curb cuts. Maybe we don’t want to be your go-to insult.

    Pointing out ablist language is part of the advocacy of pointing out we exist. And yeah, just like there are feminists who see no problem with “bitch” and similar words – to the point where a major feminist magazine is called Bitch – there are people with disabilities who don’t think “lame” or “insane” or “r#tarded” are rude and dismissive. That’s okay.

    Heck, it’s almost like people with disabilities aren’t a collective who all agree on everything. It’s like… it’s like they’re people.

  31. 31
    Emily says:

    What Kay said. That is why I don’t read Pandagon. Amanda’s “irreverence” seems to invariably come at the expense of more marginalized groups and she is consistently unable to understand/acknowledge that (I just wrote and deleted “see”).

    I also appreciate Kay’s thoughts on the distinction between the use of “see” and “blind.” Thanks!

    ETA: And it is particularly frustrating when feminist bloggers and commenters seem to understand why, when male progressive bloggers use sexist jokes and langugage to be “irreverent,” that is WRONG, but somehow cannot make the jump to applying that same logic to themselves. Even when it is explained to them OVER and OVER and OVER again. It really boggles.

  32. 32
    Mandolin says:

    For whatever it’s worth, I did not mean this post as a poke at either Pandagon or Shakesville.

    (Not that other people shouldn’t feel free to air their frustrations about the blogs here, and I do appreciate reading other people’s criticisms, but that wasn’t my original intent.)

  33. 33
    malathion says:

    I think one problem with policing is the fact that third-parties are doing the policing in what they perceive is in the best interests of a marginalized class. When, in actuality, that disfavored class is made up of individuals who have radically differing levels of sensitivity to perceived language insults. There are certain words, like the n-word, that we can pretty much universally agree are grave insults, are intended to be grave insults by the speaker, and, most importantly, are understood to be grave insults by almost everyone in the marginalized class. The word simply has no other legitimate use than as an insult.

    But then we get into much more difficult territory when it comes to words in the general lexicon that are not universally agreed to be insults, and, most importantly, not everyone in the marginalized class agrees that they are insults. For example, the Latino vs. Hispanic divide.

    And then there are just sheer mistakes and misunderstandings. For example, the word “niggardly” means stingy or cheap and it comes from Middle English. It has no relationship to the n-word, but it sure *sounds* like it to someone who has never seen the word before. People have actually been fired for saying “niggardly” out loud.

    And then, finally, there are examples where the expansion of language sensitivity just threatenes, as a practical matter, the ability to communicate. I would site as one example the use of “see” as a metaphor for “understanding.” The idea that we could root out this kind of bedrock metaphor is just quixotic. If we try to go there, we’ll spend all out time negotiating about words instead of actually getting any ideas out.

  34. 34
    chingona says:

    People have actually been fired for saying “niggardly” out loud.

    I vaguely remember an incident where a public official was made to apologize for using it. Are you sure people have actually been fired?

  35. 35
    chingona says:

    And Kay,

    Seconding Mandolin @ 28 … the comparison helps me understand a lot better where folks are coming from.

  36. 36
    Mandolin says:

    Yep, it’s totally fair to compare the furor over “niggardly” to disability activists coming up with precise, heart-felt arguments about the word “lame.” That’s not minimizing their concerns at all.

  37. 37
    Ampersand says:

    That’s not how I interpreted Malathion’s comment, which was a discussion of a range of words that are objected to — some of which are clearly offensive, some of which are not. There’s no reason, that I can see, to think that Malathion was suggesting that “lame” falls in the same category as “niggardly.”

  38. 38
    PG says:

    malathion,

    I’d never heard of someone’s being insulted by the word “Hispanic,” only objecting to it as imprecise. “Hispanic” refers to “Spanish-speaking,” in which case it is a cultural descriptor rather than a racial one, and excludes Brazilians and others who do not speak Spanish. Latinoamericano — commonly shortened to “Latino” — is useful as a racial/ethnic term because it refers to the shared ancestry of the peoples of Mexico, Central and Latin America, who mostly are descended from the native inhabitants of the Americas with intermixing with African and Caucasian immigrants to the New World. A Caucasian who immigrated from Spain to the U.S. is not Latino.

    As for the niggardly incident, you’re roughly correct: the mayor’s aide was forced to resign, even though he’d apologized as soon as he realized that he’s been misunderstood as saying the n-word. It was one of the low points of Mayor Williams’s otherwise excellent tenure in D.C. that he at the time was under so much attack for being insufficiently attentive to the African American community, that he could not expend the political capital to support one of his staff members and defend him from false rumors and attacks.

  39. 39
    Sailorman says:

    Anna Writes:
    June 17th, 2009 at 3:16 am

    Doug S, it’s almost like people treat having a disability like it’s this horrible thing, and that people with disabilities aren’t human.

    Yes to the first part, no to the second.

    Is Jane Doe disabled, and does she feel that her disability is perfectly fine from her perspective? Makes sense to me–everyone’s different.

    But that’s Jane Doe, not me. For ME, being lame–which I have experienced short term in the form of injuries–would really suck. Again: that’s for ME, not Jane Doe. So would be being blind, so would be being in a wheelchair; so would be having a variety of disabilities that I don’t currently possess. It would be, to use your language, horrible for me.

    I associate disability with being bad because it IS bad to me, insofar as “bad” means “unpleasant, unwanted, thing to be avoided if possible.” I don’t view disabled people as having a lesser humanity than I do, but I still think that being lame is worse than not being lame. I base it on my OWN personal belief.

    That does not mean that semantically speaking I might not avoid using “lame” as an adjective. But the argument appears to be that the term is based on dehumanizing and/or “othering” of disabled people. That is simply not true.

  40. 40
    malathion says:

    I’d never heard of someone’s being insulted by the word “Hispanic,” only objecting to it as imprecise.

    This is an East Coast/West Coast thing. In California, there are definitely people who are insulted by “Hispanic,” especially if they consider themselves to be Chicanos with indigenous routes, as opposed to being lumped in with their Spanish colonial overlords. But I agree that it’s not the best example

  41. 41
    Sweet Machine says:

    Thank you so much for this post.

    But that’s Jane Doe, not me. For ME, being lame–which I have experienced short term in the form of injuries–would really suck. Again: that’s for ME, not Jane Doe. So would be being blind, so would be being in a wheelchair; so would be having a variety of disabilities that I don’t currently possess. It would be, to use your language, horrible for me.

    Sailorman, I think here it’s important to go back to what Lexie said way back in the first comment:

    To us, whatever characteristic we have that makes us disabled is just a part of our whole selves, and most of us are quite fond of our whole selves, thankyouverymuch.

    It is possible that in your life you will become disabled in some fashion. Part of that is about your bodily functioning; part of it (maybe a bigger part) is about how your culture isn’t built for someone whose body functions differently. I think a lot of the fear that able-bodied people have of getting a disability themselves is at least as much about losing privilege as it is about having a disabled body.

    Anyway, I think that it’s entirely possible that using a wheelchair / becoming blind / what have you would be a very difficult transition but would not be, ultimately, as horrible as you imagine. What you’re arguing is that you *imagine* that having a disability is just awful, not for OTHER people but for YOU since you are so much more intact in the first place. Do you see how that perpetuates the biases that are under discussion here?

  42. 42
    Sailorman says:

    I think a lot of the fear that able-bodied people have of getting a disability themselves is at least as much about losing privilege as it is about having a disabled body…
    Anyway, I think that it’s entirely possible that using a wheelchair / becoming blind / what have you would be a very difficult transition but would not be, ultimately, as horrible as you imagine. What you’re arguing is that you *imagine* that having a disability is just awful, not for OTHER people but for YOU since you are so much more intact in the first place. Do you see how that perpetuates the biases that are under discussion here?

    As i see this you are basically saying that I am doing a bad job imagining how I would feel about something which would happen to me. Er… no, that’s not OK, thanks for asking.

    Or, in slightly snarkier terms: I’ll agree not to assume that all disabled people are lying about how they are fine with their disabilities, and not to assume that they’d be happier without them. In exchange, you should not assume that abled people are lying about how they don’t want disabilities, and you should not assume that they’d be just fine and dandy if they acquired them.

    Because the “every person can judge their own self” and “we know ourselves best” memes have freak-all to do with disability status, ya?

    If you’re saying “trust what we say about ourselves!” at the same time as you’re declining to trust what other people say about themselves, then I have a hard time believing you.

  43. 43
    John says:

    I think that it’s interesting that you used another walking metaphor to thank the man for moving past his use of the word cripple. I think that aspect of the discussion adds a side of this debate that is being neglected. When I hear someone say lame or cripple, I do not think of someone being handicapped, I think of someone or something being unable to do something, whether it is writing or walking. However, when someone says something is gay to mean bad, I think first of sexuality, second of “descriptor used by people with undeveloped lingual skills to mean not to my liking.”

    Walking metaphors and imagery are highly prevalent in modern English, both positive and negative. Should people who are handicapped be offended that you thanked someone for taking it in stride? Perhaps we shouldn’t take things in stride, but rather roll with the punches.

    Bottom line as far as I am concerned: asking people to censor their speech is always a waste of your time. Is it not just as dangerous to thing “lame” and say “unusable”? However, it is perfectly acceptable to discriminate in who we trust, choose to associate with, hire, date, etc., based on the language they use. If you are uncomfortable with the use of the word gay, judge people for it, don’t be friends with them. The social pressure to be accepting will do more in terms of real change than the PC pressure ever could.

  44. 44
    chingona says:

    The social pressure to be accepting will do more in terms of real change than the PC pressure ever could.

    What’s the difference? Given that no one has a magic ray gun to make everyone stop using whatever words they don’t like, we’re pretty much talking about social pressure to not use certain language.

  45. 45
    Doug S. says:

    Disability activists seem to be, in bulk, saying differently. Why should I cede expertise about this to you and not the people who are experts?

    Well, at least that’s how it works in my own head. But, yes, if there are people who take it personally if I use the word “lame” in phrases like “lame excuse”, then I probably should watch my use of the word.

    My original question still hasn’t been answered, though. “Sucks” seems like it really ought to be at least as offensive as “lame”, given its origin, yet we use it freely and nobody takes offense. Why?

  46. 46
    Sarah says:

    Are we to assume, then, that an individual’s feelings about possibly becoming disabled are completely disembodied from the ableism which permeates our culture and society? Seems a rather stunning claim to me. Individualizing the problem doesn’t properly address it–the whole point of institutional and cultural ableism is that it’s not just about individuals. It’s about a society which venerates the so-called “normal” body and mind to the extent at which PWD are subject to varying means of dehumanization. Discussing your personal feelings–as though your personal feelings have nothing to do with social context–is a frustrating way of side-tracking the issue.

    And no, I don’t think a TAB can reasonably know what it’s like to have a particular disability until they live with such a disability on a long-term basis. Disability rights people have criticized “disability simulations” for this very reason. While it may seem impossibly hard for a seeing person to navigate the world with a blindfold for a day, that doesn’t accurately represent the experiences of blind people who have adapted to being blind. It just seems inaccurate to me for a TAB to assume that ze could predict personal experiences with a disability without actually having that disability. No one is saying that people who acquire disabilities don’t generally go through a period of adjustment–but that is quite different from assuming that it would “suck” to have a particular disability, full stop.

  47. 47
    Ampersand says:

    From the Boston Globe (emphasis added):

    Most blind people would like to be able to see, of course, but once they’ve figured out how to live a sightless life, their blindness doesn’t really make them unhappy. Chronic pain, on the other hand, sours our mood with every new twinge, and we never really adapt to it.

    In recent years, cognitive scientists have turned in increasing numbers to the study of human happiness, and one of their central findings is that we are not very good at predicting how happy or unhappy something will make us. Given time, survivors of tragedies and traumas report themselves nearly as happy as they were before, and people who win the lottery or achieve lifelong dreams don’t see any long-term increase in happiness. By contrast, annoyances like noise or chronic pain bring down our happiness more than you’d think, and having friends or an extra hour of sleep every night can raise it dramatically.

    It’s simply a fact that able-bodied people in general are not good at predicting how they will react to a permanent disability, and specifically, that they tend to imagine that they will be miserable. In fact, research has shown that how happy one is after (for example) an accident that leaves one paralyzed is a lot more dependent on factors like how happy you were beforehand, and what kind of a support network you have, than it is on whether or not you recover movement.

    SM, with all due respect, you’re very involved in community activities and you have a good support network (or so I’ve inferred from things you’ve said). Therefore, the evidence I’ve seen suggests that, despite your expectations, you’d have every chance for being as happy after becoming disabled as you were before.

    Now, maybe you’re right and I’m wrong; perhaps you’re the exception to the rule that people aren’t good at predicting these things about themselves. I acknowlege that’s possible, as I hope you’ll acknowlege that it’s possible you’re mistaken. Let’s hope that we never find out.

  48. 48
    Doug S. says:

    As i see this you are basically saying that I am doing a bad job imagining how I would feel about something which would happen to me. Er… no, that’s not OK, thanks for asking.

    Actually, psychological research shows that, in general, people really are bad at this! We tend to systematically underestimate the degree that we get used to large changes.

  49. 49
    Sweet Machine says:

    Thanks, Sarah and Ampersand, for clarifying what I was trying to get at about the “when I imagine being disabled, I imagine it sucking” comment. I don’t think I expressed myself very well in my initial comment, and Sarah in particular really brought out what I wanted to say about your imagination being influenced by societal ableism.

    SM, with all due respect, you’re very involved in community activities and you have a good support network (or so I’ve inferred from things you’ve said). Therefore, the evidence I’ve seen suggests that, despite your expectations, you’d have every chance for being as happy after becoming disabled as you were before.

    This is fair, and I should note that I don’t think that the transition to having a disability would be a picnic or that I wouldn’t feel deeply troubled for a while. But from what I have experienced as being the friend, sister, and daughter of people with disabilities, that trouble would be less existential (i.e., I am now a broken person) than societal (i.e., shit, getting to work is nigh impossible now). And, of course, any experience is going to depend on the disability and whether it’s progressive and how much it’s recognized as legit by society at large, as well as any given person’s individual support structure and community.

    Sailorman’s comment reminded me very strongly of a post over at SP about people saying (in the context of fat acceptance), “Well, your body is okay but MINE is awful.” So now I’ll drop that link and get back to listening. :-)

  50. 50
    Mandolin says:

    “Sucks” seems like it really ought to be at least as offensive as “lame”, given its origin, yet we use it freely and nobody takes offense. Why?

    Because groups get to determine their own self-identification and to what extent they’re willing to tolerate derogatory language that may or may not be ‘separated’ from its roots. If you, as a gay activist, want to crusade against sucks, go for it. Context, context, context.

    Also, can you prove that sucks is about male-on-male only and not also denigrating women for their role as oral sex providers? I seriously doubt you can.

  51. 51
    Mandolin says:

    Somatic metaphors are not the same thing as metaphors that conflate disability with badness. Try again.

  52. 52
    malathion says:

    Also, can you prove that sucks is about male-on-male only and not also denigrating women for their role as oral sex providers? I seriously doubt you can

    Oh well see, it’s this kind of nitpicking that really demonstrates the limits of language policing. If we have to mount a legal/historical/linguistic investigation to determine whether a word is offensive, then we’ve really gone too far in my opinion. The operative test should not be the meaning of the word — it should be whether a majority of the *relevant* people are actually currently seriously hurt and offended by it, or more likely than not have a strong personal preference one way or another. You can’t prove or disprove offensiveness through arguments from linguistics or history, nor (in my opinion) should you start digging up offense through investigations on word origins, etc.

  53. 53
    Doug S. says:

    Also, can you prove that sucks is about male-on-male only and not also denigrating women for their role as oral sex providers? I seriously doubt you can.

    Good point.

  54. 54
    Ampersand says:

    The operative test should not be the meaning of the word — it should be whether a majority of the *relevant* people are actually currently seriously hurt and offended by it, or more likely than not have a strong personal preference one way or another.

    I think this was Mandolin’s primary point in the comment you’re responding to.

  55. 55
    Mandolin says:

    You can’t prove or disprove offensiveness through arguments from linguistics or history, nor (in my opinion) should you start digging up offense through investigations on word origins, etc.

    Right, but this is a word that is NOT offensive to the relevant group, which someone from an outside group (I’m guessing here?) is using as a gotcha about language highlighted by a different group.

    And in order to create that gotcha example, he had to make a series of assumptions that ended up erasing misogyny from consideration. That’s kind of a problem.

    However, we can probably stop this particular side-conversation now.

  56. 56
    Sailorman says:

    Sarah Writes:
    June 17th, 2009 at 10:18 am

    Are we to assume, then, that an individual’s feelings about possibly becoming disabled are completely disembodied from the ableism which permeates our culture and society? Seems a rather stunning claim to me.

    Probably because it is largely a straw man. I am surprised you don’t see it.

    Speaking from an individual perspective, about 99.5% my feelings about disability are PERSONAL, not SOCIETAL. If I imagine “what would being in a wheelchair be like for me?” I am not thinking “I wouldn’t be able to find a curb cut” or “people would treat me poorly.” Instead, I’m thinking that I couldn’t play soccer with my daughter, or walk my dogs. I could live in the most happily socialized country in the world and I wouldn’t be able to play the piano without my hands, climb a tree without the use of my legs, or see my kids smile without the use of my eyes. I like doing those things. And it would really suck for me to lose the ability to do them.

    Those feelings, like, and dislikes are not mandated by social pressure. They’re individual. And if you are unable to account for them in your model, your model is flawed.

    The experience (as opposed to the predictions) are of course very much affected by society. If I spent time thinking about it, then I might be as concerned about daily life than I am about other things. But frankly, I’m not.

    Individualizing the problem doesn’t properly address it–the whole point of institutional and cultural ableism is that it’s not just about individuals. It’s about a society which venerates the so-called “normal” body and mind to the extent at which PWD are subject to varying means of dehumanization. Discussing your personal feelings–as though your personal feelings have nothing to do with social context–is a frustrating way of side-tracking the issue.

    You think it’s a side track; I think it’s simply a part of your argument you don’t want to consider.

    You would apparently prefer that this was a pure social argument. To do so, you appear to be arguing that all issues or discomfort or dislike related to disability are either related to social issues or directly stemming from them. That just isn’t true: some of those issues/discomfort/dislike stem because people don’t enjoy being disabled, and/or because they don’t want to be disabled.

    So long as you continue to maintain that the “real” reason I would prefer to retain my sight is because I have been socialized to feel that way, and so long as you won’t acknowledge my statement that I don’t want to become blind because I like being able to see, you are simply wrong. And not just a little wrong, a lot wrong. Pointing that out isn’t a derail, though if asked I am willing to step out of the thread.

    And no, I don’t think a TAB can reasonably know what it’s like to have a particular disability until they live with such a disability on a long-term basis. Disability rights people have criticized “disability simulations” for this very reason. While it may seem impossibly hard for a seeing person to navigate the world with a blindfold for a day, that doesn’t accurately represent the experiences of blind people who have adapted to being blind. It just seems inaccurate to me for a TAB to assume that ze could predict personal experiences with a disability without actually having that disability.

    As I said: If you’re going to assume that we all can’t know anything other than our own skin, fine. Works both ways, of course. But that doesn’t seem to be what you’re doing.

    You seem to be claiming that disabled people (even those who have never experienced what it is like NOT to have their disability) somehow retain the ability to know what it is like to be abled, so that they can accurately compare the two states. Yet, abled people (even those who have experienced a disability in advance) do not have the ability to accurately predict whether or not they would like it.

    This simply doesn’t make sense. I have little dispute with the fact that SOME issues are amenable to your presentation–certainly one doesn’t need to have ever been able to walk in order to compare the differing access available to wheelchair users. But whether or not one has ever walked, it’s more than a bit odd to tell me I wouldn’t miss walking if I lost the use of my legs.

    Do you see the difference? One is objective, one is subjective. You are making claims about people’s SUBJECTIVE experience, while simultaneously affirming your own (correct) right to control your subjective experience.

    No one is saying that people who acquire disabilities don’t generally go through a period of adjustment–but that is quite different from assuming that it would “suck” to have a particular disability, full stop.

    Cognitive dissonance? Social adjustment? Flexibility? Why do you seem to be creating a false dichotomy here?

    Just because something sucks doesn’t mean your life is ruined. Just because you are happy overall doesn’t mean that a variety of things about your life don’t suck. It sucked when my parents split up, but my life was OK in the end. We’re flexible animals. But the fact that my life was OK in the end doesn’t mean that it didn’t suck when my parents split up; only an idiot would claim that link.

    And it would suck for me if I became disabled. [shrug] My life might go on, and I might otherwise manage to be quite happy. But it would still suck, I think. I don’t see where you could ever claim the right to disagree with me on that, unless you want to hear others tell you how ___ disability sucks and how much happier you would be without ___ disability.

    Also, that “adjust” thing seems to be a code. From what i have read, the code works like this:
    You can’t predict whether or not you would hate a disability because it can’t be simulated. Even if you’ve had one short term, if you hated it it just proves that it can’t be simulated. It needs to be adjusted to, and everyone has their own adjustment time. You know when the adjustment time is long enough, because you don’t hate it: if you do, you just haven’t adjusted enough.

    ETA: I don’t need to do a disability simulation to have an idea what it’s like. I just need to live: I get injured, I get sick, I change body type; I grow old.

    Leaving aside the semantic question of what a “disability” actually is, there are plenty of abilities that I used to have that I don’t have any more. Losing those abilities was a bummer, and I wish I had them back.

    And I’m capable of saying that without all the stupid dreck of “well, do you not want to exist?” Yes, I want to exist; yes, I am relatively happy; and no, I am not happy about certain particular things.

    Because I have quite a bit of experience in small permanent losses, and a reasonable amount of experience in larger temporary losses of ability, I think I would actually do a pretty good job of predicting how I would feel about the limited question of losing more ability, permanently or not. certainly i know a sight more about it than YOU do about me, for chrissake, disability activist or not.

    There’s a term for the fallacy you’re promoting, and it’s known as “one true scotsman.” nobody who dislikes disability is accurate, because they simply dnop’t understand it well enough to have a valid opinion. but it’s ridiculous.

  57. Pingback: links for 2009-06-17 « Embololalia

  58. 57
    Lu says:

    This post and its comments overlap very nicely with a realization I came to this morning while doing dishes: I have always felt vaguely irritated when someone responds to my mentioning that I have a severely disabled child (he is chronologically 15 and cognitively two, he can’t walk, and he can use only one arm) by saying “I couldn’t do that.” It happened once on this very blog, in fact, and I responded as I usually do, to the effect of “yes, you could if you had to, but you wouldn’t want to.” The other person said (correctly) that I had no business telling her what she could and couldn’t do. But it finally struck me that “I couldn’t do that” annoys me because lurking not far beneath it is the sentiment, “wow, sucks to be you, glad I’m not.” Now, in fact there are a lot of things about having a severely disabled child that suck (there’s that word again: more on that in a minute), from (for me) minor stuff like still having to buy diapers and pay for sitters, to mobility constraints, to more abstract but heavier issues like knowing that my son will never be a moral actor and my husband and I will always have to make decisions for him (including deciding who should decide for him if/when we can’t). But that’s only part of who I am, and, all things considered, I’m quite happy to be me. I still work and eat and laugh and think and talk and knit like everyone else. I believe I am more aware than most of how little we really control, so we’d better say the AA prayer to whatever deity or lack thereof we like (“I hope I will have the serenity…”) and enjoy the day.

    In the past I’ve tended to agree with concerns that if we start parsing language too much, we’ll end up silenced by the fear of inadvertently offending people. Yet it really isn’t that hard to avoid language that we know is offensive, just because we know it’s offensive. I sometimes slip, and then I can say, “sorry, I mean a half-assed excuse” without going on a rant about how now I suppose I shouldn’t say that either for fear that someone maimed in a tragic seating accident might be listening. And people of good will can accept that apology; if people aren’t of good will, well, it takes all kinds, nothing to see here, move on. Conversely, if no one is offended by PG’s use of denigrate, which comes from the same Latin root as the n-word (you can see what used to be the slightly politer equivalent hanging out right there in the middle), I needn’t pick at it either.

  59. 58
    PG says:

    Mandolin,

    But at what point is a metaphor implicitly referring to disability? If I say, “You see what I mean,” that presumably isn’t referring to disability, but if I say, “You aren’t seeing the big picture,” does that refer to disability? Where is the line between somatic metaphor and ability/disability metaphor?

    I think I get why it’s problematic to use the words that directly refer to disability — “blind to the impact,” “deaf to complaints,” etc. — as synonyms for not understanding or refusing to be attentive. Blind people understand just fine; deaf people are in fact paying attention. But what about the somatic metaphors of seeing and not seeing, hearing and not hearing; “the engine isn’t running properly”; “the sound was muted”?

    And then there’s the word disabled itself: does it come across as insulting for me to say, “I disabled my Blackberry”?

  60. 59
    Mandolin says:

    PG,

    Are you asking genuine questions, or trying to frame those as gotchas to suggest disability activists are being inconsistent? And why is consistency being framed as more important than respect for what people tell you is bothering them?

    Anyway, I can’t answer those questions, because I haven’t read widely enough to know the accepted answers. My feeling, from what I have read, is that ‘blind’ to mean ‘unaware’ is not okay, as you have observed, but that the others are okay — in the same way that it’s okay and not offensive to use a great deal of gendered language. That doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t critique either the gendering of the language or the ableism of the language, but I don’t think it’s strictly verboten.

  61. 60
    Mandolin says:

    Sailorman,

    I don’t mind the derails to the point that you’ve posted them, but try to keep it down from here on, ok?

    Additionally, you need to acknowledge that language is not intrinsically personal. When someone says “that’s lame” to mean “that’s bad,” it is silly to purport their meaning is only “That pasta is bad just as it would be bad for me — and only me personally! — to lose the use of my legs.”

  62. 61
    PG says:

    Mandolin,

    It’s a genuine question: I’m trying to get an idea of the extent to which disability activists, insofar as you know, perceive somatic metaphors to be insulting to those with physical disabilities. Lexie @ 11 seemed to be offended by my comments in which “Seeing is still being used in exchange for the word ‘knowing’ or awareness of.” I was wondering to what extent this is a common and representative concern among disability rights activists, because I think it would be much more difficult to stop using such metaphors, whereas simply excising a half dozen words that specifically refer to disability is fairly easy. (Again, comparable to the difference between not using the n-word and remembering to say “African American,” versus remembering to avoid the multitude of negative words that contain “black.”)

    I’ve already been working on not using “lame” due to prior threads about that word’s being offensive, although that word is slangy, so getting rid of it is simply a matter of being a little more formal. (I’ve never been tempted to write in a brief, “Defendants’ arguments are lame.”) Subtracting “blind,” “deaf,” etc. shouldn’t be too difficult either, although those are more common and the kind of thing one would expect to see in formal writing, so not as easy to cut out as “lame.”

  63. 62
    Sailorman says:

    Mandolin Writes:
    June 17th, 2009 at 11:34 am

    Sailorman,

    I don’t mind the derails to the point that you’ve posted them, but try to keep it down from here on, ok?

    Additionally, you need to acknowledge that language is not intrinsically personal. When someone says “that’s lame” to mean “that’s bad,” it is silly to purport their meaning is only “That pasta is bad just as it would be bad for me — and only me personally! — to lose the use of my legs.”

    OK.

    The conversation seemed to start as an issue of “lame” as being a relatively thoughtless word to use from the perspective of various people. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could disagree with that. (I thought I said so, but if I didn’t then I’ll say so now.)

    Whether or not I think “lame” is an acceptable state for my own being–which I obviously don’t–is irrelevant to how someone interprets it. It’s subjective from the POV of the listener, and therefore not really open to a whole lot of debate.

    Whether or not one should use a metaphor which offends some-but-not-all people is an objective question which is quite different than the fact of whether or not it offends anyone. Personally, I was basically convinced not to use “lame” a while back by an Alas thread, and I’ve been trying not to use it with limited success.

    My derail didn’t happen until, well, I can’t explain that without derailing more in your view and I just promised not to.

    But the conversation then predictably moved towards other metaphors, and the fascinating question of how far exactly we all should go to avoid offending anyone. I will stick to that topic from now on.

    On that note: The more common an experience is, the less realistic it is to expect people not to reference it.

    Whether or not every sighted person has any full idea of what the social experience is to be completely blind (we probably don’t) we have all had the experience of not being able to see something clearly or at all. So many things are “dark to” us or “hidden from” us or “unclear” or “fuzzy;” or we are “blind to” them or “can’t see” them. The lack of sight being referred to as “blind,” that carries through to our metaphors as expected.

    We have a lifelong sense of touch, and reflect our experiences with metaphors that we “can’t grasp” or “can’t feel” things. We feel “numb” about things or “don’t have a sense” of things that we don’t understand.

    We have a sense of hearing, and we often can’t actually hear things, so “not hearing” someone or being “deaf” to an argument are adopted as metaphors in situations where we can actually hear the sound waves perfectly well, thank you.

    And so on.

    Even “lame,” I would argue, is a relatively normal word to use. We develop those metaphors from our own life and I do not suspect we will ever lose them. It seems unrealistic to ask that it happen.

    ETA: It is true that many of those metaphors are viewed as having negative connotations. But then we get into the split: are the negative connotations linked to “societally mandated badness” that are caused because we don’t like disabled people, or are they linked to “normal human perception” because, generally speaking, people may prefer to have a sense/ability rather than to not have a sense/ability? It seems to me a valid question, and one which would affect the perception of the relevant language to a large degree.

    The best thing that might work is to, as with “lame,” simply rank the terms which are more likely to cause offense, and work down the list starting with the worst, to eliminate them for no other reason than politeness. And that can be a very good reason.

  64. 63
    chingona says:

    I see a distinction between an expression like “That’s so lame” and trying to avoid any and all uses of words that might reference disability in a metaphorical way, even in a negative way.

    I see “that’s so lame” as similar to “that’s so retarded” or “that’s so gay.” Now, lame is significantly more removed from its original meaning than either gay or retarded, but if disability activists say the expression really bothers them, there are lots of other good words to use to express “that’s so lame” that don’t have that effect.

    But I think there’s a difference between saying that Obama’s excuses for not releasing the torture photos were lame and saying the truckers strike has crippled the economy. For one, there is simply the precision of the words themselves. Lame originally means not being able to walk and that gets turned into pathetic, half-assed, disingenuous, etc. There’s a very negative metaphor being made about lameness. But when I say the strike crippled the economy, I’m saying the strike prevented the economy from functioning as it would if not effected by this external event, which is basically what crippled means. I’m relying on the actual meaning of the word, not some negative association with the word.

    Similarly, if I say such and such Bush-era policy was “retarded,” that’s not the same as saying over-reliance on petroleum exports has retarded the growth of the Venezuelan economy. I’m not insulting or drawing any parallel between a bad thing and someone with a developmental disability. I’m using a word under one correct definition.

    Retarded in that context came up at Feministe a few weeks back. It was more ambiguous because it was in an irritating piece that ran at DoubleX that said feminism was a socially retarded movement. I don’t think the writer, as unpleasant as I found both her argument and her rhetorical stance, actually meant that in the playground, you’re a retard way. I think she meant stunted, underdeveloped, etc. Now, I can say she should have used one of those other words, and maybe she should have, but I’m not comfortable saying the legitimate dictionary definition of a word should be off-limits.

    Maybe this all seems like a distinction without a difference or like I’m contradicting what I wrote earlier on this thread. I’m still thinking this through.

  65. 64
    Lu says:

    The fact that I can use denigrate with impunity but had better steer clear of niggardly irritates the snot out of me; it’s related to my annoyance at people who confuse exalt/exult and hoard/horde, and at sportscasters who say “if the sun hadn’t been in his eyes he may have caught that ball.” Aaaaaaarrrgh!

    But if I can manage (just barely) to be polite enough not to correct bad English unless I’m being paid to do so, I am resolved to be polite enough not to tick people off by using offensive language and then lecturing them on etymology.

    (Not trying to offend anyone here, more resolving publicly to resist temptation.)

  66. 65
    Sarah says:

    Probably because it is largely a straw man. I am surprised you don’t see it.

    Speaking from an individual perspective, about 99.5% my feelings about disability are PERSONAL, not SOCIETAL.

    I am saying that you cannot separate the two out that easily.

    You think it’s a side track; I think it’s simply a part of your argument you don’t want to consider.

    No, I am saying that discussions about ableism as an institution are all too easily derailed by non-disabled people who personalize them in the way in which you are doing. This isn’t about you. The issues are larger than you, and moreover, we can’t talk about you without talking about the context in which you exist. This thread started out discussing ableist notions in general (wrt “lame”), and you immediately jump to your personal opinions and predictions, as though that were the most salient issue to the topic at hand. It’s really, really not. Like Mandolin said, language is not a personal issue. When you say the word “lame,” you are talking about other people whether you intend to or not.

    You would apparently prefer that this was a pure social argument. To do so, you appear to be arguing that all issues or discomfort or dislike related to disability are either related to social issues or directly stemming from them. That just isn’t true: some of those issues/discomfort/dislike stem because people don’t enjoy being disabled, and/or because they don’t want to be disabled.

    Clarification: when you say, “people don’t enjoy being disabled,” do you mean “people” as PWD or TABs? Because I know plenty of PWD who want to continue having their particular impairment–though not the disabling social aspects which go along with it. I am not saying that fear of disability stems entirely, 100% from social pressures, but I do think it’s a larger factor than you are willing to acknowledge. Yes, I acknowledge that a major life change, and a loss of an ability, would be a difficult experience for most anyone at first. That does not mean it is easy to divorce fear of disability from its social context.

    So long as you continue to maintain that the “real” reason I would prefer to retain my sight is because I have been socialized to feel that way, and so long as you won’t acknowledge my statement that I don’t want to become blind because I like being able to see, you are simply wrong. And not just a little wrong, a lot wrong. Pointing that out isn’t a derail, though if asked I am willing to step out of the thread.

    I acknowledge your statement, though I think it’s important to acknowledge the limitations of imagination and most of all, to listen to actual blind people when considering the issue. Rather than rely on our rather flawed imaginations.

    But whether or not one has ever walked, it’s more than a bit odd to tell me I wouldn’t miss walking if I lost the use of my legs.

    I’m not actually telling you that.

    Also, that “adjust” thing seems to be a code. From what i have read, the code works like this:
    You can’t predict whether or not you would hate a disability because it can’t be simulated. Even if you’ve had one short term, if you hated it it just proves that it can’t be simulated. It needs to be adjusted to, and everyone has their own adjustment time. You know when the adjustment time is long enough, because you don’t hate it: if you do, you just haven’t adjusted enough.

    It would be foolish to deny the voices of PWD who have actually had their disability for a significant period of time and do legitimately dislike it. Like others have said, PWD aren’t a monolithic entity. (Though I would nevertheless wonder if such PWD’s quality of life would improve with better accommodations.) I don’t think any disability rights activists would wish to indicate that only those who don’t hate their disability count as true disabled people; that’s nonsense. I do, however, think that the proportion of PWDs who “truly” and inherently hate their disability (insofar as that can be measured) is a lot smaller than most TABs assume.

    As for temporary disability simulating permanent disability…that’s a bit complicated. Obviously, there is some overlap in terms of the experience, both practically and psychologically. But there are also some key differences, and I’d be a bit wary of claiming expertise of a particular disability experience based on temporary injury. Those with temporary injuries may not have access to the full range of assistive devices and other coping mechanisms that those with permanent disabilities have. Conversely, those with temporary disabilities also may not experience the full social (or psychological, since that seems to be what you’re focused on) ramifications of the disability. I definitely don’t intend to say that there is one true disability experience–because disability comes in many forms. At the same time, TABs really ought not project their imaginings of disability onto actual PWD even if they do have experience with temporary disability. It’s a fine line, to be sure, but I would tend to acknowledge PWD as the experts on their disability. TABs, therefore, should be careful about making assumptions about life with a particular disability.

  67. 66
    Sailorman says:

    Sarah, as per Mandolin’s request, I will respond to you in the open thread, here.

  68. 67
    Anna says:

    May I suggest that folks who are asking Mandolin and others to clarify what, exactly, disability rights activists think of X, that they do some looking into it? There are a plethora of disability-focused blogs, books, magazines, and even academic journals. Surely, instead of demanding an answer right here, right now, you can go looking around?

    I suspect what you’ll find is that disability rights activists are kinda like feminists, or anti-racist activists, or any other group that advocates for themselves and others: there is no universal answer to your questions. Some people I know are very bothered by “blind” being a stand-in for “refusing to understand”. Others I know don’t care one way or the other.

    Again, it’s almost like people with disabilities, and disability rights advocates, are individuals, not a groupthink excercise. Instead of requesting that people in this thread suggest a set of rules that you can then follow (or not), maybe do some reading? I can make suggestions, if people like.

  69. 68
    PG says:

    Anna,

    Mandolin is a blogger on this website, and raised the issue here. I don’t have a disability-focused blog that I read regularly. The only blog on which I comment where “lame,” “insane” and “crazy” have been repeatedly described as problematic words is this one. Inasmuch as I am concerned about how I communicate on this blog, and avoid being offensive to people in this blog’s community, it’s sensible for me to ask Mandolin and the other bloggers and commenters here about these things, instead of assuming that whatever random disability blog I read will be representative of the standards expected by the folks on Alas.

    There’s variation in the answer to almost any question about what is offensive; I can find you African American bloggers who would say that the n-word isn’t totally verboten. However, there is such a thing as a community standard, and the people who make up a community are the people to ask about that standard. If I were a regular reader/commenter at Shakesville, I’d be trying to understand the standard there. Ditto with Pandagon (which apparently has no standard, and that’s one reason I don’t patronize that blog much). I’m not looking for a Platonic ideal of polite language that will satisfy all people. I’m looking for what people in a particular online community think is appropriate.

    I’ll probably extend my changes in language from my comments here to my comments elsewhere and how I speak and write offline as well (as I’ve already done for “lame”), because I have a certain amount of trust in the Alas community overall as valuing both good conduct toward others and good use of language and being likely to strike a sensible balance (as being, for example, the kind of people who want to be considerate of others but don’t think “niggardly” and “denigrate” ought to be struck from polite usage). In my experience, people here generally feel obligated to make logical arguments, take others in good faith (note that Mandolin asked if my questions were genuine rather than assuming that I was in bad faith — not a courtesy extended by all bloggers, and especially not to a new commenter), provide sources for their claims, etc.

    I don’t have that existing trust for a blog that I’ve just started reading. If a blogger or commenter here wants to point to another blog as having encapsulated what the Alas community member thinks is a good point, I’ll certainly read that and take it into account. But it doesn’t make much sense for me to go to a random disability blog, cold, and start pestering them to explain their views. They may have an established community norm that they really don’t want to rehash and deal with questions about. In contrast, Alas seems to be developing its community standard on this point (e.g. bloggers here are working on cleaning “lame” and “crazy” out of their own vocabularies), so it’s a good time to be asking questions.

  70. 69
    Emily says:

    I actually do think that using “sucks” to mean generically bad is misogynistic and anti-homophobic, and have thought that since before this post. However, I still use the term. Mostly because I’m lazy and because I know that my practice in life will never be fully congruent with my beliefs and that we all compromise our principles to some degree to get along in a society that devalues those principles.

    However, I’ve never really met someone who feels personally affronted by the use of sucks. As in, “I am someone who performs oral sex on males and when you use that word it denigrates my choices and makes me feel unwelcome in your presence.” Um, no. I suppose it’s possible, but I’ve never had that experience. On the other hand, many people have said as much about using “lame” or “gay” the same way. So I think it is respectful of those to whom I want to be respectful to try not to use those words in that way.

  71. 70
    Anna says:

    PG, the reason I suggest reading disability-focused blogs is not to ask them to answer your question, but to get a broader idea of the issues being raised.

    My comments are more meant to be general than directed at you specifically, although they are jumping off things you’ve said. I don’t mean to focus you out particularly as somehow difficult. Most people (dare I say all?) here are discussing this in good faith, as am I.

    As I said before in this thread, I raise issues of ablist language because it reminds people that we exist. That there are people with disabilities who read this blog, and other blogs, who read the newspapers, who watch t.v., who are part of the various movements that people here will identify as belonging to. There are blogs I do not bother reading partly because they consistently act as though there are no people with disabilities on the internet, and I have better things to do with my time than deal with that level of self-absorption.

    No, going off to Wheelchair Dancer or Miss Crip Chick or Accessibility_Fail or No_Pity and asking them to please explain various rules around ablist language to you isn’t really what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting that reading those blogs will give one a sense of a variety of things disability rights advocates and people with disabilities are saying. It will, I would think, give one food for thought. In my hopes, it would lead someone who had never considered how disability and ablism and dismissive language affects other people to a better understanding if they read those blogs for a while, or went through the archives of Blogging Against Disabilism Day. It would give lie to the idea that ablist language is suddenly some new concept that folks are railing against.

    I get so frustrated when our entire history is dismissed with “I’ve never heard of this before”. There have been discussions about language used to describe people with disabilities dating back to at least the 1850s, and certainly Deaf people have been advocating for their rights since the residential school systems were started. There is a whole history here that’s being missed by some, if not outright ignored.

  72. 71
    Korolev says:

    Look, the problem is that a disabled body is a disabled body. It’s not “ableist” to point out that being crippled or lame are generally bad things.
    For example – someone who is deaf (and does not have a hearing aid), is not able to do as many things as someone who is not deaf. Anything a deaf person can do, a non-deaf person can do. But a deaf person cannot do everything a non-deaf person can do. It’s why deaf people cannot serve on combat duty in the Military, for example.
    Another example would be someone who was born with no legs – they cannot do everything someone with two legs can do. Thus, they are less able, thus we use the term disabled.
    This is not to say that disabled people do not have worth. They have tremendous worth. Look at Steven Hawking, for example. Profoundly disabled, he nonetheless has made an incredible contribution towards society. But he is still disabled. That makes his accomplishments even greater than a non disabled person.
    It’s about calling a spade a spade. Society should not hate the disabled. They aren’t a “drain” on society. But refusing to look the truth in the eye can have serious consequences – like when a deaf parent refuses to let their child get a cochlear implant. Frankly, I rate that as child abuse. Giving a child the ability to hear does not take anything away, aside from the father’s (or mother’s) sense of “ownership” over their own child.
    A disability is a disability. As a scientist, working in biotechnology (although my field leans more towards cancer research and the manipulation of the cell cycle and not the invention of prosthetics), I wish to cure the world of all disabilities. It’s my profound wish to see a world in which no one is born without the ability to hear, see, speak or walk.
    Let me be clear – I hate disabilities, because they limit the life of the disabled person. Society isn’t affected negatively by disabilities, at least no more than it is affected by, say, people who are born abnormally short or abnormally tall (abnormal, meaning, not normal – in other words, heights which differ greatly from the statistical average – not implying anything about worth). If someone is sick, and you want to cure them, you want to help them, right? And isn’t it our duty, as humanists, to help people? Disabled people’s lives would, on the whole, be much better if they were not disabled. I just want everyone to have the maximum chance at happiness. That’s not to say that being disabled means you can’t be happy – but the chances are reduced. It’s not fair, and whenever nature is unfair, it is up to humanity to correct it.
    I mean think about it – someone without two arms, even in a society that was perfectly accepting of that condition, would be at a tremendous disadvantage in many ways. They can still have a completely meaningful and fulfilling life, but they are still disabled, as they cannot write or draw as effectively (I am aware that there are people who can paint with their feet), use tools as effectively or play sports as effectively – in short, career paths or life choices are blocked out for them, or at the very least, are made extremely difficult to accomplish. I don’t think anyone without two arms would make a very good surgeon, no matter how hard they studied. They can still be a very good researchers (one of my professors when I was studying had his arm blown off in Vietnam – he was Vietnamese) but if they wanted to be a surgeon, they couldn’t do it.
    I’m familiar with the arguments – for example, stating that a disability is not a disability, or that it is a congenital “gift”, or that it is “different” and not a “defect”. All those arguments ring hollow – they are merely coping mechanisms designed to make a disabled person feel better. And I have nothing against coping mechanisms – except when they lead to disabled people forbidding their children to get cochlear implants or impede research.
    “But”, you might say, “as a white male privileged person, what gives you the right to determine what is disabled or abled?” Well, I am only half white, but yes, I am a male and I am abled and my life has been a privileged one. But that doesn’t mean I can’t know the truth – reality exists outside race or gender or ability. As a scientist, whenever someone is born without a limb or unusually weak muscles or without one or more of the five senses, that signals to me that their cells did not undertake the correct developmental pathways, that certain genes might have had mutations, or that certain DNA-error checking machinery in their cells was not functioning correctly. If 99.9% of the human population are born with eyes, and 0.01% of the population are born without eyes then that is a clear indication that something has gone wrong.
    You wouldn’t call birth defects amongst Vietnamese children caused by Agent Orange Dioxins to be “differences”. They are horrible, horrible birth defects that should never, ever, happen. Which is why the Vietnamese government is entirely justified in suing the US government for compensation (compensation the US has given to its soldiers suffering from Agent Orange side effects, but not to the Vietnamese). Now you might say “but Agent Orange isn’t natural” – well, whether or not it is man or nature that throws a spanner into the genetic and cellular gears, it still causes a malfunction, or defect or disability. There is no getting around that fact.
    Trying to deny reality for comfort, trying to use semantics to make oneself feel better, will not bring true happiness and will not solve any problem. The horrible unfairness that exists in this universe must be overcome with effort, with science and with medicine. And to do that, we must look reality, squarely in the eye, unflinchingly, and work towards a better tomorrow. And to realize that a disability is a disability, will spur more people onwards to helping to prevent such disabilities from occurring in the future. Not prevent the birth of people – but to cure them in the in vivo so that the disability never manifests. It’s not about eliminating, it’s about fixing. And as a biotechnologist, fixing problems with the help of the biological sciences is my entire profession.

  73. 72
    Korolev says:

    And one more thing – if a disability is not a disability, then why should scientists pour money into developing prosthetics to help these people? Be very careful when you claim that a disability is not a disability. If society truly believed that, they might not bother to try to help. Which would be very unfortunate.

  74. 73
    Ampersand says:

    Korolev, can you please put a blank line between your paragraphs? Especially when you write such a loooong post, it would make it easier to read.

    Time doesn’t allow me to respond to your entire comment, but let me take a couple of bits, and I imagine others will respond to other bits as well:

    Anything a deaf person can do, a non-deaf person can do.

    So because I’m hearing, I can compose music just as well as Beethoven did? After all, anything a deaf person can do, I can do.

    Imagine two people scaling a steep hill. One of them is in a wheelchair, one of them is walking. The wheelchair user, Sally, is an athlete who works out regularly and plays competitive team sports. The walker, Wanda, is a cartoonist who spends 10 hours a day seated at her drawing board. So Sally easily gets up the hill, while Wanda can’t do it without stopping and resting a bunch of times.

    So Sally is capable of scaling a steep hill, while Wanda is not. Wanda is “less able,” as you say; should we be calling Wanda disabled?

    It’s true, as you say, that a one-armed person probably can’t be a surgeon. But all of us have things we can’t do. I can’t be a pro basketball player, or a musician, or a hunter, because those skills are too far outside the range of my natural abilities. I can’t reach the highest shelf without a ladder, either, because I’m too short.

    On the other hand, there are pro basketball players who couldn’t draw a comic book as well as I can, however, not even if they trained for 20 years.

    All of us have things that we do well, and things we’re incapable of doing. You’re talking as if not being able to do everything is something unique to disabled people, but it’s not.

    Look at Steven Hawking, for example. Profoundly disabled, he nonetheless has made an incredible contribution towards society. But he is still disabled. That makes his accomplishments even greater than a non disabled person.

    That just seems really condescending. He’s a scientist; his science is either valuable or not based on what they contribute to the field, not based on him being disabled.

  75. 74
    Elusis says:

    1) I’m not sure saying “‘sucks’ actually denigrates women and gays, not just gays” is a really compelling argument for using it. “Sucks” is still in my language, partly out of laziness, partly because I think it’s sort of kleenex-i-fied and gone generic to an extent, but I have swapped out “cocksucker” for “cockbiter” because while I know a lot of the former who are pretty awesome, no one likes the latter.

    2) Just wanted to make the comment that when you hold up “it is awful to have people systematically and regularly use language that feels personally denigrating to me” next to “it is awful not to be able to use this word I want,” it kind of makes the latter sound… wait, what’s the word I’m looking for…

    pathetic.

    I mean, generalist pleas about the sociological development and vocabulary variety of the language versus actual people’s actual lives and feelings?

  76. 75
    Myca says:

    1) I’m not sure saying “’sucks’ actually denigrates women and gays, not just gays” is a really compelling argument for using it. “Sucks” is still in my language, partly out of laziness, partly because I think it’s sort of kleenex-i-fied and gone generic to an extent, but I have swapped out “cocksucker” for “cockbiter” because while I know a lot of the former who are pretty awesome, no one likes the latter.

    Similarly, I use “sucks ass” in place of “sucks”. It’s both more vulgar in one way and less offensive in another! Yay!

    —Myca

  77. 76
    Mandolin says:

    I’m not sure saying “’sucks’ actually denigrates women and gays, not just gays” is a really compelling argument for using it.

    It wasn’t meant as one. It just irritated me that he erased misogyny from his interpretation of the word.

  78. 77
    Anna says:

    Korolev:

    “It’s about calling a spade a spade. Society should not hate the disabled. They aren’t a “drain” on society. But refusing to look the truth in the eye can have serious consequences – like when a deaf parent refuses to let their child get a cochlear implant. Frankly, I rate that as child abuse. Giving a child the ability to hear does not take anything away, aside from the father’s (or mother’s) sense of “ownership” over their own child.”

    Wow, what an incredibly offensive and clueless thing to say.

    Deaf parents are not refusing Coclear Implants for their children because they want to “own” their children. They’re doing it because a) it’s major head surgery that should not be undertaken lightly and b) because of the cultural implications of Deafness.

    Many d/Deaf people consider themselves part of a linguistic minority and community. They have a shared language – Sign Language – and a shared culture that is based around shared experiences of Deafness. To ignore everything that Deaf people are saying and describe it in as “ownership” and “child abuse” is incredibly offensive and demeaning to a complicated CULTURAL issue that you obviously have no understanding of.

    For crying out loud, I’m very happy that some of your are experiencing an intellectual exercise while you consider the possibility that disability affects people, but for some of us, this is life. Could you stop talking about us like we’re not here?

  79. 78
    Mandolin says:

    Korolev,

    Please step out of the thread. Your points are offensive, and appear to be ill-considered.

  80. 79
    Sweet Machine says:

    Disabled people’s lives would, on the whole, be much better if they were not disabled. I just want everyone to have the maximum chance at happiness.

    Wow. Except, of course, for PWD who live in the actual present, with their actual disabilities, whose feelings and life experiences totally don’t matter. Korolev, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

  81. 80
    PG says:

    Elusis,

    2) Just wanted to make the comment that when you hold up “it is awful to have people systematically and regularly use language that feels personally denigrating to me” next to “it is awful not to be able to use this word I want,” it kind of makes the latter sound… wait, what’s the word I’m looking for…

    pathetic.

    I mean, generalist pleas about the sociological development and vocabulary variety of the language versus actual people’s actual lives and feelings?

    Are there any limitations that you would put on people’s not having to encounter words that feel “personally denigrating” to them? For example, are you on board with the people who want to ban Huckleberry Finn from being used in school curricula because its depiction of slaves and repeated use of the n-word have been said by some African Americans to feel “personally denigrating” — even if other African Americans have said that they have no problem with it? Or are there some “generalist pleas” in favor of academic stuff like American literature that you would entertain?

  82. Extraordinary work, Korolev, I don’t think I’ve seen that much ableism packed into so small a space in a very long time. It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if nature decided what was good and bad, what was a life worth living and what wasn’t. I don’t doubt it’s handy, as a scientist, to feel like something else is taking responsibility for that assessment. But it’s not. It’s you. It’s the ableist culture we live in. And given that you are – terrifyingly – a medical scientist, I’ll recommend you Canguilhem’s “The Normal and the Pathological,” which tracks the development of multiple sense of the normal in medicine, and demonstrates just how specific it is to specific environments. That’s right. What makes something normal or not normal isn’t nature. It’s the environment: us. We build the world in such a way as to disable those whose bodies we’ve decided don’t live up to our norms. Ableism.

    Also: you really need to leave this thread.

  83. 82
    Elusis says:

    Mandolin – I guessed probably not; your comment was just somewhat mis-interpret-able and it seemed like clarification was in order. :)

    PG – I’ll politely decline your red herring, as your example is in no way equivalent to what’s being discussed here. I’m not in a fish mood this evening, but thanks anyway.

  84. 83
    PG says:

    Elusis,

    My understanding was that you were saying that “generalist pleas about [something academic]” were categorically less persuasive or weighty compared to “actual people’s actual lives and feelings.” If I misunderstood, my apologies.

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  86. 84
    Jackie says:

    You want to know something interesting. One of your collegues posted this post:

    https://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2009/12/22/hoisted-by-their-own-prayertard/#comments

    Using the term “Prayertard” which is of course, a derogatory reference to the highly offensive term retard. Perhaps you could enlighten them to the fact that neurodiverse people also don’t appreciate being the cultural go-to for things that suck. As well, as mentioning that posting something that is so clearly offensive to people who are not Neurotypical or “normal” makes whatever statements against disability discrimination inept.

    After all, who’s going to bother listening to a site which while promoting disability acceptance, at the same time allows a post that is belittling towards people with mental disability. Or, is it that only people with a visible disability matter? I mean, for all the people who only consider disabilities they can see had the same regards to everything else, I suppose they wouldn’t be able to breathe air cause they can’t see it.

  87. 85
    Mandolin says:

    Hi Jackie,

    Again, the phrase that’s being riffed off of is Hoisted by Their Own Petard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard

    This has nothing to do with the word retard.

  88. 86
    CassandraSays says:

    You know, I kind of feel like maybe we’re missing part of the point here. I’m not disabled, so I can only extrapolate based on my own experience with language that bothers me personally for other reasons, but I think part of what people object to about the use of ableist language is that it’s sort of an unspoken code for “I’m not talking to you”. It seems sort of like the use of sexist language – it’s a red flag alerting the reader to the fact that they’re not the intended audience for what they’re reading. Even in cases where it’s clear that it’s not intended to be offensive/not a deliberate slur, or even if the reader isn’t actually offended as such, it’s still alienating to come across language usage that makes it clear that whoever wrote what you’re reading didn’t consider that you exist and might read what they wrote.

    Does that make sense? I guess I’m wondering if part of what some disability activists are pointing out about the use of ableist language is that it’s just sort of jarring to be happily reading something on a blog etc, assuming that you’re part of the community, and then suddenly have it made clear that no, in fact, you’re not, you’re “other”. Ie, you’re being talked about, not talked to. Which no one likes. So even if it’s not really super offensive to any given individual, it’s still alienating in a more general sense.

  89. 87
    Jackie says:

    Well I’m sorry, what with so many people adding the term “tard” to the end of things that are supposed to be seen as negative, it didn’t cross my mind they were referring to another term.

    I do think the author should have been more aware of how terms that end in the word “tard” typically are portrayed, and that more people might have seen it offense, rather than a clever take on the term petard.

    You know, sometimes common sense is a good thing.

  90. 88
    Ampersand says:

    Your “I’m sorry” has got to be the least sincere apology I’ve seen all this year. (Which is only four days, to be fair). You messed up, Jackie. You jumped to making accusations without knowing what was actually going on.

    There’s nothing really wrong with that; everyone makes mistakes now and then. What bothers me is that you didn’t just say a simple, sincere “I was mistaken — sorry about that” and let it go.

    You know, sometimes common sense is a good thing.

    Common sense might have led you to make a sincere apology when you clearly made a mistake.

    Common sense tells me that if your next comment here continues to blame other people for your mistake, rather than just saying “okay, I messed up, I’m sorry about that” then you’re kind of acting like a jerk, and maybe you should stop posting comments on this blog.

  91. 89
    Mandolin says:

    You know, sometimes common sense is a good thing.

    Sometimes familiarity with Shakespeare is, too.

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  93. 90
    A.S. says:

    Rather than “disabled people” or “a disabled person” the correct terminology is “persons with disabilities” or “a person who has a disability.” This link explains why: http://supp.apa.org/style/pubman-ch03.00.pdf

  94. 91
    Mandolin says:

    I am a female person. I am a queer person. I am a disabled person.

    I am allowed to disagree that there is a correct terminology.

    I have no problem using person first sometimes, but I would rather be called a disabled person, and I would rather have my disability used as an adjective not a noun following my identity. I am not public about my particular disability so I hope you will forgive my omitting the specific.

    I do not feel that my disability needs a special linguistic treatment in order to make it separate from other adjectives that describe me. If there is nothing wrong with being disabled, and there’s not, then it should be as okay for me to be a disabled woman as to be a brunette woman, rather than a woman who is a brunette. Likewise, I’m a fat woman, and there was a time when that would have caused me pain to say, but I am pleased to say that time is past.

    I am speaking on this more at length than I probably ought to, but I am not so happy with the fact that there is so much concentration in movements on the “correct” terminology. I do my best to stay current with terminology that refers to other people’s oppressions because it’s not my business how they manage their language. But I chafe at being told I’m wrong about good-faith labels that I apply to my own groups. Of course, if you prefer person first, I will use person first for *you,* but I don’t think it should be accepted for people to impose their language preferences on others, and frankly, I disagree that it’s productive to quibble over phrasing to this degree. As I said, I would not tell people in other movements that they should not quibble over phrasing because it’s their business, but here, in this which affects me, I feel like it’s legitimate for me to express an opinion on strategy.

    A link discussing some other people’s resistance to person first language: http://www.journeyswithautism.com/2012/04/25/the-problem-with-person-first-language/

  95. 92
    Mandolin says:

    (Also, I should note that I wrote this post three years ago, during the process of learning to admit that I was disabled, which I understand is not an uncommon process for people to have to go through. I have consequently changed some of my opinions.)

  96. 93
    Kay Olson says:

    The push for people-first language goes back at least as far as the 1980s. I embraced it back then as a wheelchair-using college student – until I tried writing a few term papers under those stiff linguistic rules outlining not just word choice but word order and sentence structure.

    The spirit of people-first language (PFL) is that disability should not be the identifying characteristic of any individual, but rather one of the many characteristics that can make up a human being. (“People with autism” being viewed as a less crudely definitive description than “autistics”, for example.) That doesn’t seem like as revolutionary an idea in 2012 as it did several decades ago.

    These days, I believe any push for PFL reflects one of several things: 1) a lag-time in journalism to support the spirit of PFL in reporting, and the subsequent, reasonable policing of outrageously out-of-date ableist turns of phrase that are still common, 2) the degree to which any disabled individual or hir allies personally experience the limitations of being defined by a label, and 3) people who are possibly just pissy about policing other people.

    It’s also possible 4) someone just really believes in the awesomeness of PFL as a practice unto itself. But I invite those people to first write a long paper of quality following PFL rules, and then look at the 2012 diversity of disabled people in the world today and see how so many manage to both eagerly identify as disabled and not make it the sole characteristic explaining who they are. While the spirit of PFL is still important, in my opinion, the actual usage is too rigid to reflect the current lives of the disabled.

    And yet, I support anyone falling under that second category in their own usage of PFL, and appreciate the reminder that – attitude-wise – cultures do vary in acceptance and different disabilities are treated differently in all societies. So, while PFL seems antiquated to me, it may still be a revolutionary idea in someone else’s life. But I want to use my own sentence structure to describe my own life.

  97. 94
    Ender says:

    Okay, I’m going to preface this question by saying that I’m not disabled (to any serious extent, anyway), and that the question I’m asking is not meant to provoke or offend in any way. I am asking so that my ignorance may be corrected. With that said…

    I’m planning on going into neurocognitive/computational research, which has or could have medical applications (amongst many other computer technology applications). My question then is, do people that are called “disabled” or “handicapped” not actually want to be made more “normal”? If a child were autistic, would it be wrong to artificially increase their social intelligence? If a child were deaf or blind, would it be wrong to either alter their development as a fetus, or artificially give them the ability to see or hear when they were born? If a person were born paraplegic, should we not give them the ability to walk?

    To but my question more concisely, is the idea that a person’s disabilities could be cured offensive to people with disabilities? Should scientists be working on gene therapy and prosthetics and brain research?

    Thanks in advance for your answer(s).

  98. 95
    Kay Olson says:

    Hi Ender,
    To answer concisely for myself, no. And sure, why not?

    The idea of a cure doesn’t offend me. The idea that I ought to be waiting or looking for that cure is offensive.

    The first twelve years of my life involved exploring a diagnosis, with some memorably painful tests. At 12, I was told that my neuromuscular disease most closely resembled a congenital sarcotubular myopathy very few people – mostly Hutterite boys – had been diagnosed with but that fell under the scientific research of muscular dystrophies. In my 30s I was told that the first diagnosis was most likely incorrect. Since I’m neither of the Hutterite gene pool nor male, this was not a surprising declaration. I was told my muscles were then too wasted for a definitive biopsy answer, though if I’d volunteer my cells up, the doctors/scientists would be most interested to have a look anyway. I declined. I’m not bitter about that, this is the cost-benefit aspect of my life and I am quite busy pacing myself.

    In the meantime, I’ve been severely and progressively disabled since I was a teen. I’ve benefited from antibiotics, radiology, orthotics, wheelchairs both manual and electric, scoliosis back surgery, a feeding tube, a tracheostomy, and now, a ventilator. (A suction machine, an air mattress on my hospital-like bed, a nebulizer, steroid meds, computer adaptions, electric toothbrush, etc., etc.) I’m 44 and when is that cure coming? I haven’t really been waiting, but I read the science news and I know it’s not coming for me. Yet clearly my life exists through science and technology.

    A cure is not a cost-free proposition. (Neither is any medical treatment.) It costs someone money or energy or time or courage or hope. For me, just living without expectation of a cure costs most of that anyway.

    I think of myself as someone who has trained body, mind and soul like an athlete for my entire life to be alive as I am now. You might say I’ve learned to endure like a long-distance runner – I test my physical limits every single day. (There’s some beauty in that along with the hardship, btw.) Alternatively, you might say that as a lifelong disabled person I have some lowered expectations of what I can have as a physical being, thus making me more willing to live on a ventilator than a person in a catastrophic accident might be. Both perspectives are true and both shape my disinterest in a “cure”.

    But it’s easy to get hung up on the language and the idea of the total fix. If you were told you could be better looking and cured of physical imperfections, just how many plastic surgeries would you have the money, energy, time, courage and hope for? After all, science tells us that conventionally attractive people have significant advantages in life. Science can “cure” or “fix” you. Are you offended? Don’t you want to be better? Do you see the dermatologist, buy the lift-up bra, get the calf implants, or what? Maybe you’re used to your level of attractiveness and the balance-point between practical self-acceptance and investment in self-improvement is a place you’re at without intervention. Disabled people can exist at that balance-point too.

    All of this assumes actual access to the science and the cure, though, and that’s not a given for anyone, even in the developed world.

  99. 96
    Ledasmom says:

    If a child were autistic, would it be wrong to artificially increase their social intelligence?

    Speaking just for myself and not for anybody else, it’s not having Asperger’s (to use the now not-accepted term) that has caused me difficulties, but having other people act as if I were doing something wrong by being who I am.
    Also, looking at autism as if it’s just a matter of scoring low on some social intelligence scale is over-simplifying it.
    Both my sons are also diagnosed as on the spectrum; both have attended social groups and seen therapists to help with their social responses/functioning. There are times when I’m not sure that does them any favors. You don’t become neurotypical by learning to act neurotypical; you still get to be the weirdo, you’re just the weirdo who says the proper things. As I get older, I find that I need more time away from other people.