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Banning words won’t make the world more just

theatlantic.com

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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#331

Post by recuter »

lynx23 wrote: post #322
zmgsabst wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because they care more they were bullied in the past than about your feelings. People appropriating your disability to excuse their bullying has led to what is effectively PTSD dealing with the groups whose voice was appropriated. That’s sad — and has impacted not only disabled people, but race and gender relations. I miss 10-20 years ago, when people were people rather than defined by protected class.

Amen. Its sad, and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. To a degree, I am used to being treated in a condescending way. This is just a level up, the worst kind: "I know better how you should be treated then you because you are to simple to know what I already know."

[flagged]

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#333

Post by zuminator »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #282
rayiner wrote: post #173

The Sierra Club guide is hilarious: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/sce-authors/u... . > People of color” has in the past served as a collective term for people who are not white. A preferred term today is “BIPOC” referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color, which provides a unifying term for ease of use while still acknowledging the reality that Black and Indigenous people in the United States…

NAACP stands for "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People". Interesting how "Colored People" was an enlightened term in 1909, but "Colored People" is now out and "People of Color" is the new way to go.

Colored People and People of Color are two different things. Colored People was the polite term for blacks 60+ years ago. People of Color means nonwhite. Also, side point, the founders of NAACP included both black, white, and at least one person (Mary Church Terrell) that we would in 2023 consider mixed race. And initially it was predominately led by white Americans.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#334

Post by ookblah »

lynx23 wrote: post #289

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

I think it all starts from a good place. Would you rather people just using words "carelessly" without regard to how you might feel? It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine throughout history.

I don't think there is anything nefarious about it, just that "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it muddled for their own benefit. Overthinking it I guess. I know it when I see it, but it's hard to articulate it to something that works for everyone.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#335

Post by _cenw »

tastysandwich wrote: post #182
jurassic wrote: post #50

The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…

> For my partner's entire pregnancy, our providers only referred to "birthing people" Calling my wife a "birthing person" just made her feel like some gross vessel for having a baby. We purposefully chose providers that didn't use that language. "Chestfeeding" is another one that's cropping up and makes zero sense. Men have breasts, so breastfeeding is already gender-neutral. But it's seen as female-centric so out th…

I was kind of with you, birthing person does sound pretty obstruse. But then you threw in the (self-described!) theocratic fascist dogwhistle.

There are some uses radfems get super upset about that I find useful, though. Like "people with cervixes" if you are asking for cervical cancer screenings. Because increasingly, that affects people who do not feel spoken to if you use the word woman and this adds clarity to who the audience is.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#336

Post by Elyra »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #225
jurassic wrote: post #50

The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…

> People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me Why is that? I’m genuinely curious. Who should be offended by the word slave ? Is it I, the Slav? The etymology of the word concerns my heritage, and yet I’m not offended. It’s not as though people toying with language today is going to bring back my relatives who died as slaves, nor will it undo the suffering they endured.

I agree, and personally found it upsetting once when someone who was from a relatively well off family tried shaming me for using the term slave in my code. I'm of Ukrainian descent, and my grandfather was separated from his family at the age of 12 and sent to a forced labor camp, never to see them again. No human should ever have to experience that, and we must remember that even now there are still humans being treated like literal tools, as our computers are also nothing but tools. If seeing the word slave makes you uncomfortable, then good, it should make you uncomfortable that there are humans who have been treated no better than your computer, potentially even in the supply chain of making it.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#337

Post by mnsc »

jjav wrote: post #316
lynx23 wrote: post #289

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

> I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short Always reminds me of the George Carlin bit on language euphemisms used to distance us from reality ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc ).

Funny you could argue that "disabled" is language that distances us from reality. Since describing someone not present as just "disabled" doesn't tell you anything whether that person in reality is able to do one specific thing, eg tedious react frontend development in a large organization. "differently abled" doesn't tell you anything more but clearly signals that "more information is needed".

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#338

Post by tjpnz »

cassonmars wrote: post #211
jurassic wrote: post #50

The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…

I'm trans myself and this language policing game is insane. The most surreal part about it is it's rarely anyone allegedly impacted by it who is actually asking for these things.

How do you deal with it? The trans people I know tend to grit their teeth at risk of making an already awkward social interaction worse. But that surely must result in a lot of bottled up resentment.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#339

Post by corbulo »

pwinnski wrote: post #116
ryandrake wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on their toes. When I was younger, I used to feel like I could keep up with all the new taboo words, but it seems like it is happening faster and faster these days. You can unintentionally say something that turns out to be taboo, and you're done for. Some…

I know that kindness never goes out of style. Negative words can change meaning or severity over time, in both directions, but if you aim for clear expression and avoid insults, it is unlikely anything you say or write will be judged badly in the future.

Why do you need freedom of speech? Just be nice!

This might be the most British comment ive ever replied to

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#340

Post by golemotron »

pizza234 wrote: post #323
lynx23 wrote: post #289

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

This is the exact same dynamic that happens with comedy. When a comedian offends a group, it's typically not people from that group who complain - it's third parties who step in to represent that group. IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the world without putting any real effort. Fun (in a sad way) fact: a friend of mine collaborates with an…

> IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the world without putting any real effort.

It's worse than that. It's a way of signaling.

When I started to read the article I hoped that it would mention Steven Pinker's Euphemism Treadmill. I was disappointed. The short story is that changing language is a quick way of differentiating an in-group from an out-group. The in-group are those that are aware of the change and align by adopting it.

We saw this with the instantaneous change of Kiev to Kyiv in news media at the start of the war. It is not just a thing that society does with the names of disabilities, oops, I'm sorry, "different conditions."

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