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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

#501

Post by lynx23 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #479
lynx23 wrote: post #363

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…

From spending time with students of my local school for the blind and visually impaired, I am under the impression "blind" and "visually impaired" are seperate things. Some of the people I knew seemed to care about the distinction, so it seems better to stick with something neutral until I am sure.

Sure, but I was not refering to the somewhat blurry distinction between blind and visually impaired. I am well aware there is a spectrum. I was talking about my own experience, and that is limited to being pitch-black-darkness-blind myself.

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

#502

Post by parineum »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #381
lynx23 wrote: post #363

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…

Interesting, thanks for chiming in. I wonder if the best way to push back against language policing is to simply poll various groups, see which language they prefer, and publish the results. The deltas could be interesting as well, e.g. even if most blind people dislike the term "blind", it would still be interesting if they are more likely to prefer the term "blind" than a member of the general population. I think p…

Groups don't have homogeneous opinions on this stuff. The prime example these days being Latinx.

If people aren't called what they prefer, as long as they weren't called a slur, a simple correction is fine. Or, if you're never going to see them again, just let it go.

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

#503

Post by mdpye »

_cenw wrote: post #434
tastysandwich wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

It absolutely does not add clarity. Enough people do not even know what a cervix is, or whether they have one, that it's an obfuscation. One which harms women disproportionately, like most other things radfems get upset about.

Go measure the prevalence of "people with prostates" and compare. The word "man" is, strangely, not subject to this erasure.

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

#505

Post by _cenw »

mdpye wrote: post #503
_cenw wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

It absolutely does not add clarity. Enough people do not even know what a cervix is, or whether they have one, that it's an obfuscation. One which harms women disproportionately, like most other things radfems get upset about. Go measure the prevalence of "people with prostates" and compare. The word "man" is, strangely, not subject to this erasure.

But... that's absolutely a thing? Is this the same selective perception that brings radfems to proclaim that trans lesbians don't date each other?

(That being said, the likelyhood of getting prostate cancer on HRT is pretty low. Not quite the level of cis men getting breast cancer, but it's down there. It's a very androgen dependent cancer.)

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

#506

Post by recuter »

hef19898 wrote: post #483
recuter wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could You Make Tropic Thunder Today? w/Robert Downey Jr. | Joe Rogan (12m views, from 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugC3TXSKoE tl;dw - Nope. Ain't that some shit?

Monty Python said the same thing about Life of Brian, another great classic for the ages!

So back in 1979 when it was released this rather infamous debate transpired between them and a bishop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgKFWnZLgdc

Exact same sort of asshole and arguments as today. He called them blasphemers and tried to cancel them. During the commercial break he would lean in to John Cleese and say "this is great television" with a wink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Stockwood#Later_life_an...

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

#508

Post by smcl »

Sunspark wrote: post #360

In my life, I have been deaf, hearing impaired, hard of hearing, hearing challenged. I suppose at some point I will be acoustically disadvantaged. You know what? At the end of the day, I'm still deaf. It's true. I have limitations that others take for granted. If I can't see someone speaking or if I'm out of batteries, we aren't going to be communicating well. That's pretty deaf. I won't be offended, it's just realit…

Aren't "hard of hearing" and "hearing impaired" intended to cover a range of deafness or hearing-related problems though?

"Hearing challenged" definitely sounds a bit daft though for sure.

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

#509

Post by rendall »

vixen99 wrote: post #454
rendall wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are older Americans who insist that calling a stranger by their first name is rude. That was never my culture so I was taken aback to hear this.

For some the use of the first name assumes a familiarity which probably does not exist. The universal rule is that appropriate levels of interaction are both accepted and used in common parlance by everyone. Thus it's rare for a speaker at a press conference to be addressed by their first name though the speaker might well respond using a first name if they know the journalist. 'Anthony, how did your chat with Sergey…

First name informality has been a feature of American culture since before its founding. We use a more formal protocol for official business. It seems controlling to insist against common practice that normal persons treat one with this kind of formality.

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

#510

Post by oboes »

jurassic wrote: post #54

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…

> Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep diving on etymology to discover the racist origins.

That one in particular, I was almost offended when I learnt during a DEI training that it could be construed as insensitive/racist of me to use that idiom.

English is not my native language, and is not an official language of my country. I work for a local branch of a large US tech company, and the working language is English, which I'm perfectly fine with. But when we get subjected to DEI training material which was very obviously made for an American audience, even though nobody in this office is a native English speaker, I think it goes too far and ironically becomes slightly insensitive in its own way.

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