1:35pm June 3, 2013

➸ Trying to find the right words: The problem with shut up and learn on your own...

josiahd:

is that…

…people can’t really do that…

I mean, it’s important to leave people alone. And to not expect every member of a group to educate you. And *really* important to back the fuck off when people tell you to.

But that doesn’t mean go fucking google it actually works as a way for people to…

I dunno… I agree that google doesn’t work unless you know enough to know what search terms you want; but I have learned an awful lot from following people who *do* choose to talk about their oppressions and their experience. I tend to default to keeping my mouth shut because I don’t want to add my cluelessness to the shit anyone else is dealing with, and even so I’ve certainly learned enough to be able to look things up.

Yeah that’s absolutely true, I’ve learned a lot that way too and tend to keep my mouth shut more often than not on a lot of things. But I think the point is that it’s not possible for everyone to do that. Only some people. And that it’s not entirely fair to expect everyone to automatically be able to do it, and to treat people as if they’re doing something wrong if they can’t.

It’s sort of like a different problem I encounter in similar contexts: I’m not able to just “find another word” for a lot of things, even though many people can. And there are people I will absolutely for instance accept the word “retarded” from (not as an insult, of course) because they literally can’t think up other words or remember the other words or keep up every time you’re supposed to change words.

My most serious trouble with that is within the trans community, which seems to change its terminology so much that I have no possible way of keeping up, and I’m scared shitless of even trying to describe gender because I was in the trans community when things like bio female was okay to say, and my brain refuses to learn the new terminology even though I have a pretty deep understanding of the nonverbal realities beneath the terminology. I’ve even heard people get in trouble for saying transgendered instead of transgender. Even when they themselves were trans. And I know I’d get shit for saying non gendered bio female to describe myself, but it’s the only thing my brain will do, I have a language disability and it’s a miracle I learned the terminology at all, my brain creates mini explosions with a lot of neologisms and acronyms.

I’ve been saying for a long time, that being unable to use the current right words isn’t nearly as important as having a deep understanding of the situation. And there are tons and tons of people who for tons and tons of reasons can’t say all the right words yet are not in any other way doing anything wrong, and may be doing a lot right. In fact I’d frankly rather deal with someone who calls me a slur or at least a word that’s highly out of favor, yet otherwise treats me with respect, than someone who is careful to use every single proper word but treats me as subhuman. Not that those are the only two options, but I do see both of those situations a lot and I definitely prefer the one where the person grasps how to treat me right, rather than how to say the right things.

And that’s connected to the original post because… There are always going to be people who are really good at being and doing the right thing, yet who can’t live up to the standards certain communities set for them. Whether it is not being able to use the right words. Or not being able to find and listen to and get to all the right conversations and google everything to find all the right information. Or not being able to remember everyone’s pronouns (that is really hard for me especially online and no I can’t just look them up). Or otherwise just not being able to live up to these standards that are taken for granted in certain communities. And people shouldn’t automatically be treated as bad or wrong when they can’t do these things, even when there are good reasons for wishing they could do these things, and even when there are obvious situations where things can go badly in the other direction (as the OP noted). That’s at least I think what the OP was getting at. Not that people need to be all teaching everyone, but that it’s just not possible for everyone to learn on their own no matter what the topic.

Notes: