4:33am July 23, 2014

Unpopular Opinion Below

Or popular and unvoiced, idk.

Everyone in this tag knows that the word r****d is a slur and should never be said, but I’ve also seen people say that “idiot” or “wanker” is also ableist.

I don’t really see it as such. I realize people who have been called these things as part of their oppression can find these things triggering or upsetting, but I can’t really find it in my heart to call it ableist. And I try to be pretty sensitive about that stuff.

Maybe it’s some internalized ableism I still have left, idk, but that’s how I feel right now.

Popular and unvoiced.

Popular and suppressed, even, by people who really really want you to believe that the disability community is united on these matters.

It’s not.

I personally think that calling things like ‘stupid’ a slur is diluting the meaning of slur down to meaninglessness. Stupid can be used in ableist ways, but mostly is used in non-ableist ways, and either way, it does not universally (or at all, really) reduce the humanity of a person down to subhuman the way a genuine slur does. I fear people are losing touch with the meaning of 'slur’, using it to mean any word that can have connotations that are ableist, rather than using it to mean a word that can only be used to dehumanize and degrade a specific group of people to an incredible degree.

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