Word Choice
Aug. 24th, 2011 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiki_engSo there's this word that I stopped using a while ago when I realised that it was hurtful.
I should say, there's this word that I stopped using within a certain context when I realised that that context was hurtful, when I realised that using that word to mean pathetic, pitiful, sad, boring, bad, inadequate is associating those words with people who are none of those things.
When I was in middle school I met someone who, whenever someone used the word "gay" as a slur, addressed it. When people spat it out like it was something dirty or used it casually to mean bad things they went Hey. That's not cool. I don't remember what they actually said; it probably changed a bit each time, but that was the message, and you know what? It got through to a lot of people.
That usage of the word "gay" is one that never entered my speech. I don't know that it would have, if I'd never met that person; I don't remember how I felt about that word before they started calling people on it. They are probably responsible for my being able to express, at an early age, why that usage is problematic.
I'm telling that story here because I think that people will relate to it, because I think that most of Fandom can go Yeah, no, using "gay" as a slur, that's not cool, and because "gay" is sometimes used interchangeably with "lame".
I've never used the word "gay" as a slur, but I have used "lame". I knew, when I used it, that it was a word that meant - and I am just going to use Merriam-Webster here - "having a body part and especially a limb so disabled as to impair freedom of movement" or "marked by stiffness and soreness <a lame shoulder>", but it somehow did not occur to me at the time that those other definitions - "inferior", "contemptible, nasty", etc. - stem from the first, that they are a way of saying that disabilities and by extension disabled persons are contemptible and nasty. So, yeah, using "lame" as a slur isn't cool.
That's not something that I connected on my own. I stumbled on a blog post that casually mentioned "lame" as ableist language before I went ...Right. and stopped using it.
This is a post that I've been thinking about making for a while, because it's something that I think needs to be said, and because it's something that's been relevant to my fannish experience lately.
I've gotten into bandom this past year. It's something that I'm really excited about. There are years and years worth of fic out there and some of it is kind of ridiculously awesome. There is fic out there that I pretty much love everything about, ever, except for its ableist language.
The thing is, these are fics that I would gleefully rec if they didn't use the word "lame" as a slur. They do, is the thing, and that significantly reduces my enjoyment of a work and how comfortable I feel recommending it to other people. It's frustrating, because there are so many other, better, words that these writers could be using and the one that they are using is hurtful.
This is a post that I'm writing today because there's discussion going on in bandom right now about using the word "faggot", and this, this? It's the same thing; it's a slur.
I should say, there's this word that I stopped using within a certain context when I realised that that context was hurtful, when I realised that using that word to mean pathetic, pitiful, sad, boring, bad, inadequate is associating those words with people who are none of those things.
When I was in middle school I met someone who, whenever someone used the word "gay" as a slur, addressed it. When people spat it out like it was something dirty or used it casually to mean bad things they went Hey. That's not cool. I don't remember what they actually said; it probably changed a bit each time, but that was the message, and you know what? It got through to a lot of people.
That usage of the word "gay" is one that never entered my speech. I don't know that it would have, if I'd never met that person; I don't remember how I felt about that word before they started calling people on it. They are probably responsible for my being able to express, at an early age, why that usage is problematic.
I'm telling that story here because I think that people will relate to it, because I think that most of Fandom can go Yeah, no, using "gay" as a slur, that's not cool, and because "gay" is sometimes used interchangeably with "lame".
I've never used the word "gay" as a slur, but I have used "lame". I knew, when I used it, that it was a word that meant - and I am just going to use Merriam-Webster here - "having a body part and especially a limb so disabled as to impair freedom of movement" or "marked by stiffness and soreness <a lame shoulder>", but it somehow did not occur to me at the time that those other definitions - "inferior", "contemptible, nasty", etc. - stem from the first, that they are a way of saying that disabilities and by extension disabled persons are contemptible and nasty. So, yeah, using "lame" as a slur isn't cool.
That's not something that I connected on my own. I stumbled on a blog post that casually mentioned "lame" as ableist language before I went ...Right. and stopped using it.
This is a post that I've been thinking about making for a while, because it's something that I think needs to be said, and because it's something that's been relevant to my fannish experience lately.
I've gotten into bandom this past year. It's something that I'm really excited about. There are years and years worth of fic out there and some of it is kind of ridiculously awesome. There is fic out there that I pretty much love everything about, ever, except for its ableist language.
The thing is, these are fics that I would gleefully rec if they didn't use the word "lame" as a slur. They do, is the thing, and that significantly reduces my enjoyment of a work and how comfortable I feel recommending it to other people. It's frustrating, because there are so many other, better, words that these writers could be using and the one that they are using is hurtful.
This is a post that I'm writing today because there's discussion going on in bandom right now about using the word "faggot", and this, this? It's the same thing; it's a slur.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-26 06:56 am (UTC)What you said about fic actually made me understand something. We've talked about slurs and *ist language, and I've insisted on keeping some bad language in my fics more than once, because I considered it "in character". Next time, people should really feel free to tell me what utter bullshit that is. What does it matter that I am aware that those slurs are bad when I continue to use them? That would actually indicate that I don't understand the issue at all.
Good post. Thanks for writing it!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-27 01:35 am (UTC)I really was. I think that they're probably the strongest, most fierce person I have ever met.
I think that confronting someone or opening a discussion like that can be really hard. I think that as soon as you use an "-ist" type word there tends to be this vehement "No, not me." reaction and this complete rejection of the entire concept without any kind of consideration.
There was this brouhaha over a CWRPF/J2 big bang story a while back that used the Haiti situation as a quaint romantic backdrop and had some pretty racist characterisation. I didn't read more than a couple excerpts or follow the situation that closely, but I remember someone writing something like "No, seriously, how did one of their betas not bring this up." ...and maybe they didn't see anything wrong with it or maybe they didn't say anything about it or said something and then let it go. It's maybe easier than it should be, to just let things go.
The thing with Fandom, too, is that we see the kerfuffles and the long, drawn out painful battles more than the discussions that go smoothly, and I think that in that time that one thinks about writing things out it's usually the former that gets remembered and then maybe things don't get written.
I'm trying to be better about speaking out.
I have this kind of wonderful, terrible, plan, in the event that I somehow end up having influence in film or television: I am going to make characters recycle. I think that garbage is this really normalised thing. People take out and throw things into the garbage all the time. I'd really love to see people break down their cardboard boxes for recycling, put organic waste in the compost, take sorted refuse down to the kerb on collection day, or find a body in the compost. It would fill me with a wonderful glee, just having that happen as an unremarked upon thing on the screen. I think that doing that would be powerful.
I think fic is kind of like that, too? That when we have characters do and say things that are -ist and those things that are -ist aren't addressed at all in the fic that's tacit acceptance and works to normalise and promote those phrases, behaviours, and -ist ideologies.
[...and I am going through my fic now and there are issues. (Gah.)]