Words that I don't think should be banned or censored:

Words that I don’t think should be banned or censored:

deaf (including figurative use)

Deaf

the deaf (including figurative use)

the Deaf

cripple (including figurative use)

crippled (including figurative use)

insane (including figurative use)

disabled (including figurative use)

disability

lame (including figurative use)

blind (including figurative use)

idiot (including figurative use)

stupid (including figurative use)

dumb (including figurative use)

lunatic (including figurative use)

crazy (including figurative use)

nuts (including figurative use)

paralyzed (including figurative use)

limp(ing) (including figurative use)

challenged (“)

limited (“)

disease(d) (“)

sick (“)

simple (“)

etc.

Here’s what I think of the language-policing that seems to have originated in various feminist communities and, unfortunately, is spreading. I think it’s not helpful.

I think it’s unhelpful to chase after people and censor them from using words that a.) are linguistically and culturally embedded; b.) can have multiple overlapping and sometimes disparate or even contradictory meanings, including, but not limited to literal/figurative/contextually-based/etymologically-based meanings; c.) don’t by themselves automatically constitute or contribute to the oppression of anyone—-in other words, context matters.

Let me ask you a question: which of these is more conducive to promoting thoughtful analysis of a term like “cripple”?

1. Banning the word, never uttering or writing it yourself, and chasing after anyone else who utters, types, or writes it and admonishing them for being “ableist” merely by virtue of having used a word, regardless of context

or

2. Examining the particular context(s) in which the word is employed; researching, perhaps, the etymology of the word; and then studying the various ways in which it was/is used within certain specific socio-cultural and historical contexts and/or textual situations in order to better understand the nuances and implications of said word

?

I pick #2.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. conducted a thoughtful analysis of racist words (including the “n-word”) and tropes in his groundbreaking book The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism. Elaine Scarry studied torture in The Body in Pain. Her work included detailed examination of transcripts from torture victims describing the various forms of brutality they endured. Recently, Julia Miele Rodas probed the usage of the term “blind” in an article entitled “On Blindness.” Her work involved exploring figurative uses of “blind” and how these contribute to cultural and social ideas about blindness and blind people.

When you see a random word and react by pointing your finger (or hitting your keyboard) and calling out: “ABLEIST! RACIST! SEXIST! DON’T USE THAT WORD!” etc. you shut down the conversation. You effectively foreclose the possibility of any kind of productive or meaningful discussion about the word or words in question.

Further—-and this part is really important: you contribute nothing meaningful to the ongoing critical conversation about, say, Disability Studies by engaging in this kind of knee-jerk, reactionary behavior, because what you’re doing is limiting your “analysis” (if it can even be called that) to: “THAT WORD IS BAD. STOP USING IT.” All you’ve accomplished is to end the conversation, and perhaps to make others wary of engaging in or even initiating any kind of future conversation on the topic for fear of being subjected to a similar reaction.

Finally, you participate in a process (again, censorship) that actually threatens to strip even disabled people of the very language we might otherwise use to describe ourselves and speak about our own experiences.

If I am in fact lame—-if I have a limp and normally choose to refer to this as being “lame”—-and you tell me I am forbidden to utter, write, or type the word “lame,” you are silencing me. By silencing me, you are committing a kind of violence against me. Know what’s far more “ableist” than merely uttering, writing, or typing a word? Systematically stripping people of the vocabulary to articulate their own experiences and worldview. Know what’s “ableist”? Silencing people. Banning language. Censoring.

I’d rather see a thoughtful, nuanced discussion of certain terms any day than a facile (yet always so triumphantly uttered!) declaration of: “Stop using that word. It’s ‘ableist.’”

Context matters.

Context actually does matter.

Calling people out is easy. It’s also not productive or helpful. It also contributes nothing meaningful to Disability Studies and, 9 times out of 10, actually contributes to the systematic silencing (and therefore oppression) of disabled people.

Language police: I’m not into you.

There is a difference between using language to affirm identities as PWDs, and using language either literally or figuratively to Other PWDs further.

There is a difference between someone calling out a slur and someone using it to gain Good Activist Points.

Linguistic and cultural embedding are a convenient excuse to avoid examining how words create hierarchies and feed/reinforce existing structures. & connotation+denotation matter just as much, if not more.

And you should really be concerned that the reblogs of your post are using it as an excuse to keep Othering. And THAT is what sick people have to put up with.

∞Posted on March 25, 2011

Reblogged from: Stuff Sick People Have to Put Up With

Source: stuffsickpeoplehavetoputupwith

Notes: 225 notes

Tags: words mean things,