As a disabled person, I face ableism and ableist language every day. Some people use ableist language without even knowing that it is ableist. I thought it would be good for folks to take a look at the attached BBC article and expand their perspectives a bit.
Why is it hard for you to believe? If someone is telling you that the language you’re using is harmful, is your reaction really to say, basically, that you don’t care and you’re going to continue using it?
I think it all depends on context and wether the person is trying to be mean or condescending. If a person is deaf and I say he’s deaf, I’m not being condescending, I’m simply stating a fact. With all due respect to your opinion, if we follow your logic we will quickly run out of words.
Have you heard the expression “white lies and black truths”? The intent behind “simply stating a fact” can indeed be hurtful.
But I really don’t think we’re going to run out of words. There’s at least a half million in English, and even counting obscure ableist terms, we’re talking about maybe thirty. Pretty small percentage.
That’s exactly the mentality they have.
Any thought that goes contrary to them being perfect turns them into petulant brats that allow them to justify having a hissy fit against the left.
Dude, I’m about as left leaning as it gets. The mental illness comments mentioned in the article, sure, that’s kind of problematic. But statements that are literally just expressions that have been used for probably half a century or more like “falling on deaf ears”. Gimme a break. Find something actually a problem to focus on, like the climate crisis, or the Assault on trans rights in the U.S.
Language changes. We’ve stopped using some expressions because we’ve realized how hurtful they are — the n word, all sorts of slurs related to being LGBTQ2S+, etc. Here’s one more. Doubling down on this is exactly like arguing that you should still be allowed to use the n word because it’s been used as an “expression” for more than half a century.
“If you’re comparing the badness of two words, and you won’t even say one of them? That’s the worse word.”
I admit I didn’t read the article, but I can say that with the phrase in question of “fall on deaf ears”, it’s a complicated situation. The phrase is poetic in nature and I’m hesitant to try and erase this particular phrase from modern day. I have fear that there will be an over correction towards being non offensive and that creativity as a result will suffer. As someone who has a fondness for poetic expression, this feels like a “throwing the baby out with the bath water” type of situation.
But what’s great about this is finding new and creative ways to express yourself! “My points fell on rocky ground” — Biblical allusion. “They believed me as if I were Cassandra” - Greek. “My words fell on them like the sun under an umbrella.” If you want to keep the synecdoche, “Their ears weren’t ready to hear me”. There’s opportunities to be really creative and poetic if you’re interested in language as rhetoric!
Colloquially, nobody will blink at “They refused to listen” or “It was like I was talking to a tree”.
not proudly flaunting ableism and refusing to listen to people with the actual lived experience, the way you are, you’re not.
in other words: fuck disabled people
They’re trolls from Hexbear. They like to label us as ableist and bigots because it makes them feel superior.
Maybe they have alts on hexbear, but these people are from kbin.social and lemmy.ca, so.
I’ve got accounts all over the fediverse (in case one instance goes down or some fascist or tankie admin bans me.)
The give away is the fact that they keep bringing up race. They have been called racists, intolerant, bigots and are butt hurt about it so they’re looking for something to throw back at people to make themselves feel better and to use as a bludgeon to silence the people calling them racists, intolerant, bigots, etc.
It’s concern trolling. Don’t take them seriously.
“They’re from an instance I don’t like!!!1!”
… Shows screenshot proving they’re not
It was actually two separate points. First, a troll brigade (unrelated to the screen shot.) Second, projection, using the ableism argument to try to make yourselves seem morally superior (illustrated by the protection in the screenshot.)
I’m sorry I confused you. I’ll try to keep each comment to a single, simple idea from now on.
You literally said “they” were from hexbear and then “they” in the next sentence. Use proper English if you don’t want to imply what you implied
“They”, as in the three or four members of the brigade. Or, the gender neutral “they”, whatever.
I was actually referring to multiple people. Not everything is about you.
Nice backtrack