(no subject)
Lovelies, can I get serious for a moment?
"crazy" can be a really, really hurtful, ableist term and I feel like I've been seeing it everywhere lately.
Feminists With Disabilities For a Way Forward (FWD/Forward) covers it really well in their Ableist World Profile series in a post by RMJ here and again in abby jean's follow-up post specific to how "crazy" is used to discredit political arguments and personas.
From the first, general post:
[Crazy is] used to discredit able-privileged persons by saying that they are actually mentally disabled - and what could be worse than that? [...] Whether it means “bad” or “evil” or “outlandish” or “illogical” or “unthinkable”, it’s turning the condition of having a disability into an all-purpose negative descriptor.
I've been making the effort the last few months to cut not only "crazy", but "insane" and "nuts" and all of their synonyms from my speech, which means maybe the words have always been this common and I've only just now become sensitized to them. Regardless of whether it's always been there or not, the use of "crazy" in this kind of context is no less harmful. Even when you're saying that something is "crazy awesome", it's still got some fairly negative implications. From the same FWD post:
Crazy as a positive adjective still mean “overly” or “too much”. It’s meant to admit a slight lack of foresight or sense on the part of the speaker.
There's so much ableist language that gets used and defended every day: "stupid" and "lame" and "crutch" and "I'm so/You're so OCD". I don't mean to try to tackle all of it here, especially when FWD/Forward is already doing such a fantastic job with the Word Profile series. It's a problem in all areas of fannish discourse, from comment threads, to personal posts, to episode reactions, and even in the fiction we write. While I can generally make some allowances for hurtful speech in the latter (because characters can be and are hurtful and prejudiced and ignorant), I also believe that if there's any other way they could express the idea while staying true to character, then we should be exploring those options.
Because there are almost always other expressions and there is almost always more precise language that will say what you want to say without putting someone else down.
(For anyone who may be interested in further reading, FWD/Foward's Ableist Word Profile series can be read here. Additionally, discussion of other hurtful -isms-related language is more than welcome in the comments.)
"crazy" can be a really, really hurtful, ableist term and I feel like I've been seeing it everywhere lately.
Feminists With Disabilities For a Way Forward (FWD/Forward) covers it really well in their Ableist World Profile series in a post by RMJ here and again in abby jean's follow-up post specific to how "crazy" is used to discredit political arguments and personas.
From the first, general post:
[Crazy is] used to discredit able-privileged persons by saying that they are actually mentally disabled - and what could be worse than that? [...] Whether it means “bad” or “evil” or “outlandish” or “illogical” or “unthinkable”, it’s turning the condition of having a disability into an all-purpose negative descriptor.
I've been making the effort the last few months to cut not only "crazy", but "insane" and "nuts" and all of their synonyms from my speech, which means maybe the words have always been this common and I've only just now become sensitized to them. Regardless of whether it's always been there or not, the use of "crazy" in this kind of context is no less harmful. Even when you're saying that something is "crazy awesome", it's still got some fairly negative implications. From the same FWD post:
Crazy as a positive adjective still mean “overly” or “too much”. It’s meant to admit a slight lack of foresight or sense on the part of the speaker.
There's so much ableist language that gets used and defended every day: "stupid" and "lame" and "crutch" and "I'm so/You're so OCD". I don't mean to try to tackle all of it here, especially when FWD/Forward is already doing such a fantastic job with the Word Profile series. It's a problem in all areas of fannish discourse, from comment threads, to personal posts, to episode reactions, and even in the fiction we write. While I can generally make some allowances for hurtful speech in the latter (because characters can be and are hurtful and prejudiced and ignorant), I also believe that if there's any other way they could express the idea while staying true to character, then we should be exploring those options.
Because there are almost always other expressions and there is almost always more precise language that will say what you want to say without putting someone else down.
(For anyone who may be interested in further reading, FWD/Foward's Ableist Word Profile series can be read here. Additionally, discussion of other hurtful -isms-related language is more than welcome in the comments.)