The word “Poor”

[pure_doxyk]

After pondering it all week, I think we should get rid of this word (as it’s used to oppose the word "rich").

I know that we (humanity) still haven’t gotten the hang of the concepts of racism and sexism, and why it’s important to redress their wrongs for the health of our whole species - but I still hold out hope that soon we’ll come to the same

Comments

[en_ki]

"People who don't have much money"?

Convenient labels for disadvantaged groups will always become insults as soon as they are invented. Call people people and describe the trait of interest.

[pure_doxyk]

Well, not always. African-American isn't an insult. And the problem with having "no label" is that it doesn't offer anything to replace the really-offensive labels with.

Still, I get what you're saying, and it's definitely a position worth considering. Thanks!

[en_ki]

Kinda my point: "African-American" is the last in a series of terms we went through in succession that were intended to be less offensive than previous terms, and is inconvenient enough that people complain about it quite a bit.

This inconvenience makes it useful as a shibboleth: if you're willing to use awkward PC term, you're signaling that you're conscious of racial issues and aren't a racist. If you aren't, you're sending a quiet signal of solidarity to racists and/or people with social disabilities that make them unable to accept technical inaccuracy in the pursuit of social harmony. (Isn't that much nicer than "nerds"?)

[pure_doxyk]

Hm, I'm not sure a solution that lumps nerds in with racists is worth doing, true dat.

But I would still think it's better to have A word that's less offensive (and so makes the point that the other words ARE offensive), than to have none. It feels like coming to the battle with no sword, you know? "I'm here to fight for the dignity of the, um, these folks here."

Someone on my other blog suggested something like "Unbound", to illustrate material lightness versus the material bloatedness of being rich. While I'm not sure it'll work (too close to things like "unwound", "unhinged" and so forth, I think), it's a good idea, I think, to try and find something that actually plays to either a positive characteristic of not having as much money, or a negative characteristic of those who have too much. "Fiscal obesity" has been floating around in my head all day, but I'm not sure how to use that angle yet either. ;)

[creases]

You've got it backwards. "Poor" as opposed to "rich" is the correct and original usage. "Poor" as opposed to "good" is the derivative idea.

[pure_doxyk]

I don't think I have it backwards, so much as that I don't think which one came first matters a bit. Do you?

[creases]

I do, yeah. I'm loath to give up a short, matter of fact word because ignorant people have ignorant ideas about what it denotes. (I'm talking here only about words that weren't invented specifically as slurs.) Abandoning a word to the ignorant is, in effect, saying you don't contest their privilege to load that word with the connotations they've given it. I'm not beholden to the ignorant. If you want to contest dehumanizing associations, why not say, "I refuse to grant you those connotations to the word 'poor'; it has only to do with money and nothing more" (as many have done with the word "black", or even "queer", which remarkably enough was from the first a slur in its noun form). It seems to me this approach is much more successful than playing the vocabulary shell game.

[zentiger]

poor people" - a direct, not even thinly-veiled insult - is going to become the next "nigger".

What, really? You've got to be joking.

"poor" when describing "person" just means "doesn't have a lot of money". Meals can't be poor, because poor is something people and verbs are. Meals can be poorly prepared; here the connection is that the thing was prepared cheaply and thus isn't as good a meal as a well-prepared one. Just as a poor person's life probably sucks more than a rich person's life.

[pure_doxyk]

Sorry you disagree. I think you're being rather connotation-blind, though.

Also, I know plenty of rich and not-rich and very-not-rich people, and it's amazing how little the amount of money is an accurate predictor of how much their life sucks. The assumption that it must isn't by itself the problem with economic discrimination, but it's certainly a symptom of it. (cf. how many times do you think it's been said "it must suck to be black"?)

[zentiger]

I'm sorry, did you miss the "probably"? Look: a poor person is, when compared to a rich person, vastly more likely to get fucked over. Medical problems? You're fucked! And so on.

That's just a fact, yo. It's a fact that sucks and it would be nice if it were different, but to be honest there's absolutely nothing any of us can do about it in the short term.

[pure_doxyk]

...Except maybe stop using words that dehumanize people based on economic status? As I said in my post, it ain't much, but it's an important early step.

[satarnion]

the lean?

[pure_doxyk]

Awesome. Except for the irony of how many of them are fat now, of course. >,<

;)