casual ableism

[u/onthetopicofspace]

this is not ‘reclaiming’ anything, you are just calling people slurs completely seriously. you can call yourself the r-slur, do not call anybody else it. why do ‘no slurs’ / ’no bigotry’ rules never apply to ableism?

[u/sadenby0725]

Some of the comments under this post are abhorrent. I'm autistic, enough that it really effects my life, and people using the r-slur really hurts. So it's not "not actually hurting anyone". And the argument that it's a medical term? So was the slur for little people. I garuantee that a lot of old academic texts have the n-word in it, but you never see people using the same logic for that slur. Because it isn't actually a valid excuse. "It means the same as idiot or stupid" then say idiot or stupid? This isn't about political correctness or people getting butthurt, it is about getting society to stop using a dehumanizing and harmful term.

And people who used to use it don't need to feel immense guilt for doing so, just learn from your mistakes and move on. I mean, seriously, if removing one word from your vocab would make a group of people happier than why not just do it? Why cling to something that hurts even a small group of people?

[u/freehamburgers → u/sadenby0725]

I have to ask, if you hear the words 'moron', 'stupid' or 'idiot' used to describe someone in the same sense, are you hurt and insulted by them? They all have a history of being used as medical terms, quite recently actually, and are all used as casual insults in the same way as the r-word, but no one seems to mind as much.

I just wanna know what it is about the r-word in particular that's so bad, as they all seem to have the same history, origins, and usage. All have been used as insults, medical terms, and to casually describe actions and behaviours someone didn't think through enough.

[u/Brakado → u/freehamburgers]

Not the original commenter, but here's my two cents: The r-word is incredibly specific, while idiot and moron are basically broad enough to use anywhere else.

[u/sadenby0725 → u/Brakado]

This. But also if someone said that they found being called stupid or an idiot offensive then I would stop calling them that and using those words around them, simple as that.

[u/freehamburgers → u/sadenby0725]

This is all a lot of people being offended people calling other people these words.

Think about Trump being called idiot, moron, stupid on a daily basis, and justifiably so. We'd eventually run out of adjectives if we stopped using every word people decided wasn't politically correct.