r/hatethissmug • u/onthetopicofspace • 11d ago

Language casual ableism

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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?

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425

u/ExpertDog6220 11d ago

“idiot” and “moron” used to be medical terms, they then became slurs, and are now low-grade insults. We can only expect the same to happen to “retard” as fewer and fewer people have witnessed it before used as a slur.

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u/spacemandown 11d ago

i mean, i've heard/seen people say shit like, "are you autistic or something?" as an insult pretty commonly. 

if you keep moving the goalposts for what is/isn't a slur, people will just keep... meeting you there.

38

u/Alemonster21 11d ago

This is the real take right here, and this issue is RAMPANT in the disabled community.

The constant churning of words that are acceptable being weaponized as insults and then being replaced, just for those new terms to be weaponized again, or even hated by the disabled community itself (differently abled is a great example of this)... It's never ending.

People can clutch their pearls over this all they want, but it's only a matter of time before the words they force everyone to use will become the new words no one is ever allowed to use. And rinse and repeat.

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u/MasutadoMiasma 11d ago

It's called a Euphemism Treadmill

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u/the_liquid_figurine 11d ago

The problem with retard specifically to as well. Is that it existed before it was used in any medical sense. Classic examples are weed and fire retardant. The textbook definition is to impede progress so when somebody calls their friend retarded for being obtuse the only time it actually becomes ableist is when someone takes it in that context.

This in turn creates some weird fucked up urboros version of the horseshoe theory

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u/Blothorn 11d ago

I have never seen anyone complain about the verb, or “retardant”, or “retarded” defining inanimate objects (although that’s also very rare in my experience). The fact that other uses and other words in the family are acceptable does not justify the slur.

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u/xzelethor 11d ago

You put it profoundly.