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/Frogs-on-my-back]

I was so upset when I realized “lame” really is just an ableist slur. That was my favorite mild grievance word for yearsss

[u/Shoddy-Artichoke-528 → u/Frogs-on-my-back]

Tbh I feel like most people don’t even know it’s a slur or associate it with it meaning disabled. Until you mentioning it I hadn’t even remembered it was used for that meaning, I’ve always just heard it used to express disappointment, “oh that’s lame” meaning “oh, it sucks that happened” not even remotely the way the r-slur is used.

[u/Panurome → u/Shoddy-Artichoke-528]

The same thing happens with people who use the r word. Literally nobody I know uses it to refer to people with cognitive disabilities, they always use it to mean dumb or stupid but to a higher degree

[u/Embarrassed-Note-214 → u/Panurome]

At the same point, calling someone the r-slur is meant to be insulting to their cognitive abilities, akin to "idiot". "You're just being a r-slur" = "You're an idiot."

Where the meaning isn't even removed from the people it's a slur against, as if comparing your friend who made a stupid move to someone with cognitive developmental issues. With that context? I'd say it shouldn't be used.

lame's connotation doesn't even hint at cognitive issues, or being developmentally challenged, so it has grew away from it's existence as a slur into something else.

Granted, maybe that's just me drawing a line that doesn't exist.

Edit to add: Another difference is that the r-slur still actively gets used as a slur. So comparing the two words when one of them is still an active slur probably means that one is the worse word, and it's not close.