Ableism and Ableist Language

[Nat]

There is a great deal of ableist language in the common vernacular - in my experience it's everywhere - work, media, friends, queer community. Most of it seems pretty accepted and I don't think much about it.sometimes I don't even have a clear the line is between ableist language and metaphorical language. For example,"stand up for what you believe in" or "he is blinded by his own feelings." Commonly used terms - ableist?

I do have a problem with the word "retarded" being used pejoratively, but what about terms like "moron" "idiot" "dumb" or "stupid" - are these terms more okay? Is attacking a person's or groups intelligence ever okay? What about when you are talking about yourself, eg. "that was really stupid of me."

I hadn't thought much about the generic word "crazy" being used in this way, though I have seen the word used in a sexist way. Anyway, I ran across this in a podcast and wanted to share it. What do y'all think?

"The word 'crazy' has been used a lot lately - or perhaps I'm just noticing it more - to describe things such as right-wing extremism, workloads at the office or hellish commutes to places we don't really enjoy going to, or even abstract art. I think mostly it's come up a lot when discussing the right-wing movement in the United States' current love affair with the Tea Party or "Teabaggers" as they are so often called. I'll give one example of its use and why it's problematic:

There's a string of people in the United States who do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States, and they are calling for proof of his birth certificate. All over the place, this is described as "crazy."

Now, it's not a mental illness. It is a wholesale belief and an investment in the idea of white supremacy, of entitlement based on concepts of race, and probably also intersecting with gender. *He's a black man in the United States, which is something to be feared if you believe current power structures. So, it's not that their thoughts are a sign of mental illness. It's that they are so invested in the system in which when you're (usually) a white male, you do pretty well in society as long as you are cisgendered, white, middle-class, pass as middle class, probably don't have too much of an accent. There's a lot that goes into these power structures.

But individuals who are having this violent reaction to a president who is a person of color, who is the child of an immigrant - their reaction is this sort of knee-jerk, "no, but that's not supposed to happen, because me and my kin are always supposed to be on top." It's the complete investment in this power structure, which is not mental illness. This is how power structures perpetuate themselves....I think we really need to inspect why we are using these words.

And that brings me to my sort of open letter to Rachel Maddow. She is someone that a lot of people who consider themselves liberal watch and enjoy her newscasting and reporting - and I'm one of them - but she throws around the word "crazy" a lot, and it's not alright.

So, this is the start of my open letter to Rachel Maddow:

"Whether or not MSN is a bastion of the liberal media, you are a voice in the media, one referenced, cited and honored in liberal circles. *Hell, you're used for fear-mongering by the right-wing to do fund-raising. *So when an individual such as yourself is cited, you are both looked up to and at the same time you serve as an example. *When you use the term, "crazy," which our culture uses as short-hand for the very real category of mental illness, you are perhaps unknowingly perpetuating ableism within a movement that claims to be progressive."

That's what I have so far."

-Fully Engaged Feminism (podcast) - Episode 18