i do not believe these words should be abandoned!
my intent is to point out and critique society’s weaponization of words, not the words themselves.
also! this is a descriptive post, not perscriptive
what that means is just that i want ppl to be aware that this pattern has happened in the past and of course the forces behind those happenings haven’t just disappeared. i think pride in being ND and the fact that “neurodiverse” is a word that is created by its own community are powerful reasons to doubt that the word will have the same fate. perhaps i would call this a “call to awareness” post rather than a call to action.
(making this disclaimer because a couple people are violently adamant that i am just trying to make an argument saying all these words are the same and predicting the future, which, sorry you got that impression it’s not true. but now you know!)
Why "regarded"? I don't get it tbh. To me it just says that you want to call someone "retarded" but you're just too much of a coward to commit. Like, it communicates the exact same contempt for someone's cognitive abilities but also an aversion to using a proper No-No Word™ because you don't wanna transgress some sorta social taboo against them while doing so. Cuck behaviour, ngl chief.
Or, it might be because some communities silence those who use certain words, regardless of context, and this person is trying to avoid that...
Yes, and I still think that shitlordy behaviour of "teehee I didn't technically break the rules-as-written despite it being blatantly obvious to everyone around that my intent was to do exactly that because I'm scared of getting a comment removed on the internet" is a pathetic display of weakness.
Idk, I find all three alternatives preferable: either say the slur we all know you mean and just cop the consequences, be more creative with your insult game, or idk, maybe just don't use cognitive impairments as a punching bag???
honestly i support more shaming of this kind of behavior. i can even identify areas where this would have been more rhetorically effective in my own experiences.
instead of getting defensive: “what do you mean by that?” “no no i don’t understand please explain what ‘acoustic’ means?” “what is restarted?”
unserious ableists deserve unserious conversations