If anyone calls me “differently-abled” again, I’m going to smash their face. Whatever happened to good ol’ “handicapped”? That was a fine word, but it got deemed offensive by overly sensitive schmucks. What did it get replaced by? “Disabled.” Oh, that’s much better! Call me a cripple if you must, but don’t use a goddamn sugar coated euphemism. It just makes things much, much worse, and it makes me gag.
And now people tell me I have to refer to blacks as “African Americans,” otherwise I sound racist. Doesn’t this strike anyone else as a tad hypocritical? Unlike some people, I don’t like to divide my Americans up into groups. I refer to an American as a plain old fucking “American,” no matter what color. What happens when an “African American” doesn’t even live in America, or didn’t even come from Africa? Hell, we all came from Africa, so it’s a needless title anyway. Of course this also applies to Asian American, and other groups affected by the plague of euphemisms. I use African American as an example because I hear it the most.
Vertically challenged? Developmentally challenged? Physically challenged? Dear God, when is it going to end? Anyone who is human is challenged, period.
My mother informed me recently that new education guidelines mean she can’t refer to any of her pupils as ‘mixed race’ - they’re now Children Of Dual Heritage. :rolleyes:
Well said! I completely agree. Differently abled is particularly grating. Do those who use it genuinely not realise just how patronizing it is?
Also, a poster in a recent thread (I forget whom) brought up the interesting and very valid point that African American is something of a misnomer anyway since it is used exclusively to refer to black people. This completely ignores white South Africans who presumably have to make up their own continent when it comes to filling in census forms and the like.
My daughter (who has Cerebral Palsy) also loathes “differently abled.” She is 16 and so usually uses “disabled” as that is what she’s used to; nor does she object to “handicapped.” You know which one she really hates, though? “Handicapable.” She doesn’t like that one at all.
I so totally agree with you! One I heard years ago to refer to fat people was “horizontally challenged.” AFAIK, this one never caught on. I’m glad, because it made this FAT person want to hurl!
What people are telling you this? I don’t use the phrase African American and I’m quite a lovely shade of brown. It is highly unlikely you’d be branded a racist for using the term black. At the very worst, you could possibly be accused of being culturally insensitive and that’s a far cry from racist. To the people who would accuse you of being culturally insensitive for using the term black, well, fuck 'em.
Juanita ‘Black’ Tech
I guess I should say not to harass her but make whatever poorly defined point I intended. Hopefully she would report it and policy would change. I really have to work on my activism.
I also struggled to see why ‘handicapped’ was ditched. A handicap is, literally, an extra burden placed on horses so that they cannot run as fast. This is, to me, more dignified and accurate a phrase than all the current alternatives.
Is Aristide an African-American? Is Haiti part of “America”?
Or is he an “African-Haitian”?
And now that he is settling in Africa will he be and “African-American-African”?
South African blacks are “African-Africans”?
Whites in South Africa are “European-Africans”?
If a South African white person settles in the USA is he an “African-American”?
Or a “European-African-American”?
And don’t get me started with “Hispanic”. If you are of European descent you are white. . . unless you were born in latin America in which case you are Hispanic. . . unless your parents were US citizens in which case you are white. . . unless you can’t speak English in which case you are Hispanic. . . unless. . .
There wasn’t anything specifically wrong with ‘Negro,’ which is just ‘black’ in Spanish, but it got tied up with a lot of negative connotations, so we ditched it. Fine.
‘Colored’ had potential, since it acknowledged the wide variety and range of colors. But the racists started using it, and we dropped it. So be it.
‘Black’ has some flaws, as a term, but it has a long history and everyone knows what it means. It seems to be working okay.
But ‘African-American’ is just too darned long. No language is ever going to discard a one-syllable word and replace it with a four-syllable word. If we decide to replace ‘black’ with something else, that’s fine- but it had better not take longer to say.
Similarly, “The Spastics’ Society” changed its name to “Scope”, and I promptly started counting under my breath before the word “Scope” became a playground insult. I don’t think I reached a hundred. :rolleyes:
And I was once mildly puzzled when I heard a news item on the radio about a panic at a zoo involving some people with “learning difficulties”. There was a spot of… cognitive dissonance?.. in my head between the idea of a public kafuffle and, say, a remedial-reading class, and then the penny dropped. If my prejudices concerning people whose “learning difficulties” are over, say, how to tie shoelaces or eat with a fork, need addressing, then so be it, but obscurantist waffle isn’t the way to go about it.
scans the preceding sentence for comma abuse, then decides to let it be
