(no subject)

[noracharles]

I'm one of the editors of the White Collar Roundup - I collect the White Collar content posted to dreamwidth.

That's how I first came across the comm then called fanspastic. The name offended me, and I hated linking to content on a comm like that, but I want our newsletter to be inclusive, and I'll link to everything regardless of my personal feelings about its authors.

Now the comm has been renamed to fangasmic, which is a huge improvement! Thank you mark for taking care of that before renaming is officially possible.

I went to look at the comm, thinking the mods might just be ignorant, and maybe it's not a horrible place after all. LOL, wrong.

Is using the word "spaz" in the mod post explaining the rename supposed to be ironic, and do the mods think that it is therefore funny?

Comments

[zing_och]

lol cultural divide - I'm actually struggling with ablist language a lot, not being a native speaker, but "it's not okay to call someone a spastic when they're not" was the one rule I knew from childhood. It's really weird that someone doesn't know this!

[zvi]

The issue is that the term as a technical term, for someone with tremors of whatever kind, is rare outside of, maybe, medical circles, maybe disability circles in the United States. It's like, oh, spindles in fairytales. Lots of people know that Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on a spindle, a lot fewer people have any conception of what a spindle does and why it might be on a spinning wheel. heck, I'm not sure how much there is general knowledge of what a spinning wheel is for, except (not) turning straw into gold.

[noracharles]

I struggle a lot with ableist language too. It was only during the warnings debate that I was made aware of my internalized ableism, and the widespread ableist oppression going on all over.

I'm working to learn, and I'm not going to hold it against anyone if they're ignorant. Ignorance is a state, not a quality :-)

I didn't know that it was not okay to call someone "spastic" when they were not, I used to use the word and derivations of it derogatorily, just as I used "lame" and many, many words for mental illness and developmental disabilities.

It is difficult to weed out all those words, because they're so common and ingrained, and it's easy to ignore them when I am not personally demeaned by them.

Also a beginner in ablism awareness.

[aquaeri]

I'm not sure it's okay to call anyone "spastic" because the term has so much negative baggage and eg people with cerebral palsy do not deserve that. I'd check with any given person whether they think it's appropriate for them. Sort of like, a lot of disabled people self-describe as "crip" or "crippled" but I wouldn't use it about them without checking first.

Re: Also a beginner in ablism awareness.

[noracharles]

I wouldn't use the word in English. I have never seen it used in a way that wasn't derogatory.

Re: Also a beginner in ablism awareness.

[aquaeri]

Yep, exactly.

(I have, in medical discussions of cerebral palsy. But medical language is its own rarified beast, and even medical professionals are becoming aware of stigma around certain labels and their non-medical meanings.)