honestly, the ableist word stuff makes me so angry nowadays.
Which. Historical context.
I cannot prove this, but I am about 90% sure that the way we talk about ableist words and ableist language has strong roots in the Ableist Word Profile series run by FWD, a blog by feminists with disabilities that ran 2009-2011. I was hanging around there from the start, guest-posted once, and not only was it the first time I had ever seen anyone call out the ableist underpinnings of some common terms like that, I remember it taking off wildly from there through the social justice sphere even at the time. By now it’s gd everywhere, but hey, things do start somewhere.
At this point I would like to quote the bloggers who contributed to the column:
Here’s what this series is about: Examining word origins, the way in which ableism is unconsciously reinforced, the power that language has.
Here’s what this series is not about: Telling people which words they can use to define their own experiences, rejecting reclamatory word usage, telling people which words they can and cannot use.
You don’t necessarily have to agree that a particular profiled word or phrase is ableist; we ask you to think about the way in which the language that we use is influenced, both historically and currently, by ableist thought.
It was never about saying “these words are bad, don’t use them”. Nor was it ever the main focus of the blog. I’d ballpark estimate that it was less than 5% of the overall posts. And my friends, there was so much cool stuff on there, media criticism, awareness raising, intersectionality guest posts, information on web accessibility, so many incisive thought-provoking posts that stuck with you. The site’s still up, you can check them out.
Even back in 2010, people noticed that there was a… weird imbalance… in exactly which of those incisive thought-provoking posts were getting spread more widely and which stayed consigned to a smaller readership. Anna’s post Why Writing about Language Isn’t Enough is still absolutely worth a read over a decade later:
And yet, when trying to have discussions about ableist language, we’re back to the silo of disability. Instead of talking about ableist language as part of the manifestation of the disdain and abuse of people with disabilities, it’s treated as isolated – the problem, instead of a symptom of the problem.
Ableism is not simply a language problem.
and yet, and yet, of that amazing blog, the thing that seems to have made the absolute most impact in the social justice sphere in the long run is… language.
and not even in the nuanced, let’s examine how ableism influences our language historically and today, way it was intended as. In the incredibly reductive “hey, these are Bad words, use these Good words instead” way that the original bloggers actively wanted to prevent. The way that can make spaces hostile to non-native English speakers, people with specific verbal or cognitive disabilities or some people with OCD. The way that is both incredibly punitive and, at the same time, has ceded such important ground in the fight - oh, it’s a simple replacement, say Y instead of X, it’s just that the etymology is ableist you see, it’s that the word is triggering. It’s not like you need to worry that the concept you are trying to express in and of itself might have ableist underpinnings. no need to think about it that deeply.
ableism is just a language problem, don’t you know.
Even the goddamn web accessibility stuff hasn’t gone big to the same point, and that contained some serious low-hanging fruit for improvement. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone be publicly berated for no image descriptions, no subtitles on video, or non-descriptive link text the way people get over language. and when’s the last time I saw someone talk about whether a website was screen-reader accessible.
But really. Every time I see the “X word is ableist, don’t use it” it’s like I’m seeing the horrible bastardized knock-off version of the beautiful work my friends and community put so much of themselves into back then. And yeah. It makes me angry.
