EDIT: Also that "r-word" thing is dumb as stuff. Mental handicapation is an actual medical term.
That's not the point of the r-word thing. There would be controversy surrounding "handicap" if people used it in a medical setting. The point of the r-word campaign is to stop the
derogatory use of it.
It's like the word gay. If a person is gay, then they're gay. The word doesn't become an issue until it is associated with something negative.
Although after what Badspot said, I understand the flaw in this sort of thinking. Negative denotations will always be assigned to different words.
-snip-
I agree fully. Being called bossy doesn't mean someone is taking on a leadership role, it means they
suck at taking a leadership role. If someone is told they're bossy I think it should come as a learning experience--how do I avoid being bossy in the future? What caused me to seem bossy in the first place?
First and foremost, 'leadership' is not a thing in elementary schools.
Just playing devil's advocate here: a lot of elementary schools in Ohio take part in a program called the Leadership Summit. Students write essays explaining what they think makes someone a fit leader, and college students review the essays then choose the best of them. I was a part of the program (hehe what can I say), and my teachers ended up trying to give me more independence.
Not super leadership-focused, because again we're just elementary kids, but I guess they at least tried to nurture confidence in us.
The problem is that the label isn't the bad thing. Being the thing that the label refers to is what is bad. Any word you pick is going to become an insult because no one wants to be mentally deficient. "Moron", "idiot" and "imbecile" all started out as medical terms and degenerated into insults. Then "handicapped" replaced them as the kind word to say and now that's wearing out. "Autistic" is fast becoming a general insult. There's no escape because the condition is the insult, not the label.
If you want to remove the insult you have to address the condition - either cure it or make people sympathize and understand the afflicted. Attacking words does nothing but encourage people to dismiss the issue.
I see what you mean, and I especially like your last sentence because it can be observed right here. Attacking the word is doing nothing but making us think this whole movement is silly and ridiculous.
You're totally right, actually. I see that, no matter what new words we invent, people will always begin to use them as an insult as per the
euphemism treadmill. Fighting the derogatory use of the word is pointless. Sympathizing really does work--I can't remember the last time I used handicap as an insult because I sympathize with my cousin and the special needs kids at school (I volunteer to help them out sometimes).
