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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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The politically correct word changes every decade. "Black people" used to be more offensive than "colored people"
Euphemism treadmill.
In any sensitive, socially fraught context, terminology will just change faster than in other areas of life.
That's why we no longer use terms like idiot, retard, cripple, imbecile, etc. as neutral, objective terminology. Instead, terms that where initially used as objective, clinical terminology are now exclusively used as slurs and insults.
It's just that when it comes to race, some people (and it's often people not affected by it) have a hard time accepting that concept.
To be fair, if I heared someone say "colored people" I would not be at all surprised to later hear them say "retard" in the same setting.
An easy way to pick out racists in the modern day is if they just casually call black people "blacks." It seems to be one of the words that, although it's not used by non-racists, hasn't been phased out by some of the less explicit racists yet in the way "colored people" has.
Yeah, dead giveaway, they saw "black people" and removed "people" in their head so the verbiage is bound to follow.
As we've seen over the past decade (well, past few decades, tbh), changing the word only moves the objectionable meaning onto the new word. The goal is to address the meaning, but it feels like so much energy is being spent on addressing the words themselves that the meaning never gets dealt with...
...which I guess is understandable for those who have given up hope of the meaning being addressed, but then why spend the effort on the word?
It's been going on for much longer. Just look up all the clinical terms that came into use in the Victorian era. There's been an ongoing effort to come up with better terminology. Words came into existence in an effort to have neutral terminology to refer to certain symptoms or conditions or to categorize people or chronic illnesses or ethnicities etc.
It's just that we no longer use terms like "moron" or "lunatic" or "retard" or "fool" or "insane" or "Mongol" as neutral, objective, clinical terminology.
I think many people get used (and attached) to the terminology that they learned when growing up, unaware that this terminology has been changing at a rapid pace for centuries now, and then get all bent out of shape when they're being told that the words they were taught as kids are no longer the preferred way of referring to certain conditions/ethnicities/demographic groups etc.
And of course, then there are people who use those expressions with the full intention to insult and malign, only to feign ignorance when called out: "But that's the word people have always been using! Why are you getting so upset?"
It would help if people would stop being aholes and turning terms into offensive ones by intentionally using them insult. "autism" is being used online sometimes in place of "retard" now as an insult. Won't be long before those of us on the spectrum need a new term because of these clowns.
Every insult word to call someone stupid was once a clinical term (including stupid). I am not kidding look it up that's quite a long history of doing this, people suck.
I wasn't sure about a young guys name out here and asked someone "do you know the young black man who's new in the neighborhood? I wanted to thank him for helping someone I know the other day." After I helped host an event.
holy shit this person got mad at me. Said I needed to call them african canadian or colored. I get so confused by terms these days. Same with indigenous and native. I live in an area with many, and know some, and different ones prefer different words. I call one of them one term, and other that same one, they might get offended. I try to be as respectful as I can, gets hard.
Example, my therapist goes by indigenous, but her wife goes by native. So I thanked her wife one day for helping me at a indigenous event I was at, and she said "we call it a native event".
I'm having such a hard time the past 2 years in particular, and trying really hard with all of these changes in terms, pronouns and every time I think I understand it, apparently I don't. I have one trans friend who I see occasionally and thankfully they agree with me and makes me feel a bit less nutty.
My girlfriend is considering changing her orientation to some new wording I've literally never heard of all of a sudden now too. I just found a tonne of new things, like grey sexual, demisexual, etc. People I've been in employment/training programs with have changed their name and gender 2-3 times in the past year, and each time I see them I get confused with what to say or call them. It is oddly overwhelming.
sorry this turned into a slight vent
I think if you wanna make things easier you could just be more generic with your wording. If you don't know someone's gender you can say they, and unless you're doing so many events that you gotta be specific, you can just say the event.
I understand getting frustrated with the confusion, although I think if you're approaching it with good intentions then no one should be upset with you.
I've been calling black people black people for 30+ years. They never liked the term "African-American" much either, in my experience. That term was made up by white people that overcorrected their racism. I have never had a single black person get offended or upset, because why should someone be offended by their own skin? I interchange "brown people" but that's more of a catch-all term for everyone that's not a shade of printer paper like myself.
I know black people who aren't from anywhere near africa (caribbean) and white people from south africa. Also met plenty of black brits who are neither african nor american! POC is definitely an upgrade from than absurdity. But they drilled it into us for so long it'll take a while for society to drop it.