Ableism: How a Single Word Can Speak Volumes

In the past couple of months, we have gone over a number of forms of privilege (white, thin, able-bodied, class, ect.) and the actions and fallacies that cause major disparities in our society. While examples of these actions and fallacies mostly include racism, discrimination and hate crimes, there are more out there. That's why, today, I want to dive into the power of words.

We all  know that the old "sticks and stones" rhyme we used to hear in elementary school is about as accurate as claiming that the sky is magenta. Words can cause some serious damage. Currently, our culture is littered with damaging words that are not only offensive, but  active in the perpetuation of the inequality overwhelms this country. One specific sub-group which faces the brunt of this epidemic is the disabled community.

When it comes to words of offense, there are some that are not up for debate. For example, "faggot" or the n word. Words like these have been known to be spoken out of hate, and, generally speaking, we've come to the consensus that we're not supposed to say them. However, there are still many harmful words that have slipped under the radar of offense simply because they don't offend us. For example, "crazy," "retard," "cripple," "bipolar," and "spaz." Many of us hear, or even say, at least one of these words on a day to day basis. As ordinary as they may seem, however, they still have a derogatory effect. This is called ableist language.

Imagine if somebody used  "crazy" to describe their mother who had Alzheimer's, or if somebody called a veteran missing one of his legs a "cripple." That would be extremely offensive! Why is then, that these words are acceptable to use in other contexts? The answer is that they really aren't, it is just assumed that they are because there are so few activists against ableist language. Ableism really is something that we should work towards  avoiding. There specific terms that cut into specific groups more than others. Just as we abstain from saying racial slurs, or homophobic phrases, we should extend  the same act of diligence to the disabled community by choosing alternatives to ableist language.

For some examples of non-ableist alternative, check out the chart from Upworthy!