i heard it through the grapevine

[piranha]

if i call myself "lame" is that ableist?

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

If you mean "lame" as in "bad", then yep, I believe it is. Maybe stonebender has a more informed opinion on this, though. (I'm embarrassed when I call something "lame" to mean "bad", especially when I'm around him.)

"lame" as in "bad"

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

not exactly "bad", but it is a slightly negative thing. i most often apply it to myself when i am hanging around not doing anything when there's lots to be done, and i use it for boring jokes when the paramour and i banter.

i've written a longer response explaining it to stonebender here.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Strictly speaking, sure it is. I doubt any person with a disability would be very bothered.

ableist language

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i've been thinking about such descriptors (lame, idiot, moron, dumb) a fair bit for a while now, and i think i've teased out why they don't bother me -- even though i try to be sensitive to language, and have eradicated using certain insults. i agree, inherently they sound ableist.

i think they don't bother me because they're no longer used in my vernacular in their original meaning, and haven't been during my entire lifetime. that is, i have only ever heard them applied to people without those disabilities, and it's been completely beyond the pale to do otherwise. i don't even _think_ of them (internally, in my "gestalt" thoughts) as relating to disability. there is no connection between a person who can't use their legs well or at all, and what i perceive internally when i think of myself as "lame" -- instead the gestalt is something like moving through molasses, or maybe even more so lying down while a molasses-like substance flows very slowly all around me, and i know i should move, but i am not going to. (my "gestalt" thoughts are very hard to express in words.)