As a disabled person, “special” in reference to disabled people is imo one of the worst ableist slurs, I find it more offensive than retard. my experience isn’t universal, but I just wanted to let you know, I know it was just a joke and I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I have to be honest and say, it does hurt a bit to see it.
In all seriousness, where the line between funny and offensive is drawn is completely subjective. My line is obviously different than others. I didn’t feel that my puns were personally directed at anyone and I didn’t see them as perpetuating any harmful stigma or stereotypes. It uses a word I wouldn’t actually use in daily life but the pun wouldn’t work otherwise. Life has a lot of legitimate malicious people out there that there’s no need to split hairs to find more. There is no subjective way to look at what the IDF did in this case. It is objectively malicious and evil. I didn’t expect my puns to be the thing that upset people.
I thought of another joke. Being mindful, I’ve hidden the punchline. You’ve been warned!
Say the guy here was Hamas. Do you think he'd carry...a .38 Special?
I understand that you probably don’t really recognise the impact of ableist slurs, but as someone who has been bullied, harassed, beaten up and sexually assaulted by people mocking me by using those slurs, they trigger a bit of a traumatic response. It’s not that they’re directed at anyone in particular, it’s just that they’re never possible to use in reference to disabled people without being, at the very least, extremely patronising, and extremely dehumanising at the worst.
I completely get that you didn’t intend any harm, and you were trying to criticise the IDF in your own way, and I’m really sympathetic towards that: fuck the IDF, 100%, they’re incredibly evil.
All I am doing is just asking you to please reconsider using ableist slurs as jokes in the future, that’s all. We’re all human, we all make mistakes, and it’s a completely normal reaction to protect our own ego when someone tells us that we hurt them in some way, so I don’t blame you for your reaction, but please try to overcome that knee-jerk reaction <3
It’s not a knee jerk reaction. You’re one person out of 8 billion. I’m treating your request the way I’d treat any request made to me by a random person on the internet. <3
How many people are you willing to harm before you change your behaviour? What’s the trade off in human suffering compared to the positives of making your joke?
So far I still think I’m in the positives. You didn’t like the joke. That’s fine. You don’t speak for all disabled people. You never even asked if I’m disabled.
I already said that I don’t speak for all disabled people, though, anecdotally, in groups that I’m in (I volunteer with a disability support group), the terms special and special needs are often highlighted as ableist terms that disabled people find offensive or get used against them as slurs. Some research online also bears that out, a number of reputable sources online have recommended avoiding the use of the terms special and special needs.
It doesn’t really particularly matter whether you’re disabled or not. This isn’t about identity, it’s about using a slur. If you had used the n-word as part of a joke and got backlash I think you’d understand this a bit better.
You’re being pretty callous around the fact that you genuinely emotionally hurt me, I’ve been as respectful, kind and considerate of you and your feelings as I can be. How do you expect to build a people-led movement to dismantle the exploitation of the working class if you can’t bring yourself to even care for one other person? On just a human level, I’m not trying to have an argument where I one-up you or something like that, this isn’t some debate to win or lose, I’m just talking to you, human to human, and trying to help you to understand that you’re unintentionally hurting people who are one of the most vulnerable minorities in society.
I truly hope that you’re just being a bit edgy and that in future you really will think twice about this kind of thing, regardless of what you write now.
originally it meant “happy.” words change. i don’t really care that some people in the 90s meant it in a homophobic way. it’s 2024 and being the slur police is fuckin gay
I think it’s a bit different when the word has been totally abandoned for the previous use. I don’t know anyone who uses ‘lame’ or ‘dumb’ to refer to people with those disabilities. It’s practically an archaic meaning at this point. Gay is still most popular as a reference to sexuality.
I mean thank you, I remember I got banned from a group like 10 years ago because I said the forbidden F-word, they all knew I was pan and trans, but apparently my N-Word Pass expired?
Can’t say the t-word either, I remember before it was a pejorative it was more like a cute nickname.
original meaning: “waaaah I got trapped into thinking a person of the sex I’m not attracted to is hot and now my genitalia is making me feel weird!”
new & improved meaning: this person dressed not as their assigned-birth-sex is so hot they could literally trap me Looney Tunes style by being distractingly attractive 😩
Not the T-Word I meant, I think Trap is still an appropiate term for femboys in a purely sexual context. It’s only offensive when used as a term for transgirls… at least that’s what I’ve heard
As a nurse this bandage trump showed up with looks totally like it is for show only. I would bet real money, that no healthcare professional was near this bandage and it was probably a PR person who sticked stuck this on him.
Can’t wait to see some daring journalist ask Trump in a filmed interview to see the scar. I assume Trump will classify that under the “that’s too personal” category of lies he doesn’t want to defend.
Getting the right ear pieced, also called the gay ear, is a way to signal to others that you are gay. I have no idea if it’s still a thing but growing up if you were getting a piercing the rule was left or both
Progressive-leaning lesbian and vehemently anti-Trump, actually. She was very much a part of LGBTQ+ culture in the 90s, and the ear piercing thing was a part of it at the time. Though it really has fallen to the wayside nowadays.
I have two in my right, one in my left, and have been told many times that its the same thing. More in the right ear apparently makes me gay. Im definitely straight, but I kept my piercings like this for the last 15 years, and wouldnt you know it, the only people telling me thats gay are other straight people. This is certainly just personal experiences, but my personal experience is that its not a ‘gay rule’ as much as its a ‘homophobe rule.’ Like you said, pretty sure it was a style or signal in the gay community in the 80s or something, but any more it just feels like an urban legend perpetuated by bigots.
Honestly, I don’t blame straight people that caught up with the “right ear” thing in the 80’s for that they haven’t caught up with the fact that it’s expired.
This was never a very reliable thing ever and certainly isn’t anymore. The joke the OP makes is in reference to what it was used for, which was an attempt to attack / stigmatize anyone who did choose their right ear for a piercing perpetrated by small minds. Many of those small minds have now grown into the hateful old bigots that are the base of the GOP.
Devils advocate for the heck of it. Gonna be submerged in bad rep for this.
This is comparative to people wearing “I can’t breathe” signs after Floyd or waving a pride flag to show solidarity. You just give them shit because you do t agree with them.
Sure they are all fucking stupid for not seeing the obvious flaws in their idol. But giving them shit for a pretty rational way of showing support to their idol is not the right use of your energy.
You are participating in the fragmentation of your nation by pouring your hate into simple stuff like this.
But giving them shit for a pretty rational way of showing support to their idol is not the right use of your energy.
Laughing at idiots is never not the right use of my energy, thank you very much.
You are participating in the fragmentation of your nation by pouring your hate into simple stuff like this.
I’ll feel guilty about it when it isn’t fascists I’m fragmenting out of my country. If anything, I’m proud to make those fucks uncomfortable in my country.
Thank you for being willing to stick your neck out there and say what you feel and see.
On social media, especially sites where voting seems to happen in packs, it’s risky to have a counter opinion. Too many people just don’t say how they feel if it’s counter to the mainstream, and then their voices are completely drowned out.
Perhaps your idea is more mainstream than you know but those who share it don’t have a willingness to jump into the fire, leaving those with more extreme positions thinking they have agreement with most when they don’t.
There is a lot of truth to it. Just criticize or bring up one of the many objectively bad things Biden has done and then wait for the Blue MAGA individuals to come out of the woodwork telling you he’s “the most progressive president in modern history” and that he deserves our unwavering support just because he has a (D) next to his name.
I’m sure a lot of this is rooted in fear around him losing the election, but these people have their heads buried in the sand and can’t see that the Democrats are handing the election to Trump just like they did in 2016 because they’d rather maintain the status quo and push right wing candidates like Clinton and Biden than help the American people by allowing a real progressive into the office.
There’s a huge difference between saying someone is doing good, and literally praying to them in their absence. Like, have you seen the videos of people filming themselves praying to Donald trump to free them of <whatever>? They exist.
The left used their brain and all come to the conclusion that Trump is a shitty person all on their own, they didn’t get their words from Fox News or their Republican cult leader
sheep is led by a shepherd, people who make their thoughts on their own are the opposite of a sheep. You need to educate yourself more, at your current level of intelligence, you’ll swallow anything the Republican shit out
The method of showing support might be similar to something like the George Floyd demonstrations. But I’m not giving them shit for their method, I’m doing it because of who they’re showing support for. If somebody wore a bandage on their ear in solidarity with an innocent person who was shot in that spot by cops, I’d applaud them.
And as for fragmenting our nation, there is no tolerance available for fascists and their supporters. They choose to split us apart when they vote for someone like Trump who targets the vulnerable in our society.
Hear me out, showing solidarity to a slave owner attacked by his slave is different than showing solidarity to a slave who was just beaten. The power dynamic should not be ignored
This is comparative to people wearing “I can’t breathe” signs after Floyd or waving a pride flag to show solidarity. You just give them shit because you do t agree with them.
i mean yeah, except if floyd was just, moderately bruised, and wasn’t killed.
Like it’s still bad, but he barely got hit, so it’s literally just a flesh wound.
Projection is how Republicans roll. Remember when MAGA accused Joe Biden of wearing diapers and they found out their dear orange felon/rapist cult leader wore them instead, and started wearing them?
which is hilarious, because if you’re whining about someone “taking away your masculinity,” (OR if you’re having panic attacks about someone else’s masculinity) then you were never masculine in the first place.
Just a reminder, jd vance, trumps newest vp pick, has on many occasions been quoted in the past of saying “I didn’t vote for trump”, “I never liked trump”, and “I’m a never-trump guy”.
NOW he sings trumps praises, and kisses trumps ass.
vance is just another vapid muppet who’ll get thrown under the bus the instant shit goes sideways and trump needs someone to blame for…whatever. just like all the other used-to-be-never-trumpers who are now fighting over who gets to be first to be facialed by trump
When has solidarity resembled anything like this? Wearing a fake bandage is a strange way to show it, it’s hyper focused on the leader as opposed to the movement. It reads more as devotion than solidarity.
This is the kind of thing you do for the kid that’s feeling down about their injured appearance. For a supposed leader of the free world who brought the injury on themselves, it’s definitely more like kissing the ring
Solidarity with a movement or organization is different than solidarity with a person.
Like everyone in your office might wear a company logo sometimes to show your affiliation, but if they all put on a bandaid everytime the boss got a paper cut it would seem a bit cultish.
I think they’re trying to milk the sympathy card for all it’s worth by wearing these bandages. Since Trump only got a cut on his ear and an innocent spectator was killed, the event isn’t playing as well as it did for Reagan back in the day during his reelection campaign. Wearing big, bulky bandages, they’re ‘peacocking’ to keep Trump’s extremely mild injury fresh in everyone’s mind.
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