yeah, no, and fuck you

Really.

On behalf of those of us who were and are single women on welfare with children in the South and at some point in our lives lived in a--I need to check the wording--"rural south USA in a welfare slum trailer"--and who do not think our population should be fodder for your smug little war on the word shack:

Fuck. You.

Are you fucking serious?

Are you comparing lower income women's lives--and since you used the word 'welfare', we all know you're talking about women, who make up the majority of welfare clients; women, whose choices and lives are limited by poverty and the difficulties raising children alone, without spousal support; poor urban women, a population that is statistically more likely to be battered by their male partner--to a fucking challenge using the word shack?

I suppose indywind felt it was 'problematic' to use the term 'trailer trash'; should I be grateful? Thank you. Your buddies in that thread who were so excited to read it--and that super clever "Now them's fightin' words!!!" jab--also have my abject gratitude that parts of my life--and my family, friends, and clients from when I was a caseworker who decided benefits for those renters of "rural south USA in a welfare slum trailer"--are being held up in humourous example of how southern poverty is totally like using the word shack. I feel as if social justice is on my side.

So, my night is shit. How's everyone else doing?

Comments

A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[thejeopardymaze]

Are you comparing lower income women's lives--and since you used the word 'welfare', we all know you're talking about women, who make up the majority of welfare clients; women, whose choices and lives are limited by poverty and the difficulties raising children alone, without spousal support; poor urban women, a population that is statistically more likely to be battered by their male partner--to a fucking challenge using the word shack?


The White Knighting syndrome enforcing language policing in the name of disability rights is bad enough-and I'm sick of hearing how if you're disabled and disagree with it you're a self-loathing disabled person, now it's all over the place for just about anything. I won't pretend I'm surprised by this kind of bullshit, dogpiling is already considered oppressive in some circles, but you have my sympathies.

Re: A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[yahtzee]

The White Knighting syndrome enforcing language policing in the name of disability rights is bad enough.

Amen. I am at the point where I believe this stuff to be sincere instead of thinly disguised fandom grudges about .05% of the time. Which is a shame, because the genuine discussions have long since been drowned out by the sound of all those axes to be ground.

Re: A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[saraht]

I have to keep telling myself that the valid concerns remain valid, and it's hardly shocking that in any large group, there will be people who will be able to address the concerns in a sophisticated or sincere way, and there are people who will go at them clumsily or in bad faith.

I suppose we should be glad that fandom's come far enough that this is the problem, rather than "black characters don't get enough screen time to make vids for them possible!" or "I can't write characters of color, they are just tooooo alien in comparison with the actual aliens I write regularly" or "everyone in fandom is straight and white, right?" An era you and I lived through.

Re: A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[thejeopardymaze]

I suppose we should be glad that fandom's come far enough that this is the problem, rather than "black characters don't get enough screen time to make vids for them possible!"

No disagreement with you on that one.

My main beef, and I'm only speaking for my disabled self mind you, is that the attack on words like 'weak' and 'intelligent' comes from a place that appears as though there is a poor understanding of how language works and culture evolves.

Re: A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[saraht]

I just don't want people to get discouraged because sometimes less-than-thoughtful things are said. The more traction an issue has, the more people will hitch their own stuff to its wagon.

Re: A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[thejeopardymaze]

At this point I don't bother with a lot of the disability rights blogosphere. Hell I used to try to like one of the group blogs until the woman who ran it declared making comparisons between the Holocaust and the genocides in the Americas was US-centric, it sounded so stereotypically college feminist. I'm not arguing there may not be limits to genocide comparisons, different cultures and histories and so on, but dismissing it as US-centric just floored me.

Re: A somewhat better response than my rushed last one

[thejeopardymaze]

I'm not sure about fandom, but it just feels like it's about wanting to maintain the appearance of righteousness while going after all the right enemies in order to keep themselves at the top of the pecking order of the social blogosphere, possibly mixed with the fear if they disagree they'll no longer be accepted as part of the group.

What pisses me off the most about it is that apparently a lot of people are more bothered by supposedly ableist words than if a sex predator is a member of their community.