This prompted me to do a lot of reading and research online. There are a number of worthwhile opinions on both sides of the fence – for example, if you ask a group of women whether the term “bitch” (as a slur against a woman) should be eliminated, you might get the following answers:

• Yes, completely. You’re comparing a woman to a dog!
• No, it should just be applied equally to men.
• No, when someone calls me a bitch, I thank them, thus turning the phrase into a compliment and ruining it for them.
• It should be eliminated in some contexts, but not others.

All of these are sound opinions. I’m sure I could have found some visually impaired people who didn’t mind me using “blind” as a metaphor for ignorance. But you know why that wasn’t the point? It took me months to get this. One day, I was thinking about which terms were permissible to describe people who don’t bother using their brains when they should, and I discovered to my shock there isn’t one. “Stupid” describes someone who lacks cognitive capacity. There’s no shame in that. I want a term that shames someone who has cognitive capacity but refuses to think out of laziness and irresponsibility. The problem is not simply that “retard” or “idiot” are ugly because they refer to actual neruological conditions and “stupid” also technically refers to someone who lacks some cognitive ability; it’s that English doesn’t even bother having a word for people who can’t be bothered to apply their cognitive ability.

Question: what does that tell you about English? Answer: that we, as a culture, think the best way to insult someone who deserves an insult is to equate them with a person who has a condition and does not deserve insult. That’s pretty sick.

“Blind” is the same raw deal. No matter what anyone thinks of it, it’s using a condition that does not deserve insult as a way of insulting people who don’t have that condition.

It took me a long time to come up with an equal or better name that had a nice ring, but I finally did. Here it is.

Related posts:

1. Ableist language in the name of this site?
2. Extroverts provide a privilege demonstration

Three years ago, I started this site. I’d heard “blinded by privilege” in a few places, and came up with the phrase “blind privilege”. It was available as a domain, so I bought it and started blogging.

Three years ago, I wasn’t very aware of able-bodied privilege, particularly in terms of specifics like ableist language. I mean, I was aware that being able-bodied gave me privileges, but I needed a lot of education on the ways in which society and individuals fail disabled people. I still need a lot of education on it, but I’ve gotten quite a bit since I bought this domain from people like Anna and Tekanji. My education on ableist language began one day when Tekanji objected to one of our posts referring to something stupid as “lame.”

I was content to take her word on it and stop using the term that way, but I also wanted to understand precisely WHY it was ableist, because the more I understand these things, the more likely I am to be able to figure out for myself when there’s something wrong with a term that’s new to me. There’s a great thread at Cerise about all this. Sometimes it’s something buried in the word’s history that gives it ugly baggage, and you couldn’t be expected to know it until you come across that history. Sometimes it’s a context you’re not aware of. Whatever the case, it’s privilege that isolates me from these words and the hurt they can cause, and the least I can do is find other terms.

And, on a side note, it’s true that some of these words are debatable, just like gendered slurs. For example, “bitch.” Does calling a man a “bitch” help neutralize the term’s slurring effect on women? What about proudly calling yourself a bitch because you are assertive and don’t take shit? I think there are valid arguments on both sides in some cases, but at least when you’re blogging for the world at large, get a thesaurus and avoid the problematic words. That’s my take. It takes work, and it’s not easy, but it really is the least privilege people can do.

Here’s what this is all leading to. A week or two ago, I was following links about the Feministing ableist language issue when suddenly it hit me: was “blind privilege” a gross example of ableist language? I decided I needed to research this, then got sick. Then Meg asked that very question just as I was getting well, which was a little uncanny. I did the research, and found the answer was yes, according to this blogger. When I chose this domain name, I was thinking of selective “blindness,” of not “seeing” a thing when it doesn’t convenience you to be aware of it. I didn’t realize there was anything problematic about describing that in terms of “seeing” or “not seeing” privilege. But RMJ is right. So is Chally.

I made a mistake. I didn’t mean to. I had no ugly intentions. But still, my privilege kept me from recognizing that a phrase I’d seen around the internet was problematic. Now I know.

My question to you is: what should I do about it? Changing the name of the blog is easy, and I welcome your suggestions for a new name. Changing the domain name is a good bit more difficult, but it can be done, more or less. Or would leaving the domain name the same but changing the blog name, and prominently linking a page that explains how it all happened be illuminating? Is there another solution I haven’t considered?

Related posts:

1. On changing the name to What Privilege
2. Please check your feeds