On changing the name to What Privilege
by Jennifer Kesler
A few months ago, we had a discussion about whether the original name of this website, Blind Privilege, was ableist. As is typical when someone raises a question like this, there were several people who agreed with changing the name and several who thought it wasn’t necessary. And a few who thought it was ridiculous to even consider changing it.
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.
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Posted in Ability on March 3, 2010
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English doesn’t even bother having a word for people who can’t be bothered to apply their cognitive ability.
My mother said the word ‘fuckwit’ is reserved for these people. So there you go.
sorry bad html
LOL! Unfortunately, there’s an argument to be made for “-wit” terms being derived from half-wit, which is definitely a slur, so while I’ve seen some anti-ableists recommend those terms as alternatives to “stupid” or “moron” or “idiot”, others have argued they are ableist.
“Asshat” kind of approaches what I’m looking for, now that I think about it. As long as the person I’m speaking to/of understands it means one’s head is up one’s ass.
I always considered ‘fuckwit’ to mean a specific type of wit rather than level. So rather than it meaning ‘half wit’ or ‘low’ wit, it’s more like ‘you have a fuck-like wit’
Sort of like ‘dick head’?
Closest I’ve seen are wilfully ignorant or wilfully oblivious, since they carry both the lack of awareness and the choice in it.
I’ve also seen “don’t use the sense God gave them”, but that’s a bit lengthy and something about it discomforts me though I’ve yet to figure out what that is. I can’t think of a single word that covers it.
““Asshat” kind of approaches what I’m looking for, now that I think about it. ”
Please don’t spread this incredibly annoying term any further.
“As long as the person I’m speaking to/of understands it means one’s head is up one’s ass.
”
There was a great line in one of The Slits albums, “Untie your mind from your behind”
“wilfully ignorant ”
Sometimes we just need two words. Although sometimes ‘disingenuous’ works.
Isabel, then what do you suggest as a noun to describe someone who’s willfully ignorant? “Fool” is the only word that comes remotely close, and it gets annoying just having one word to use in every single instance.