There has been a spate of diaries in the last couple days about words, and, in particular, words about mental illness and related issues. It seems to have started when our leader said someone should "take their meds", or some similar phrase. Then Julie Waters wrote a diary entitled Schizophrenia which made the rec list. Then mortifyd wrote one called batshit crazy which is on the rec list as I type.
There have been other diaries as well.
Are comments like "take your meds" funny? Or are they out of bounds? Could they be both?
My thoughts below the fold.
I am learning disabled. I wear glasses. I am very uncoordinated. I have a wide nose and very curly hair and very little bodily or facial hair and, back when I was a kid, I used to get very darkly tanned in summer. So.....
I've been called things.
Lots of things. "Retard" (that goes with being LD). "Four eyes" (glasses). "Spazzo" (can you guess?). And lots of others. And racial epithets for both Black people and Latino people (oddly, no one has called me any racial epithet for Jewish, which I am).
At this point in my life, like mortifyd, perhaps, I can laugh at this stuff. I mean, I'm a married 51 year old with a PhD and a job and so on.
When I was 15, it was no laughing matter. When I was 15, I was suicidal.
There's a saying that I got told a lot when I was a kid.
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you
What a crock of ** that is. Now, not only must you deal with being teased and tormented, but you have to realize that IT DOESN'T HURT.
Words can hurt. Words can damage people in ways different than, but as severe, as fists. Words can help drive people to suicide. Words can inspire hatred. Words can dehumanize.
if you're among any of the groups that get this sort of attack, and you can deal with it with equanimity, I say Congratulations. I mean that. It's a sign of security and maturity that you can take a word. But if you're among these groups and you CAN'T deal with it, then I totally understand. I've been there. It doesn't make you a bad person. Life is hard.
But what of the users of these words?
I trust that Markos did not mean to be hurtful to any kossacks when he used the expression "take your meds". And I am willing to trust that the other people here who use similar language also don't mean to be hurtful. And I realize that "take your meds", directed at the opposition, isn't as "bad" as calling someone any of the marvelous things we get called.
I know that I do not get to decide what people can say. In the general society, I am a VERY strong believer in freedom of speech. And, on daily Kos, Markos and people he appoints get to determine this sort of thing. And Markos is the one who actually SAID "take your meds".
But if people have told you that something offends them, and if the people who are offended are not people you want to offend, why would you continue?
Why?