dragons in the library
Oct. 24th, 2012 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanThe rule I decided on for sorting through my books was that if I ever wanted to re-read it I could keep it. Otherwise it goes out the door. Some books I can tell you the answer right away. Some I have to leaf through a bit or read the first chapter. Since I have so many books this process is taking a while. I have also filled two big boxes where the answer is, "Yes, but only the once." So these are the books I am now reading right away.
One of the ones I just finished is a paperback so old it is held together by an elastic band. It was published in 1964 - I was a year old. The events it describes as happening in the near future are already 20 years in the past.
That makes it kind of an interesting read even without discussing the worth of the writing itself. But what really jarred me out of the story was the language used to describe Africans and Asians - they were referred to as Negroids and Mongolians. There were two characters in the story with birth defects, both were called mongoloids by other characters. This was not the author trying to be cruel, this was the accepted polite nomenclature in the year the book was written.
In 2012 those words feel either archaic or give me an emotional wince that makes it hard to focus on the story. Since the early 60s the word "mongoloid" became an insult and an epithet and so we don't say it any more. It was replaced by the much more kind and scientifically accurate term "mentally retarded".
Except that now "retarded" is an insult too. So we've replaced it with... Developmentally delayed, I think? Mentally challenged? Neuro-atypical? Is it fucked up of me that I'm not even sure? I know I've heard "delayed" thrown around as insults recently, so if those terms are considered socially acceptable now I imagine they won't be for long.
And this right there is a big part of why I find changes in acceptable language to be problematic. The problem is not with the words. The problem is that dicks will treat a group of people as if they are an insult just by existing[1]. You can change the language as often as you want, the shit-heads will change right alongside you and pollute any new term you come up with.
I don't have a solution for this. Fewer shitheads I guess. Except I don't see that happening any time soon either.
[1]This post is brought to you by Ann Coulter and by the people who think they are insulting Ann Coulter by making jokes about how she used to be a man. You are not on my side.
One of the ones I just finished is a paperback so old it is held together by an elastic band. It was published in 1964 - I was a year old. The events it describes as happening in the near future are already 20 years in the past.
That makes it kind of an interesting read even without discussing the worth of the writing itself. But what really jarred me out of the story was the language used to describe Africans and Asians - they were referred to as Negroids and Mongolians. There were two characters in the story with birth defects, both were called mongoloids by other characters. This was not the author trying to be cruel, this was the accepted polite nomenclature in the year the book was written.
In 2012 those words feel either archaic or give me an emotional wince that makes it hard to focus on the story. Since the early 60s the word "mongoloid" became an insult and an epithet and so we don't say it any more. It was replaced by the much more kind and scientifically accurate term "mentally retarded".
Except that now "retarded" is an insult too. So we've replaced it with... Developmentally delayed, I think? Mentally challenged? Neuro-atypical? Is it fucked up of me that I'm not even sure? I know I've heard "delayed" thrown around as insults recently, so if those terms are considered socially acceptable now I imagine they won't be for long.
And this right there is a big part of why I find changes in acceptable language to be problematic. The problem is not with the words. The problem is that dicks will treat a group of people as if they are an insult just by existing[1]. You can change the language as often as you want, the shit-heads will change right alongside you and pollute any new term you come up with.
I don't have a solution for this. Fewer shitheads I guess. Except I don't see that happening any time soon either.
[1]This post is brought to you by Ann Coulter and by the people who think they are insulting Ann Coulter by making jokes about how she used to be a man. You are not on my side.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-25 12:52 am (UTC)So, we go from nigger to negro to black to African American to... "people of colour" to something else, and they all mean the same thing, more or less.
I'm assuming Mongolians is not a reference to people from Mongolia (inner or outer)?
It made me wonder if Negroid is still used at all, scientifically. It seems to be.
Since the early 60s the word "mongoloid" became an insult and an epithet and so we don't say it any more.
I don't know. Devo seemed okay with it in the early '80s.
Ann Coulter? Shesh.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-26 03:18 pm (UTC)Personally I think African-American is a useful term because it differentiates people who arose from the history of slavery. They are different from other black groups both genetically and culturally.
Mongolians was used to refer to all East Asians. I'm not sure if South Asians were included. I think that logic is that almost all of Asia was part of the Mongol empire at one point so it was a good group descriptor.
As for Devo - it was an insult at the time. That was part of the point of the song. I was there. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-26 03:18 pm (UTC)