Reclaiming Slurs: Aren’t You Tired of Caring?

Why should I respect people who hurt my feelings?

5 min read

1 hour ago

First off, let me preface this by saying I have too many thoughts cramped inside my tiny little brain, and I’ve got only one cell to work with each time I sit down to write. When I say I’m a yapper, I mean it 100%. So sit back, sip some tea or cola, and enjoy today’s ramble.

Let’s also celebrate my second day in a row of posting! 🎉 YIPPEE.

“I’m only talking to you, they don’t know” —

is a phrase I’ve heard an uncountable amount of times throughout my life.

In person I’m surrounded by people who preach “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words may never hurt me” while actively disrespecting others behind their back.

I’ll never understand why people think it’s okay to address people in unacceptable ways just because they’re not around to hear it.

Like what? Do people think it’s okay to disrespect people as long as it’s not to their face? As the kids say, FOH.

Yap aside, I see a lot of people take that phrase too literally by suggesting others can’t be affected by words and insults just because they aren’t. “Words are harmless” my ass.

It frustrates me even more that I see this behavior REGULARLY in the neurodivergents community. It honestly makes me want to pull my hair out.

But there’s one specific word that causes a lot of fuss online which irks the everloving hell out of me.

The R Word.

Some neurodivergents don’t care about ableist slurs because they’ve emotionally owned slurs to prevent further harm from them.

Some neurodivergents reject the use of ableist slurs because it actively hurts them and those they empathize with.

I personally don’t care about people reclaiming the slur “retard”, as someone who let a word affect her a little much in the past. I’m uncomfortable using the word casually, but I have friends who do.

The only time it ever crosses a line for me is when it’s directed aggressively at someone. I’ve had my instances of poor character when I “reclaimed” in arguments with other neurodivergents only to irk them. I’m not proud of those moments, so I’ve worked a lot on knowing I don’t have to reciprocate the same behaviors or attitudes of people that upset me.

My point is that I have friends who use it privately amongst their friends. I have friends who don’t say it at all and are pretty vocal about their disdain for reclamation.

In general, reclaiming something means to take ownership of it. It means to make it yours, and so reclaiming slurs — although unfortunate — is a way to lessen the harm from malicious labeling. If you own something, you become comfortable with it. It can’t hurt you.

The thing is, reclaiming something doesn’t come with a birth-given right to disrespect other’s boundaries. It definitely doesn’t include using an aggressive term on others. That’s mainly why I don’t use the word myself — in addition to what I explained earlier.

You know how people talk about how our triggers are our responsibility to manage? That’s incredibly true. It’s impossible for everyone to know and remember your entire laundry list of triggers and sensitivities.

People will say and do stuff without intentions of causing harm, even though their intentions don’t really soften the blow of resurfaced trauma. Still, affected parties need to learn how to better control their reactions in these moments.

In online neurodivergents spaces, some people expect all content to be trigger tagged and labeled, even for things we shouldn’t exactly stigmatize. The following is only an example of why it’s important to take responsibility for our own afflictions rather than project them onto our neurodiverse peers.

Some people are triggered by cooking content, and some people are triggered by weight loss content. These are two categories of videos that can help people recover or improve their health. Adding a form of censorship, unfortunately creates the idea that these two things require sensitivity. That’s pretty counterproductive if you ask me.

The best way to deal with triggers are by getting therapy— and if that’s inaccessible, I touched a little bit on free resources being just as good as paid ones in my previous article. Grounding and coping techniques based on emotional regulation are essential for managing our triggers responses.

On the other hand, when a person’s uncomfortable, your responsibility is to avoid making them more uncomfortable.

Here’s where the entire community sucks at handling each other.

An event that occurs annoyingly often on Facebook dot com, is Friend A will post an extreme status condemning actions or beliefs by negatively labeling those who disagree with them, followed by citing “x consequence” for being one of those people. Friend B happens to be a person who disagreesand doesn’t personally identify nor relate to the label Friend A’s using. Actually, Friend B’s really offended Friend A’s lumping them in with people they dislike. Uh-oh. Friend drama.

Can you guess Friend’s B’s usual response to Friend A?

Many times you will observe Friend B reacts in the following ways of

A. Writing a long post to justify their behavior and explain how unfair Friend A’s feelings are despite knowing it’s something Friend A won’t tolerate. or

B. Aggressively attacking people Person A identifies with equally negative labels, and further dismissing Person A’s feelings and boundaries.

Personally, I’d rather go with option C: acknowledging Person A’s discomfort, empathizing by — I don’t know, maybe not arguing with them about why my feelings are more important than theirs, and make a mental note to keep the shit they don’t like away from them. And if that’s not possible and what they’ve said reeeeeallly pissed me off?

I unfriend them.

Imagine that.

Anyways, there’s way too much arguing about what people can and can’t do in their own private lives. When you take private sentiments or behaviors public — and even worse flaunt it once someone announces discomfort with it — uhhhh there’s going to be consequences. Sometimes the consequences are being dogpiled by a bunch of strangers online, and sometimes it’s getting your feelings hurt for being annoying.

Neurodivergents need to stop throwing reclaimed slurs at others who are sensitive to hearing them used.

And neurodivergents need to stop telling others they can’t reclaim ableist slurs because of PERSONAL SENSITIVITIES.

Respect is a two way street.

We all deserve autonomy, even when people disagree with us. Let each other live, got damn.

Was this article thought-provoking? Did you feel any type of way? Come yap with me in the comments — and remember, disagreeing isn’t what matters. How you communicate, does. 🤗