Inspired by the ideas of a 22-year-old Mashable writer from Brooklyn whose forthcoming book “1001 Everyday Words That Must Be Eradicated” we are eagerly awaiting.
You’re all about promoting thought solidarity and erasing -isms from language. You think you’re an ally and you even list “social justice” as what turns you on the most. But are you still using words that constitute acts of microaggression?
1. Cray-cray
At a restaurant and EVERY SINGLE TABLE here has ordered this dessert. #milehighpie #icecream #crazy https://t.co/QNwacZMvxK
— Lisa Lillien (@HungryGirl) June 7, 2015
For people not up on lingo in this day-day, “cray-cray” comes from the word “crazy,” which according to Merriam-Webster means “insane,” which we all know is a term for someone with debilitating mental disorders. Before you describe your drunken birthday party as “cray-cray,” think about the effect your words could have on the writer of this article, for example — someone who spends half the day in his pajamas, talking to himself and writing fake news articles. “Cray-cray” must go away-way.
2. Ghetto
#Today,72 #Anniversary of the Outbreak of the #Warsaw #Ghetto Uprising,#Poland.#OnThisDay #Holocaust #Jewish #History pic.twitter.com/FHJNAH88Cf
— SpecGhost (@SpecGhost) April 19, 2015
So just because you’re an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, you think you can throw around the word “ghetto” like you’re Eazy-E? Think again, old person! Even if you almost died of typhus while confined to a Jewish ghetto in occupied Poland, you cannot understand how offensive the word “ghetto” is to people who live in today’s marginalized communities — even if they themselves use the word “ghetto,” but in a latently ironic sense, of course, although they don’t know it (yet!). Don’t ever use this word again.
3. Lame
https://twitter.com/OmarPalomares12/status/607803548907110400
What, is there something cool about using a term that used to describe people with broken legs, spinal injuries or other conditions that limited their mobility? Okay, maybe it was last used like that in 1958, but still. Stop saying this word. Now. Better yet, don’t even think of this word.
4. Special
If you pretend to use this word in a pre-Sensitivity Era manner, i.e., “Kelsey is a special girl; she can curse in 34 languages,” then you’ve been living in cave — or you’re a congenital liar. Find another word. Don’t even ask why.
5. Illegal
What is law but the imposition of one group’s set of expectations onto another? How can we say that a person’s action is “illegal,” when much of what we allow today was, at some point, illegal? Let’s just stop this nonsense altogether and instead use the term “currently inadvisable according to society’s arbitrary set of racist-sexisit-classist-phobic rules.”
6. Foreign
Sure, the word “foreign” sounds innocuous enough, as a lot of seemingly intelligent people talk about having an interest in “foreign films” or wanting to learn a “foreign language.” But what’s foreign to you is certainly not foreign to someone else, and your culturally insensitive, stubborn geocentricity is truly disgusting. That so-called “foreign exchange” student from France you knew in high school? Well, he has a name, and it happens to be Florian. And you know what? He’s a nice person, and by all accounts he’s never once described himself as foreign. Vous êtes un gros connard! That’s French for: You are a huge asshole.
7. Depressed
https://twitter.com/lisaxbbyx/status/614065030510825473
Depression is a serious mood disorder, not a way for you to describe your sadness because your gerbil committed suicide, or because “Mad Men” ended. Before you tell your friends that you’re feeling depressed because it’s Monday, the weather’s crappy, and you just got fired, think about Robin Williams and then serve yourself a little plate of STFU. Then have seconds, and a little more for dessert.
8, 9, 10, 11: Man, woman, boy, girl
Ever since that critical theory course we took four years ago, we’ve known that gender is a social construct based on the perceived distance between ever-shifting nodal points along a circular rainbow-colored spectrum, i.e. it has no absolutes. Using words like “man” and “woman,” along with the restrictive pronouns like “he” and “she” that are inherent to the illusion of binarism, is offensive to many people. So stop using these words, okay?