As part of the degree in #cybersecurity I'm working on, we have a course on social awareness, social justice, implicit bias etc. and it is rather insightful to have to think about this explicitly. LIke... yes, I am fully #blind, but I'm also white, male, somewhat affluent and in a safe-ish place, which means there's a lot of factors outside of my control that essentially give me a smoother ride through life than others would, in spite of my #disability.
An important nuance I haven't seen so far though is that even within a marginalized group, opinions can vary wildly about to what degree something is considered "a problem". The fact #twitch tried to get rid of "blind playthrough" in 2020 because it was considered ablist language is a great example of this: nobody in my circle thought this was problematic, we all had a good laugh and basically said they probably had bigger problems to worry about.
Now however, only a few years later, I see more and more sentiments shifting where that is concerned, asking writers not to use blind as synonymous for ignorant, stupid or incompetent. Same with terms like crippling debt. And as opposed to the Twitch example, this time it's actually #PWD who are making these points.
The question now becomes: Did times change, and did people get more offended by this / more hurt by this? Or is this simply yet another example of people finally coming forward about something that's irked them for decades?
I myself know where I stand on this, but I'd be a hypocrite if I decided to, in this case, decide everybody thinks as I do, where I normally always preach caution about homogenizing #accessibility.
This post doesn't really go anywhere, I just thought it was an interesting bit of contemplating :))
An important nuance I haven't seen so far though is that even within a marginalized group, opinions can vary wildly about to what degree something is considered "a problem". The fact #twitch tried to get rid of "blind playthrough" in 2020 because it was considered ablist language is a great example of this: nobody in my circle thought this was problematic, we all had a good laugh and basically said they probably had bigger problems to worry about.
Now however, only a few years later, I see more and more sentiments shifting where that is concerned, asking writers not to use blind as synonymous for ignorant, stupid or incompetent. Same with terms like crippling debt. And as opposed to the Twitch example, this time it's actually #PWD who are making these points.
The question now becomes: Did times change, and did people get more offended by this / more hurt by this? Or is this simply yet another example of people finally coming forward about something that's irked them for decades?
I myself know where I stand on this, but I'd be a hypocrite if I decided to, in this case, decide everybody thinks as I do, where I normally always preach caution about homogenizing #accessibility.
This post doesn't really go anywhere, I just thought it was an interesting bit of contemplating :))
Mikołaj Hołysz
in reply to Florian • • •This is also extremely culture specific.
Eastern Europe for example is very "allergic" to this stuff.
I know people here from various minorities, including LGBTQ, transgender, the disabled and women in tech, and I don't think I've met a single one who considers any such language changes as worth advocating for. They're a laughing stock if anything. Many people aren't even that aware of them, and the rest consider them to be "just another weirdness Americans came up with, not unlike their mass shootings, expensive healthcare and paid universities."
I'm sure you can find counterexamples (and there are probably more of these on Mastodon than anywhere else), but the social justice movement in its AMerican incarnationbasically doesn't exist here.
Florian
in reply to Mikołaj Hołysz • • •Mikołaj Hołysz
in reply to Florian • • •Florian
Unknown parent • • •Florian
Unknown parent • • •