Guaranteed to offend someone

With very rare exceptions, when I find out that I’ve offended someone, it ties my guts in knots. I want to be considerate, and kind. The problem, of course, is that the only way to avoid giving offense is to either remain silent, or to use such blandly inconsequential language that ones ideas are diluted to the point of uselessness. And even then, you’re open to someone somewhere taking offense at your excessive use of multisyllabic words, or academicese, or some such thing.

The recent kerfuffle over Harry Reid’s use of “negro dialect” and the number of people who compared it to Trent Lott’s comments in praise of Strom Thurmond pointed me at one way of thinking about offensiveness. One used antiquated terminology to express ideas that most people agree are true (i.e. that there is skin color bias in all areas of our culture, and that code switching is a necessary skill for African-American politicians. The other used totally inoffensive language, but suggested that America would have been better off if we’d elected a pro-segregationist as President. Offensive language vs. offensive idea.

Unlike many of the commenters/posters at Feministing, I don’t spend much time in an academic environment. I’ve been out of college longer than some of the folks on the boards have been alive. I hate to admit it, but there are entire categories of offense that didn’t even exist when I was in college, which means I have significant blindspots, and the terminology of race, class, gender and ability that I use is on its way to being as out of date as “negro dialect”. For instance, I was very confused by the “ebonics” debate of the late 90s, as we called it “Black American English” when I was studying linguistics. I suppose that’s an inevitable side-effect of aging.

But Pandagon.net’s Amanda Marcotte recently tweeted a link to an article that gave me another frame in which to think about this sort of thing: Offense vs. Harm. Offense is entirely in the mind of the offendee, but harm is objectively verifiable. What’s more, it may not be about the receiver at all. For instance, if I use the word “gypped” in a post, and somebody calls me out for racist language, I might be offended (depending on the strength and phrasing of the rebuke), but was I harmed? Not really. I might be a upset for a while that I used a term without knowing its history and full spectrum of meaning, and I might worry that I hurt someone inadvertently. But I’m old enough and stubborn enough that it’s not going to stop me from going online and putting my virtual foot in my virtual mouth. Is the community harmed? Maybe, if the chilling effect of calling out inadvertently racist terms keeps newbies from speaking up.

I picked this example to highlight two facets of the problem:

    It’s hard to call someone out for using discriminatory language without being offensive in return.
    This is complicated. Calling people out on discriminatory language likely has a chilling effect on discourse, but so does letting it slide.

I think everyone has to find their own way to thread this particular needle, but my personal approach is to focus on ideas rather than language. To each their own.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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