Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
Drunken Old Man:
--- Quote from: Tova on 24 Feb 2019, 04:08 ---Referring to someone as autistic is a faux pas only because of its previous use as a pejorative. Otherwise, it would be no more of a faux pas than referring to me as asthmatic (which you are free to do, by the way, because I am).
--- End quote ---
I feel that I'm not making my point here....
The practice of referring to, say, you as a "person with asthma" as opposed to an asthmatic is called "person-centered thinking" and it's a very real part of the professional culture of the mental health care field. Calling you asthmatic would also be considered a faux pas in this culture. It's less about not using perjorative terms than preventing the creation of those terms to begin with.
I'm not advocating that language for everyone... thought I easily could...but as a mental health professional,. Brun's doctor should have used it...and I can see where doing so might have benefitted Brun.
Now, if the distinction between an asthmatic and a person with asthma still seems negligible to you, then I have to question whether I was equally unsuccessful in making that point to the literally hundreds of people I trained over the last 20 years. Were they really all just nodding and smiling to move things along? Disquieting thought...yet I explained it to them the same I have here...
lurkylurk:
I guess if phrasing things differently helps someone to view the other person as a person first and foremost, or if it helps to convey that they do, then that's cool. When thinking of myself, however, I manage just fine to be autistic AND queer AND intelligent AND funny and whatever. I can be more than one thing. I can refer to myself or be referred to as one of those things in a specific context, and other things in other contexts.
Also, if people want to reduce me to one stereotype, they also manage to do that just fine regardless of how they phrase it. This reminded me of the other topic that's been discussed here - I've had people introduce me to others as "X from [original country that I have minimal ties to]" because that was obviously the main thing they saw in me (fun fact: I don't even look different "ethnically"), and so it became the main thing about me for those other people, too. I, as a person, was technically the subject of their sentence, but it didn't seem to make a difference.
OldGoat:
--- Quote from: Drunken Old Man on 24 Feb 2019, 03:46 ---But what do I know? I'm just a drunken old man...
--- End quote ---
Shouldn't that be, "Person with dipsomania"?
Mr_Rose:
--- Quote from: OldGoat on 24 Feb 2019, 07:48 ---
--- Quote from: Drunken Old Man on 24 Feb 2019, 03:46 ---But what do I know? I'm just a drunken old man...
--- End quote ---
Shouldn't that be, "Person with dipsomania"?
--- End quote ---
Nah, that was hours ago. By now it’s either insomnia or veisalgia. :psyduck:
Is it cold in here?:
There's a billion-dollar industry picking words to shape people's thinking, so there's some reality to it.
I know I've seen "person with ..." recommended in circles concerned with inclusion.
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