chris girard said:
I am looking through your posts and I have to agree... I have been an idiot. Please excuse me for this totally unwarranted and uncalled for accusation. I have never felt so gratified at being wrong before. Please excuse me. I have no excuse whatsoever. I should have double checked and made certain of my facts BEFORE I made such an unfair accusation, rather than make an inevitably inadequate apology after the fact. I can only hope you can forgive this error on my part.
This leaves me in the position that I do sincerely care about your opinion. I do feel I should respond to the point I avoided earlier with the accusation of homophobia....
You said that demonizing a person solely on the misuse of a word is immature and bigoted? Do you want to explain that? If the word had been 'queer,' 'nigger,' 'kike,' etc.. would you feel the same? I do not like people who use bigoted language... no matter what minority they are attacking... I do not like them now or ever again. That is my prerogative....How is that bigoted?
I feel the accusation of being immature is an unconscious attack on my autism.. You are perhaps unaware that we are called children in adult bodies? I am often accused of being immature... I can't help it. I am disabled. Trying to tell me to be mature is like yelling at a deaf person to 'listen up.'
I accept your apology. No harm done. I'm glad we could settle that peacefully and reasonably.
Back to the original topic, I'd say it depends on the word and the person using it. Right here I had the feeling Mouse wasn't using the R-word consciously and with the intent of insulting anybody.
But when I notice the person is obviously using a word as a conscious slur and insult and is not willing to be educated on its meaning, all reason is lost of course. You just have to talk to people to find out sometimes...words like queer, retard, nigger, faggot and so on are obviously insults to the majority of us but some simply grew up in an environment where these terms where used so naturally that people became ignorant to the negative connotion.
But ignorance is not an irreversible condition. Not always at least. So the first rule of the game stays "Educate, don't demonize" for me. If everything fails...you can still follow your no-tolerance-for-intolerance policy.
I was unaware of the "children in adults' bodies" metaphor. You have to believe me that I had no intention of attacking your autism in any way. But your attack seemed indeed hasty and immature to me. I don't know about the gravity of your condition but even as an autist, you will be held responsible for your words and actions to some degree. People will be more tolerable once they know about your condition of course...but again, they need to be educated about it beforehand. And I'm certainly willing to be educated.
In return, you have to excuse me. The only thing that truly is a thorn in my side is unreason in humans and this is something I am very strict about.
