If they consider it okay to use in the first place then they’re obviously not going to enjoy someone telling them they’re wrong. Especially due to what it implies about them if you’re right. Nobody wants to be told they’re an insensitive prick/racist.

Not that we should accept their choice of words, rather we need to be strategic in how we address it, or have enough social capital to make them automatically assume they’re wrong.

I swear, virtually everyone I know looks at me like I have 5 heads if I say the r-slur is just as bad as the n-word or f-slur.

I suggest these short articles:

Beyond “F*ck You”: An organizer’s approach to confronting hateful language at work

Beyond F*ck You 2: workplace organizing against oppressive language and behavior

After a period of waiting for the right moment–excruciating in itself–I found myself clocking out when I overheard S., the worst offender, laughingly yell over at another worker: “Mike, you’re such a fuckingremovedot!” Truth be told, I actually got along pretty well with S.; he was a nice guy, good sense of humor other than the fucked up stuff like that, we joked frequently about how unrealistic the expectations were of us and how obnoxious some of our bosses were. I walked up to him, and asked, “Hey S., can you do me a favor?” “Yeah, man, what’s up?” “Can you cut it out with the gay jokes? I really don’t like hearing that shit.”

There was a pause. “What, like about you? Because I don’t think I said anything about you–” “Nah, not about me, just in general. I just don’t like hearing that, so I’d really appreciate it if you could knock it off. I gotta run to catch my bus, but if you wanna talk about it more some time, I’d be happy to.” S.’s look of concern and confusion turned to a nod, “OK, man, not a problem. Sorry if I pissed you off or anything.” And that was that.

The results were quick and effective. With S. removed from the picture, the homophobic banter went from something that happened multiple times per day to a few isolated incidents. When those comments did crop up, I took the exact same attitude, with the same results. One day at break, S. was talking about shopping at a health-food store where his girlfriend works: “I mean, it’s good food, but whenever I’m checking out, I’m like, oh man, I feel like such a… a…” He stopped and looked at me with a sort of deer-in-headlights look on his face. I piped in, “like a fuckin’ hippy?” He cracked up, “Yeah man, like a fucking hippy. Shit, I’m turning into a hippy.” The rest of the day was a series of jokes about what kind of incense we should get him for his birthday.

This kind of stuff is explained in this, like white fragility and White Tears and Brown Scars. But there are a few reasons.

1. The person’s identity is built on the idea of them being “not a bigot” and not understanding that’s not how it works and anyone can accidentally be ignorant and do a bad. It messes with their self-image and their paper, then personality.

2. Intersectionality fail. They think they can do whatever they want because they are part of a marginalized group and fail to understand how oppression actually works.

3. On point both 2 and 1, they could be part of a specific group in intersectionality where they may have cultivated their identity on their oppression instead of other things. See white women getting upset when called racist towards a Black man.

4. They know what they are doing and are hoping the system will protect them because they enjoy the privilage.

The proliferation of “schizo” has been really depressing to watch. I think it replaced “autistic” in a lot of contexts. It’s like they decided to make another group of neurodivergent people a punchline for some fucking reason

They view any disagreement on the things they say as a personal attack on their character.

“Dude I (neurotypical person) am totally reclaiming this slur by usibg it like it was intended against the group of people it hurts!”

Standing up against injustice is uncivil don’cha know

edit: for > against

probably don’t stand up for injustice

It’s a similar problem with asking people to use the correct pronouns. Bigotry against trans people and disabled people are borderline acceptable bigotries among wider society. So when you ask someone to not use slurs or to respect pronouns, you’re asking them to view other people with humanity, and that’s going to be difficult for people who believe they’re expressing borderline acceptable bigotries. I hate it and don’t know what to do about it.

It’s much easier to ask someone not to do something because YOU don’t like it instead of making the argument on behalf of the affected group.

My approach is to tell someone I would prefer they not say x because I don’t like it. If they then continue to do so they are willingly doing so knowing it will upset me, which marks them out as a person who does not care about their relationship with me.

Most people that care about their relationship with you will not do something harmful to it and will stop.

You can make the secondary argument “I don’t like it BECAUSE… (i personally know people i care about who it affects) or (it harms vulnerable people etc)”

When you make it about THEM and what THEY are doing instead of about YOU and YOUR feelings you get the extremely negative reaction. Instead when you make it about yourself you are giving the other person a choice that they get to make instead of a judgement or appraisal of them that comes off as a cut.

Neurotypicals are ontologically evil, they know it’s wrong and the thrill of being a prick makes them feel good.

They refuse to admit language they use could be construed as hurtful or hateful to others.

It’s also hard when it’s words that appear normalized by society

wounded ego

Not excusing it, but I do think there are long, boring answers that reveal actual understandable reasons for this reaction. But as far as the rant post goes, yeah, I do empathise, it sucks when people knowingly make an environment uncomfortable for others.