(no subject)

[unbibium]

Do you know any little people?

Have they ever talked about the "M-word" being equivalent to the "N-word"?

And if so, are they white?

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I've met a few, but haven't talked to them about the subject.

[kirkjerk.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, I don't see how the "M" word can carry half of the baggege that the "N" word does, just because of the history of it all.

Then again, I don't get the whole deaf culture thing either.

I guess there's a lot of groups I don't really grok.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I only recently heard about the Gallaudet president not being deaf enough. "You're just another Uncle Tom for the hearing man!"

[skyknyt.livejournal.com]

What's the M word?!

skye

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

"Midget". It's generally considered insulting today. "Dwarf" seems to be more neutral, "little person" often preferred, but I get the impression there are all sorts of political shades to this.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

But what if you are a pituitary midget?? Truth in advertising!

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Doug Stanhope recalls that the midget who told him that "midget" was offensive, then followed up by saying "I'm not a midget, I'm a dwarf," because there's different conditions and different proportions. He compared to a black guy concluding a fight with a racist by saying "I'm not a nigger, I'm a spook."

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think the old medical midget/dwarf distinction is disappearing from the language; there's just a lot of different kinds of dwarfism.

Also I seem to recall that "dwarf" was once considered derogatory but was reclaimed by a highly political Dwarf Power movement a few decades back.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, here's where I read about the whole thing: correspondence between Roger Ebert and the actor Danny Woodburn.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Ah yes. It's exactly as ridiculous as I had thought, and even more dangerous.

Because if talking to or about you is going to be such a verbal landmine, then polite society will just avoid you.

[davetheinverted]

Fascinating exchange. The issue of group identity names and who decides what is and is not acceptable is such a...fun...one.

Dav2.718

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

That is superweird.
Actually, do we even GET pituitary midgets nowadays? They'd have to have a pituitary tumor or something, right? And we can detect that sort of thing now, because they'd be obviously not growing much. So maybe it's entirely irrelevant.