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I haven't thought about this too much, but, words are power. Is identifying someone by a racial slur a civil-rights issue? Obviously it's not a black-and-whit

I haven't thought about this too much, but, words are power. Is identifying someone by a racial slur a civil-rights issue? Obviously it's not a black-and-white issue, and is complex, but yeah, fundamentally calling someone something they don't want to be called (and I don't mean "your hair is blue / don't tell me my hair is blue") can be a civil rights issue. Words define our selves. There's a reason jargon is such a big deal in the corporate world - words have power. Consider this - if it wasn't a civil rights issue, would there be so much discomfort and/or backlash around it? Would it even be a big deal at all if it didn't matter? Again, I'm not saying it's straightforward - it's not. But a quick google search says civil rights are "the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality." So that's pretty complex and broad in and of itself.

sershe 6y ago
I think it only looks complex because of halo effect/lack of clarity... you want to call it a civil right because it feels like a good thing. I am not saying it's not a good thing, but I am saying it's not a civil right. Like, it's good if everyone had affordable health care, but it's not a civil right. There are also tons of issues that are not civil rights that have lots of backlash/noise around them (like healthcare). In fact, in this case enforcement of any kind (outside of the private contract-based context like the office) would be quite obviously anti-civil-rights, which is a bummer with civil rights - sometimes, they inconvenience other people. Remember that being right and being wrong feels the same way. There are tons of people who would be very offended at you for all kinds of bogus reasons, like that you don't go to church, or are friendly with gay people, or whatever. So yeah, if ACLU is about civil rights, it should focus on those. If it's going to pontificate that it's good to use certain pronouns, of for everyone to go to church, or whatever, then I'll take my money somewhere else :)

sershe 6y ago

I think it only looks complex because of halo effect/lack of clarity... you want to call it a civil right because it feels like a good thing. I am not saying it's not a good thing, but I am saying it's not a civil right. Like, it's good if everyone had affordable health care, but it's not a civil right. There are also tons of issues that are not civil rights that have lots of backlash/noise around them (like healthcare). In fact, in this case enforcement of any kind (outside of the private contract-based context like the office) would be quite obviously anti-civil-rights, which is a bummer with civil rights - sometimes, they inconvenience other people. Remember that being right and being wrong feels the same way. There are tons of people who would be very offended at you for all kinds of bogus reasons, like that you don't go to church, or are friendly with gay people, or whatever. So yeah, if ACLU is about civil rights, it should focus on those. If it's going to pontificate that it's good to use certain pronouns, of for everyone to go to church, or whatever, then I'll take my money somewhere else :)