[tw: ableism, rape culture] Common arguments on the “derpy hooves” thing, blah blah blah

fromonesurvivortoanother:

• “It’s ableist to say that people with different faces are disabled” — Um, no, no one ever said this was about ALL people with disabilities, or that people with different faces are somehow automatically disabled. What’s ableist is not acknowledging that some people with “derp faces” do exist.
• “We should all just stop back off and stop fighting, give peace a chance, blah blah” — The majority of what I’ve seen has been people spouting off ableist shit. I’ve seen people who criticized Derpy threatened with rape and death, harassed multiple times, etc, but I have yet to see a person who thinks “derp” is okay call out their fellow Bronies on said behavior. I’ve gotten some shit myself but I haven’t posted it. So no. When someone is being a racist dick, and they refuse to acknowledge it, you don’t say, “hey let’s be friends!” This is not about moral relativism. It’s either ableist or it’s not.
• “It’s just a cartoon! You’re taking this too seriously!” — Cartoon characters can send political and social messages to people as much as real people. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but MLP has a lesson about friendship in every episode. If it can do this, why couldn’t it also be ableist? And also, this is really funny given how some people have responded with threats, harassment, etc. I guess it’s only serious if the word is some pretty little meme that matters to you, right?
• “The creators of the show didn’t mean for it to be ableist!” — Intent is not magic. The end. If a little kid says X expletive about People of Color, they are still being racist even if they didn’t mean to. It is very possible to say or do offensive things without meaning to.
• “People will always find something to be offended by, blah blah” or “it’s just the internet, it won’t change!” — No. Actually, people get offended when they encounter something that demeans their existence or their identity. It is incredibly possible to be funny without hurting people through ableism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Go look up Mitch Hedberg, he’s a standup comedian who is incredibly funny without being offensive. This kind of response reeks of self-interested, self-convenient fatalism. Maybe if you actually took on some responsibility and acknowledged what’s going on, you could change something.
• “Derp just means ‘awkward’ or ‘silly’” — Okay, then don’t use faces and images that make fun of people with disabilities. And there are plenty of other words that mean “awkward” or “silly”, without being ableist…such as…”awkward” or “silly”. Or potatoes. Or jujubes. It’s not hard.
• “Someone who is disabled told me it doesn’t bother them” — Okay, and it bothers other people with disabilities. Your point? No one elected some grand representative of all of the disabled people to speak on our behalf. It’s not some popularity contest. It’s about actually figuring out if this is a problem or not.
• “It’s not ableist, you’re wrong, you’re being too sensitive” — Cool story. I guess the people with disabilities who are telling you it’s a problem don’t matter as much, right? Oh wait, that’s ableist.

if anyone can refute these, I’d love to see it. I haven’t yet.

Read, y’all.