The "Black Hole" of woke....

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Additionally....I believe it is fair to mention that I work in a milieu where women don't take crap from anybody. Many women there are cops, Assistant District Attorneys, judges.

My supervisor is a woman. She calls me "sweetheart" sometimes. It's a darn shame (i.e., that I'm not HER supervisor)....because I've been there longer than her, and I'm older than her. But I'm okay with this. She worked hard for it.

I think people are more understanding when you're deaf or hard of hearing. I did once see a thread online and people were arguing if they should wear signs saying they're deaf and I said they wear them in stores so customers won't think they're being rude if they are "ignoring them." Now I think it's a personal choice to wear a pin on your outfit saying you are deaf but don't expect people to be mind readers as people in the thread were implying. If they get offended, apologize and say "oh I'm so sorry, I'm hard of hearing " and they will get over it knowing you were not purposly ignoring them. If they are still offended, it's their problem and I have heard stories by Karens who think deaf employees shouldn't be working because they will offend people who ask for their help. To me they are just too lazy to read their shirts or take it as a learning experience that if am employee is ignoring you, walk in front if them and check if they are deaf, they wear a badge saying so. We all make mistakes and if you are at a store and see an employee but are not responding to you, don't assume bad intentions. They could be deaf. You learn from experience. But it seems like some people can't learn to and can't generalize. I often wonder if their IQ is low but not low enough for them to be mentally disabled. People with low IQs have more difficulty generalizing and learning from experiences which is why they make the same mistakes over and over. Many of them talk normal and look like the rest of us. They don't look stupid either lol.

I've had to speak quieter and slower for people whose English isn't their primary language when talking to them. I never took it personal. My grandma was also hard of hearing so she had to see my face and I had to walk into the room to speak to her.

I did once see a post here by someone who worked as a cashier and one day he got a deaf customer. He didn't do eye contact but she needed to see his mouth moving and he didn't feel comfortable looking at her. He offered to write his words down fir her to read since eye contact is hard for him. He was undiagnosed at the time so he didn't have a explanation for why he couldn't look at her when he spoke. Customer got offended and I remember she was treated as a Karen. I just thought then why couldn't he just look up without actually looking at her. Problem solved. Maybe he didn't think it at the time.

This actually dovetails with another thread relating to whether people with autism should care about other disabilities.
I don't really know if trans should be a disability but you could argue they are nuerodivergent.

I should qualify the statement that being verbally attacked because of your identity can have the equivalent impact of being hit in the face in public. The humiliation experienced will depend on the individual. Some people have higher resilience and higher levels of emotional intelligence not to react than others. But for people who are trans they experience microaggressions probably every few minutes in public I can pretend to know what that feels like.

I hate being called “sweetheart” or “honey.” It’s like hearing nails on a chalkboard.

And yet, I smile, am polite about it, and no one knows how I truly feel.

It feels like they are overstepping my personal boundaries.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 31 Aug 2022, 8:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How do you know that your sense is “almost always right” and that it’s “very rare” that you are wrong? Can you read minds?

It always bothers me when people I’m not very close to call me a term of endearment, and yet, I always smile.

You don’t know what people have or haven’t experienced. People’s feelings are valid. It’s not merely about people taking things “too seriously.” Just because you feel or think a certain way doesn’t mean that other people don’t feel or think differently. We all have different personalities and life experiences.

My “quality of living” hasn’t gone down. It’s not like being bothered by this sort of rhetoric is a modern phenomenon. It bothered people in the past; they just were less likely to talk about it.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 31 Aug 2022, 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Kind of like insisting that you use a non-standard form of address, and being extremely judgemental if you don't?

It’s not a good idea to address others in ways that they would feel uncomfortable with. Making an effort to use the right pronouns is considerate. It all ties in to respecting someone’s personal identity.

And yet, you show no compassion at all for the person who might be uncomfortable with these neologisms, your concern is entirely monodirectional. Who decides what is and is not polite, or whose feelings need to be humored?

It comes down to prejudice. I do not have much compassion for prejudice although I do realize that it can be a challenging thing for people to overcome. It takes education, exposure, and time.

I am just saying that people should make an effort.

I'd say you're insisting, but whatever.

In what way is resisting neopronouns "prejudice"? The word literally means preconceived notions not borne out by experience, I'm not seeing the relationship there.

Here’s another definition:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... /prejudice

If people experience feelings of discomfort towards a group of people and refuse to try to accommodate their identity in a very small way, I’d say that the most likely culprit is prejudice.

Most of us would prefer to be referred to by the pronoun we identify with, so we should respect the preferences of others to the best of our ability.

I wouldn’t call calling a person “sweetheart” you’ve known for years an instance of “not understanding her life experience” or an instance of “rhetoric.”
Did you read the part where my supervisor calls ME “sweetheart”?

I don’t actually call people I don’t know “sweetheart.”

Obviously, I understand that people have had experiences different to mine. I’ve “had it hard” sometimes. My life hasn’t been a bed of roses.

I wouldn’t even want people I’ve known for years calling me “sweetheart,” especially not a guy because I’m assuming that he’d probably not be going around saying that to his guy friends. (Do you call any of your guy friends “sweetheart?”) Sometimes women use “honey” or “sweetie” with each other. I don’t really like that, either. It would be different if I was romantically involved with the person (male or female).

The main point is that you really can’t know how people feel about something based on what you “sense.”

Basically….you have to know your audience….

When you said that it’s “usually” among people you’ve “known for years,” I thought that meant that sometimes it isn’t with a well-known audience.

I prefer guy friends to treat me more or less like they’d treat a male friend.

I wasn't trying to criticise you, Korts.
I was sincerely curious how you gauged whether or not it was appropriate.

I tend to call people "love" if I know them fairly well (e.g., my kids' friends, professional associates.)
Of course I don't go about saying it to everyone, or to strangers.
I have a different name for my partner.

Sweetheart seems a little smarmy somehow, but I'm just not used to it.

Actually, my brother calls his wife "sweetheart".
That's my only reference point for it.