A new label for bigots and prejuduce

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This time it's called voicism. What is voiceism? Voiceism is lack of tolerance for people who speak and say words differently than others due to foreign accent, speech impediment, and they judge you based on how you talk. I faced this as a child a lot and got bullied for it. I always assumed this fell under xenophobia and ableism. Xenophobia because you have no idea if it's their disability or if they are simply from somewhere else. Ableism if your voice is caused by your disability.

I started to embrace how I talked when my family and I traveled down south and people in Texas were speaking weird and people down South have an accent. Then I go see 101 Dalmatians and I thought Anita spoke funny but that is called a British accent so I thought "Maybe I can accept my voice since people talk funny in other parts of the world and there is nothing wrong with my voice." Also, people may not even notice my voice in other parts of the world or if I travel, people will just think I am from out of town which will be true. But let's see what part of the world I am from.

I think it's good to expose kids to different voices so they have a different perspective. I think kids in my childhood were only prejudice about my voice because it was taught to them, they maybe had parents that were critical about how immigrants spoke or those with speech impairments so they picked up on it and thought "talking funny=bad" because of how literal children are.

https://thewalrus.ca/accents-dialects-a ... Snu5hKqqlE

https://wibx950.com/are-we-now-becoming-voice-ist/



The only thing I have judged people about voice is wondering where are they from and thinking they are an immigrant or from another part of the world which isn't bad IMO.

I think this term is just a more specific way to describe a phenomenon that otherwise would have to be described as 'ableism' or 'xenophobia' or 'racism' without being able to recognize that someone's prejudice might ignore those boundaries and really be primarily about not liking how some speech sounds.

I sometimes speak oddly, but it's mostly that I use voices and dialogues to explain things I don't know how to explain head on.

Police do this a lot.

Police may judge *slurred speech*, *rapid speech* or *incoherent speech* to press an inquiry of drug/alcohol consumption.

Well, then I will have to admit to engaging in "Odorism" -- I refuse to have anything to do with people who smell like they have never bathed, brushed, nor wiped themselves properly.

Shame on me.

If you've used it as an excuse to bully people before than you're not wrong to feel a bit of shame. Not being an a**hole seems to a very difficult goal for most humans, myself included.

I am confused how this is even related to voiceism and how do these two compare?

Or are you just objecting to a new label and are fine with the other ones like xenophobia and ableism and we don't need a separate label for how people talk? This is what the thread is about.

Me?  Bully someone who smells like they sleep in a cesspool?

Well ... if avoiding such people whenever possible is "Bullying" them, then I guess I must be guilty.

I think part of it is people feel provoked and sad thing is people can feel provoked over a behavior that is caused by our autism or ADHD or feel provoked by your voice because of your speech impairment or how you say certain words due to English not being your Native language so they feel justified in bullying you.

But if anyone acted this way over a mobile impairment, then they would be painted as an a**hole easily but not for those with invisible disabilities. The blame goes on the victim, us.

I mean if people can control how they treat those with mobile impairments, they can control it with us too.

And the relevance to this thread's topic is ... what exactly?

How they compare...

Voiceism is lack of tolerance for people who speak and say words differently than others due to foreign accent, speech impediment, and they judge you based on how you talk.

Odorism is lack of tolerance for people who smell differently than others due to diet, smoking, improper hygiene, or medical condition (i.e., Trimethylaminuria), and they judge you based on how you smell.

It comes down to judging others based on how they impact our senses.

But I find it very offensive for the comparison because voice is not something I can control and many others with it. I was bullied for it too. If I had control, I would have simply just stopped "talking funny" and "talk normal again." Are you implying people choose to talk funny? I hope not or I would be very disappointed in you because I would have thought you were better than this.


Smell and odor is something we can control.

Avoiding contact wouldn't be bullying, but insulting them (whether to their face or behind their back in gossip) would be. I've had to deal with coworkers who smell terrible and wasn't always kind about it so I'm not judging if you've been the same way. People can improve.

As I've gotten older I've had to make peace with some of them having legit medical issues, or severe mental illness or otherwise having enough s**t to deal with that I didn't feel entitled to contribute to their problems. You know, the guy with crippling depression old enough to be retired who's working 70 hours a week to cover the bills leftover from after his wife died of cancer doesn't need me reminding him that he stinks, he probably knows and just can't be bothered to prioritize it anymore. Whether or not stinking that bad is rude being obnoxious about it is also rude and won't improve anything.

There's worse things in life than having to deal with people who smell bad.

Not always, but it does seem like a topic that could warrant it's own thread so I'll stop contributing to the hijacking.

English is my only language, it's most certainly my native language. Did I misinterpret you as meaning me instead of generically?

I give folks grief for misusing words. But thats only educated folks who have no excuses.

Like educated Brits who says "X doesnt work therefore it's redundant" when they mean "x doesnt work therefore it's useless" (use it just because "redundant" is some kind of vogue word in the UK now).

Or the VEEP of the US when she says "infer" when she means "imply".

If that makes me "voicist" then...so be it!

To be fair sometimes that 'grief over misusing a word' amounts to one person not being aware that's how it's used in another dialect or that the generally understood meaning has shifted without the person complaining being aware. That's not misuse, that's literally how language evolves. This one sometimes takes on a racist angle when the one meaning is derived from AAVE or another similar dialect and the one voicing the criticism is insisting it's incorrect merely because they've never heard it before or just feel hostile towards it due to it's origins.

Language cognates are great at documenting these shifts because often the one language will preserve the word in a way that at most is an archaic or forgotten usage in the other.