Oppressive language isn't witty invective.

This is a pattern everywhere, but it really grates on me that it's a pattern in places where people should know better, and in places where people should want to do better to match up with their own self concept.

Frequently, oh so frequently, a skeptic or a feminist or a skeptic feminist or someone who cares about one or more important social issues will say something ableist (or they'll say something transmisogynist about Ann Coulter. That particular thing happens frequently too). This is someone who has a history of caring, at least to an extent, about social issues.

Someone will tell them that's not cool. Will they say "oh my bad" and rephrase? No. No they will not. Oh so frequently they will instead derail and ask for an exact list of "approved" and "disapproved" words, as though such a thing exists, as though they cannot look for themselves and see what communities do and do not denounce.

There are similar conversations with people who are heavily invested in their identity as skeptics. These are the folks who make sure you know that they are smarter and more rational and reasonable and empirical than thou. You must know, they are superior to you, and they are superior to anyone who disagrees with them, because the evidence says so, objectively. Just ask them.

Yet both of these groups, when you come right down to it, want to use marginalized groups as their invective. This is not in keeping with being interested in social justice--this is shitting on people. This is not in keeping with rationality and skepticism--if you are oh so superior to me, yet cannot disagree with me in any way but "whatevs, you're disabled & that's bad" your invective is not witty, it is just bigotry.  This is what Skepchick did when they decided to say "you DDoS because you're a 'tard" instead of "wow, what hypocrites to make a big deal about freezepeach and yet take down our website. How very sad that is. I wonder what it's like to have so much free time and so much cognitive dissonance?". This is what PZ does when he lazily, yes lazily, calls people or groups "stupid". This is what a whole lot of atheists in particular do when they call beliefs "crazy" or call religion "mental illness". This is what vaguely left ish people do when they call Ann Coulter the t slur.

This is not witty. It is not funny. It is not creative. It is lazy. It is not indicative of any superiority. It is bigoted. It is fucking bullshit. And there's barely any point in talking to any of the people who do it about it, because they generally don't want to actually criticise what they claim to be criticising. They want to continue throwing around bigoted ad hominem and patting themselves on the back for being funny.

The bigots are the only ones laughing with you, y'all. The only people who think you're superior because you crap on marginalized people are other folks who are more invested in feeling superior than in doing right. Punching down language may make you feel like a better person, like a witty superior master of invective, but it doesn't confront the issue at all. What the hell kind of skeptic are you if your entire argument is "but you're a marginalized person so you're wrong?"

The kind living in logical fallacy land, that's the kind. And unfunny. And likely not even hurting the person you're aiming for, but all sorts of other people. A good, and funny, take down will approach from a different angle, will actually confront the issue, and will not hurt innocent bystanders.

I don't see much of this though. I see lots of the same stuff we confronted in the lunch room in seventh grade. It wasn't clever then, & a decade later it's even less clever.

If you're so proud of your superiority, demonstrate it. If you're so into social issues, start treating all people as people. If you are just interested in being generically mean, keep up what you're doing.