Ask Lemmy

I was totally headed down the alt right pipeline. Throughout highschool I was depressed and lonely. I lost my faith which sent me to the online atheist community which ran out of content, so they started attacking feminists/sjws. I also just distrusted women because I got molested as a child by one and no one took it seriously. This had primed me to just eat up all the content from the MRA/antifeminist crowd. The youtube algorithm, which at the time was absolutely unhinged, pushed me to racist content which I just parroted because I didn't know any better. I didn't understand why things were the way things were, but I was taught who to blame.

What saved me was getting friends. These friends shattered my preconceptions, which sent me to the library, which got me talking to more people, which got me reading more. By the time I finished high school I just became utterly incompatible with the person I used to be. I couldn't take back the things I said to people, but I could join their protests and speak up for them when I heard some heinous shit being said.

As a millennial, we grew up with the phrases "that's gay" and "that's retarded" (which meant the same thing) and obviously we had to learn to phase those out.

While I never once meant "that's disabled" or "that's homosexual"... We obviously don't say that stuff anymore.

Growing up in the 90s, we would always say things were 'gay' even though we had nothing against homosexuals. It was just the thing to say. Yeah, definitely should not have been saying that.

Oh god I've got so many.

My latest one is remembering that you can't really fight fire with fire, unless you're being extraordinarily strategic about it. Attacking bigotry for instance, simply makes it stronger, as it feeds off strife and fear themselves. Remembering why Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. Not out of any great preference, but out of a lack of viable alternatives in her situation.

You can't actually "fight" it. You can exclude it. You can corral it. You can trick it into running itself off a cliff. But you can't actually destroy it by combating it directly, because it feeds off the combat, just like Trump does. You have to outmaneuver it.

Used to use the word 'retarded' to describe people doing dumb things. Then I realized that not only was it hurtful to people with Down Syndrome - it was inaccurate ... as a person with Down Syndrome would not do the things I was attributing to the phrase.

Gay people. When I was much much younger I remember telling a friend that while I didn't have a problem with people doing their own thing, I still didn't like gay people. My friend said I hope when you have kids they're gay. Guess what happened and how I feel about it now. I was such a dumb ass. When my kid came out to me I wept for joy at their bravery. I don't take hard stances on my opinions now and try to remember that my perspective isn't ultimate or necessarily right. There's always a chance that I'm wrong.

I no longer describe anything as 'lame' or 'retarded' or 'spaz' or their variants. It makes me sad ableism is so ingrained in even the most inclusive spaces even though the same argument has removed the use of 'gay' for the same reasons.

I also avoid dark or dry humour unless I'm confident the people I am talking to know it's absurdist and not a serious opinion. I don't always succeed at this.

I was raised in a fundamental christian extremest environment and stuck with it for 30 years. I'm now a card carrying atheist.

Misogyny in books. I was reading a Morse book. He described the woman of a couple from dyed hair to hammer toes but had no physical description of her husband whatsoever.

I don't have any regrets about making dead baby jokes when I was much younger, but definitely won't be making them now with an 8 month old daughter.

Grew up in the 80s and 90s. As progressive and openminded as I thought I was then...holy shit there are a lot of words and phrases I won't touch any more because they sound archaic, racist, mysoginistic, or hateful today. Back then they were perfectly acceptable everyday things no one would bat an eye at. It does make me happy that at least in this small arena we seem to have made progress as a society.

(Should add that this is from a US perspective)

I used to use “gay “ or “ retarded “ as negative adjectives, I no longer do because using someone’s being in a negative light is really mean, and I try not to be mean.

smoking. growing up in the 80s, everyone was smoking - in bars, restaurants, airplanes, even hospitals.

everyone I knew, their parents smoked tobacco or chewed tobacco. I started smoking myself, around 16 or so, as did all of my friends & even people I didn't associate with. it was just part of the culture - and yes, I was aware at the time that it was a dangerous activity, but kids are stupid.

and then around 15 years ago or so everyone stopped or switched to vaping. now I really only see homeless people smoking. it's quite the culture shift.

I never realized how frequently I called things “lame” until I said it in front of a coworker paralyzed from a motorcycle accident. Hopefully he understood, but it just took that one glance telling me he heard it for me to stop. To try to stop.

Racism.

While I was never into it myself thankfully, I let it pass a lot in my family. Being in university changed that though, it just feels too uncomfortable to have my family say racist shit in front of me while I have so many people of color as friends. I still struggle to call out their transphobia though but that is due to my own identity issues.

In the 90s, anything bad was "retarded" or "gay". Those don't really fly anymore.

I practice meditation quite seriously, but I stopped telling people I'm spiritual. I really am not interested in ghost stories, gods and angels at all.

I've done ny best to shake out ableist, racist, and other harmful speech.

We may be able to speak freely but we are all held accountable for the words we say