Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Read Better

This has been a pet peeve of mine for as long as I can remember, and it often goes unchecked, even by those familiar with how the social justice blog world works:

"Learn to read."

It's both ableist and classist to tell someone to "learn to read." Even if you could somehow justify it, it's fucking petty as hell.

What's really disappointing is that it's commonplace enough not to elicit much of a reaction from other commenters, especially those familiar with how language can hurt. From my own experience, this isn't so much a lack of reading comprehension, but a lack of understanding, or being willfully ignorant to one's own privilege. Those are the things to call out.