Monday, March 25, 2019

What's in a name?

I’ve seen quite a few people upset or irritated by changes in how we refer to people who belong to a population outside their own. Maybe they feel frustrated that they can’t keep up or embarrassed if they’ve used the wrong term. I don’t know, but I just want to offer that it’s common courtesy to call people what they want.

If you’re name is William and your whole life your family has called you Billy, but you decide in college you’d like to go by Will, you have that right. It’s hasn’t changed your identity, but it has changed how you see yourself and how some people view you. And it’s something you have the power to decide.

Simply put, this is what people in marginalized communities face, but people act like it’s a huge imposition. When a person with Down syndrome asks not to be called “Down’s” or “special” some people feel personally attacked.

It’s not an attack. And it doesn’t even mean that those terms were bad. It just means that the individual or community you are interacting with would rather go by a name like Will rather than Billy. They have outgrown a name that worked for a while and are ready for something different.

When the terms that our parents’ or grandparents’ generations used as polite terms no longer feel right to people of color, people of different abilities, people in the LGBQT+ community, it’s our job to listen.

It’s our job to call people what they want.




**There are obviously terms that are not and have never been okay. We all generally know those terms and that is not what I am referring to.