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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 24th, 2023

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  • I think the point is that to you, it’s just semantics. But, to use your example, given that some people have started intentionally using “female” in place of “woman” as an (arguably) subtle way to exclude trans women, it suddenly becomes more than semantics to both trans and anti-trans populations. That’s what Smotherlove is saying about “dog whistle” language only being transparent to the perpetrator and the victim.

    So from your/my perspective (admittedly assuming you’re neither trans nor anti-trans), it’s largely a case of “a few rotten apples ruining it for the rest of the bunch.” What should just be a semantic difference has been coopted and intentionally weaponized by some, so all of us have to be conscious of whether or not we’re making that worse.

    It’s also not a new phenomenon. Many epithets start as PC terms and then become offensive based on how a specific group starts to use them, notably, almost every one-time PC terms for Black Americans and people of color. Unfortunately, it’s basically the reason that, for at least 100 years, (responsible) individuals/media have had to change terms for many marginalized peoples every 10-20 years, with many other examples, like “Oriental” and the terms that predate it, and plenty of others.


  • It tended to be that Native Americans would do it in or after battle/fighting an enemy. But in response, colonists, particularly those “settling” the West, started offering standing rewards for every Native Americans scalp people could collect. Many white colonists then ended up scalping every Native Americans they could find, regardless of enmity, and even scalping others as well, such as railroad workers, in order to pass off their scalps as those of Native Americans. All to say that, yes, much like many things, scalping was a tradition of another culture that colonists adopted and took much further.