Comment on I may swear like a pirate, but I'm a fucking PRINCIPLED pirate
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks agoJust because you don’t intend to insult someone doesn’t mean you’re not ignorant.
It doesn’t take really any empathy at all to recognise that someone might prefer to be called an undocumented immigrant rather than an illegal one.
I think people really are used to being called the wrong thing, or the wrong pronouns. In reality, if you accidentally misgender someone they often won’t bother to correct you if you’re merely a passing acquaintance, but if you’re more than that they might politely correct you in a non-confrontational way.
People being upset about someone making a genuine mistake and calling them the wrong thing is not the norm, and if someone did that it would be pretty weird.
The term “illegal immigrant” may be a description, but I’m sure you can recognise that it’s not a very dignified one. You probably don’t refer to people you like as “that fat guy” or “that woman with the huge ass”, despite those phrases being descriptive.
SorryQuick@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That’s the problem. The interaction you describe is what happens IRL. On lemmy, or most of the “left” internet, it’s the total opposite, with people getting offended at the slightest misstep. Somehow being ignorant in some areas makes you evil or a jerk. People all have a limited amount of time to spend, and not everyone choses to spend that time learning all the politically correct ways to call people.
I also wouldn’t refer to someone as “an illegal immigrant” the same way I wouldn’t refer to them as “that fat man” because you just don’t refer to people that way. But I don’t have any issues talking about fat people, or illegal immigrants, in general. Or if it’s specific, it’ll probably be something like “John got deported last week because he was an illegal immigrant”. Not “get out of here you illegal immigrant”. Not that it sounds much worse than “get out of here you undocumented migrant.”