I'm kind of lenient with that term because I'd always heard spaz as just a term for someone who is clumsy and frenetic. It's the same case as with saying someone was gyped, it has been so far removed from the original offense context to me and the people around me I didn't even understand it was meant to be offensive. I avoid those words when talking, but I don't really call people out that hard when I hear it.
I think spaz, mong, and removed are still this side of the line you've drawn, still too associated with the people they technically describe to be acceptable, but I don't feel the same of stupid, moron, idiot, crazy, etc, and for some those still are ableist.
Gypped is especially heinous though, even if many users don't understand the connotation. It referrs to a very living and very harmful stereotype, and is as a word just an actively used slur turned into a verb. Every time someone says it, you should hear 'Jewed' because its the same thing.
That last one I have to do a lot of educating on in real life. It's so commonly used that a lot of people don't even realize it's a slur. Most people drop it once they realize what it is referring to because it's incredibly obvious once you understand what it is short for.
I definitely react to mong. That one has two layers of offense to it, neither of which can really be detached from the word in anyway. (honestly that one's just weird to me. It started out as a racist anthropology theory about Asian people's skull shapes, denouncing them all as ugly, then became a term for people with Down syndrome, and now it's just the new "autistic.") I live in america, so the opinion about Romani is not as pronounced as in europe, although I have been told it's there. I don't use it anymore because I learned where it came from, but I don't think the majority of people who use it are trying to be offensive, and there's enough ground to cover with the average person in terms of anti-racism that I'll only bring it up if I think there's a solid chance they'll stop once they learn. I've had a hard time trying to come up up with words to mean "this idea does not follow from reality and you were not using your senses and reasoning skills when you came up with it" that work as well as the traditional ablest ones do. Stupid and Idiot aren't that bad, but I should work to remove them and anything else from my vocabulary. But I do need to say something if a friend reads a clock backwards or does something else we would call stupid, and saying "have you no senses?" sounds weird and harsher than just "stupid."
I'm kind of lenient with that term because I'd always heard spaz as just a term for someone who is clumsy and frenetic. It's the same case as with saying someone was gyped, it has been so far removed from the original offense context to me and the people around me I didn't even understand it was meant to be offensive. I avoid those words when talking, but I don't really call people out that hard when I hear it.
I think spaz, mong, and removed are still this side of the line you've drawn, still too associated with the people they technically describe to be acceptable, but I don't feel the same of stupid, moron, idiot, crazy, etc, and for some those still are ableist.
Gypped is especially heinous though, even if many users don't understand the connotation. It referrs to a very living and very harmful stereotype, and is as a word just an actively used slur turned into a verb. Every time someone says it, you should hear 'Jewed' because its the same thing.
That last one I have to do a lot of educating on in real life. It's so commonly used that a lot of people don't even realize it's a slur. Most people drop it once they realize what it is referring to because it's incredibly obvious once you understand what it is short for.
I definitely react to mong. That one has two layers of offense to it, neither of which can really be detached from the word in anyway. (honestly that one's just weird to me. It started out as a racist anthropology theory about Asian people's skull shapes, denouncing them all as ugly, then became a term for people with Down syndrome, and now it's just the new "autistic.") I live in america, so the opinion about Romani is not as pronounced as in europe, although I have been told it's there. I don't use it anymore because I learned where it came from, but I don't think the majority of people who use it are trying to be offensive, and there's enough ground to cover with the average person in terms of anti-racism that I'll only bring it up if I think there's a solid chance they'll stop once they learn. I've had a hard time trying to come up up with words to mean "this idea does not follow from reality and you were not using your senses and reasoning skills when you came up with it" that work as well as the traditional ablest ones do. Stupid and Idiot aren't that bad, but I should work to remove them and anything else from my vocabulary. But I do need to say something if a friend reads a clock backwards or does something else we would call stupid, and saying "have you no senses?" sounds weird and harsher than just "stupid."
"Spaz" is kind of onomatopoeic.