Their Meanings & Origins
Removing oppressive, racial capitalist language from our vocabularies is a necessary part of the decolonization process.
When someone claims these terms are neutral or their use is inconsequential, what they are doing is saying they value individual linguistic expression more than the very lives of disabled people.
While you might not know the history of a slur, choosing to use it after being told it is offensive only aligns yourself with our oppressors. It tells the targets of those terms that you are not safe, an ally, or prepared to put in the work decolonization and abolition require.
I provided 20 primary terms in this set, including their original meanings, common use, and sociopolitical implications. Notice that all of these terms originated alongside colonialism and the establishment of chattel enslavement of Africans.
Not a single one of these terms is neutral and although some people in our communities have worked to “reclaim” slurs, it is never okay for someone who is not disabled or from the marginalized target group to casually use the term today.
You either want to help us abolish settler colonial racial necrocapitalism or you want to use slurs. Which is it?
Sources
- “Alcoholism: Definition, Causes, & Associated Diseases” (2025) from Britannica
- “Classification of the Criminal: A Brief History of Criminology” (2015) by Nilofar Rahimzadeh
- “The Clinical History of ‘Moron,’ ‘Idiot,’ & ‘Imbecile” (2025) from Merriam-Webster
- “Dumb: Etymology, Origin & Meaning” from Etymonline
- “The History of Hysteria” (2017) by Ada McVean
- “The History of the Thyroid” (2022) by Connelly, Park, & LaFranchi
- “How Charles Darwin’s Theories Influenced the Growth of the Welfare State” (2017) by John Bew
- “The Idiot & the Community” (2020) by Kirsten Jaqua
- “Just Another ‘C’ Word?” (2023) by Penny Pepper
- “Nietzsche, Degeneration, & the Critique of Christianity” (2000) by Gregory Moore
- “The Rise & Fall of ‘Mentally Retarded’” (2015) by Rick Hodges
- She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, & Potential of Heredity (2018) by Carl Zimmer
- “’What’s in a Name?’: A Brief Foray into the History of Insanity in England & the United States” (2005) by Janet A. Tighe
- “William Bateson”(2022) from EBSCO Research Starters