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Beehaw's community for socialists, communists, anarchists, and non-authoritarian leftists (this means anti-capitalists) of all stripes. A place for all leftist and labor news and discussion, as long as you're nice about it.

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Fuck all cops, but should we really be calling them bastards? (beehaw.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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ACAB is a common slogan, especially in anarchist spaces. Should we really be using it though? It is a reference to children born without their parents being married, and due to christian morality is seen as inherently negative. It is effectively a slur. Do we really think that trying to enforce the hierarchies we are trying to get away from on others is going to help us? How have we allowed this slogan to become so common?

As an anarchist I think we should be defending these people, not punishing them with the hope of some of that transferring to cops.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There's still tons of people who will judge you for having children without getting married. A lot of religious groups still consider it a moral failure. And even if it was completely accepted now, it still became an insult in the first place because of that stigma, and you'd still be using it within that historical context. You can't reclaim a slur by continuing to use it as an insult and ignoring where it comes from.

As an example, I've seen pretty many people use slurs for Romani people as a term for getting scammed or cheated. Usually they didn't know the origin of the term, and didn't mean any harm by it. They had heard it being used and assumed it was just another word. But you don't just accept the definition these people have in their heads as an alternate definition, disconnected from the original. It has the meaning it does based on bigoted stereotypes, and by using it they're still spreading that, even if they aren't hateful themselves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

The religious people I know would not use bastard, though. Not in any context. Cursing is a sin to them. To my knowledge bastard has not be used in conjunction with systemic oppression, so the Romani comparison is not quite apt.