Like Racism, But Not Really
I was just doing some idle Googling of the ridiculous term “specist” and this unintentionally hilarious message board entry was the third result :
Is half-Klingon a specist term?A disturbing thought ocurred to me today. Ninety nine times out of a hundred T/7 writers (and others) refer to B’Elanna Torres as half-Klingon and a great deal of emphasis is put on her Klingon heritage sometimes to the point where she is regarded as almost entirely Klingon in her responses and cultural idiom.
Fanfic writers often completely disregard the canon view of B’Elanna Torres as highly alienated from her Klingon heritage. She is repeatedly shown on STV as very reluctant to acknowledge that side of herself even to the extent of trying to remove all Klingon genes from her own child. Her knowledge of Klingon language and customs is incomplete at best.
Is this just a fanfic habit or does it reflect a deeper feeling that if Torres is part Klingon then she is not even part human? I’ve never seen her described as half human although sometimes Klingon-human hybrid is used.
Are we unconsciously specist?
I’ll keep this in mind next time I get the urge to refer to Chewbacca as “half-dog”.
To those who use words like “specism” without laughing, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find many actual specists, since every other member of our genus is extinct. Perhaps you could start using the term Anti-Phylumite or something. Then again, you might want to be careful next time you’re eating lunch, lest you get labeled a Kingdomist.
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Don’t get me wrong: B’Elanna Torres is an interstellar hottie. I’d travel 100,000 light years on a cold morning just to stand next to the unit that cleans her towels. (I’ll only reveal what I’d do regarding 7-of-9 if thrown into Abu Ghirab for a weekend.)
However — not to be a wet blanket or anything — I find it hard to contemplate even the extrauniversal beauty (meaning it’s a valid constant across all potential Multiverses) of 7-of-9, when my attention is being pulled around by the continuing deterioration and surrender of America’s political structure to proto-fascisim. Not to mention the Tsnuami.
And the lump on The Chimp’s back — which I suspect to be one of those creatures from Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters.
Comment by Tom S — January 14, 2005 @ 7:07 pm
I once saw her referred to as “half-Klingon/half-Hispanic”, which just seemed…odd.
Ditto on the Interstellar hottie remark.
Comment by Michael Harrington — January 15, 2005 @ 12:01 am
I stand chastened as someone who in my ignorance used the term “specist.” I was going to make some groan about how word meanings change and language is elastic and living and how “species” doesn’t just mean what it means when used in scientific specificity, but then I figured why bother? I get on my high horse about things like this too, language ignorance.
Personal pet peeve – using “literally” to mean “figuratively” which apparently bothers David Cross as well.
Old bother – pronouncing “suite” as in “bedroom suite of furniture” as “sute” (as not to confuse with “soot”) when it should still be fucking “sweet”
Comment by The Critic — January 15, 2005 @ 7:47 am
I always wonder if the folks who use the term “specist” are secretly dog-fuckers.
On the pet peeves of language, use of the term “irregardless” bugs me. It’s “regardless”. Adding extra syllables in an effort to sound educated just backfires.
Also “geometrical” – what’s wrong with “geometric”, not long enough?
If there is a distinction in the meaning of the two words, what is it?
Finally, why is everything you buy now a “system”? A system has to be reasonably complicated. For example, a broom is not a “floor debris removal system” it’s a fucking broom. A razor is not a “shaving system”. It’s really getting silly.
Comment by Dave — January 17, 2005 @ 8:33 am
I thought there was some talk of moving the chimpanze and bonobo into are genus?
Comment by Andrew — January 17, 2005 @ 12:07 pm
Is this the thread where we just randomly blurt out things? Because I’ve noticed that the vile and unnecessary word “quadrillogy” has leapt off the Aliens DVD box set and started showing its ass in other contexts.
It’s called a “tetralogy,” people. “Three tragedies and a satyric,” my good friend Euripides helpfully adds.
And another thing: What’s the deal with curmudgeons? They used to be confined to the back pages of magazines; then they started showing up in final minute of news broadcasts. Nowadays I can’t turn on the Internet without seeing some dime-store misanthrope wax annoyingly about this or that trivial solecism.
Comment by HP — January 19, 2005 @ 10:59 am
i understand your gripe with the term specist, but how about this?
a definition of ‘racism’ can be:
2) Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
(The American Heritage? Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
if you substitute ‘race’ for ’species’ in a definition of ’specist’, you do not exclude species in other genus, nor are you necessarily referring to another species within your own genus. thus the term ’specist’ isn’t logically wrong, is it? it makes good sense to use it because the popular understanding of the word ’species’ (compared to ‘order’, ‘family’, ‘genus’, whatnot).
yes, genusist (genist?) would be better word to use if you want to be accurate, but my point is that it isn’t illogical to use ’speciest’ on someone who would say ‘i hate all species but my species’, which certainly is saying the same thing as ‘i hate all genus but my genus’ given the circumstance.
then again, i probably would be labeled a kingdomist (kingdist?) by any mineralist since i’m vegan and consciously discriminate against all kindoms but the animalia, and i have some friends who would be ‘classists’ on account of not eating mammals.
Comment by mateusz pozar — January 20, 2005 @ 6:44 pm