Flist, a little help?

[dieewigenacht]

See, sometimes I screw up. It's always by accident, obviously, but most of the time I can tell exactly why I screwed up, others not so much.
The thing is, I recently commented about an article in ontd_feminism about Text messages as a new weapon in dating violence with pretty much a "That's why I don't date, 'cause there are crazy people there"

Here, the comment

Now, I didn't say that with the intention to offend anyone, by "crazy people" I meant people that act crazy when dating, but judging by the comments I think I screwed up.
I've apologized already, but I feel kinda silly apologizing for something I don't understand that much. Sure, maybe what I said was wrong, but I just don't see why

That said, if three people I don't know are saying I screwed up they probably have a point, so I want to know, in words of people I actually know and trust, what I did wrong and how can I avoid doing it again.

Thanks.

Comments

[valtyr]

Saying that people who are hurtful and abusive are crazy people associates hurtful abusive people with people who have mental illnesses.

In fact, most abusive hurtful people are just assholes, not mentally ill, and I don't think people with mental illnesses have a much higher rate of hurtful abusive people amongst them - in fact, they're more likely to be the victims of abuse.

If you had said "I don't date because there are a lot of abusive hurtful people out there," I imagine that would have been fine.

I'm trying to reduce my usages of ableist words like 'crazy' or 'lame' or 'dumb', but it is difficult, especially as mainstream society hasn't really caught on to such ableism yet.

[dieewigenacht.livejournal.com]

Oh, so that was it.

Yes, I probably should have phrased that in another way, since I didn't wanted to relate mental illnesses with abusive people.

See, this is one of the things I enjoy about the Internet, it teachs me a lot of things, since this kind of behaivour, my behaivour, is something normal where I live.
Here, on the internet, I get to realize that some of the things I say can be considered wrong or hurtful.
I learn.

I'm going to follow your example and reduce my albeist words use.

Thanks :D

[valtyr]

Yeah, it's pretty common here to be casually ableist, too, and often sexist. Sometimes even racist. It's through the internet, where it's easier for minority views to get a platform, that I've found out a lot of things I would never have otherwise had occasion to learn. :) Just another reason I adore the internet.

[arileo.livejournal.com]

Personally I can't really find anything wrong with what you said either, but then I'm not exactly very good with social ettiquette or being able to properly interpert people and what they are saying. And it's even harder online, when you can't hear people's tone of voice or see their facial expressions.
I tend to get lectured alot about saying things that are innapropriate or for having an "attitude" when I didn't mean to.
My usual tactic is to try to run things through in my head a couple times before I speak/hit send, and try to see if something could be taken wrong. If someone still gets offended, I apologize, and leave it at that.
If people still give me grief AFTER the apology, then I tell them to piss off. (Because I may lack social skills, but even I know that harrassing someone over an innocent mistake is just plain petty)