It isn't clear from the article; did they run the photo before family members had all been notified of the man's death? I'd really hate to learn of the death of a sibling or friend or coworker from seeing a photo of him on the front of the Herald. Even if the family had been notified, I'd really hate to have a loved one die and then see a sensational tabloidized photo of the person right before he died. Obviously the paper isn't running the photo to memorialize him, since it doesn't say who he is.
And when will the Herald stop referring to individuals with slurs such as "junkie," "thug," "bum," and so forth? They must not use AP or Chicago or any of the mainstream publication styles.
"Person whose life was disrupted by an unfortunate addiction to illegal, controlled substances?" That's a junkie.
Using language to avoid the harshness of reality does no service to anyone. Not everything is morally relative. Heroin use is wrong. It is destructive. And it is often fatal. Making it sound gentler doesn't help.
Yes, heroin use is definitely bad. But this doesn't make the person bad. We all do good things and bad things. There is no reason to label the entire person based on very little information. So I wouldn't call him anything other than a "man."
As a professional, I'd be fired if I ever referred to any person, regardless of whether I had a professional relationship with them, with any sort of label. I can't write that I saw a junkie today or that a client reported speaking to some junkies.
I also would wish to be treated with respect and as a whole person if I were to develop a substance abuse problem. Golden rule. There's no reason to refer to any fellow human with a label, especially a derogatory one.
Junkie is a wholly adequate term. Those who do not wish to be called junkie should stop doing drugs, especially in the Public Garden.
Don't try to Golden Rule us. A bunch of junkies are turning the Public Garden into Needle Park. You and your fellow professionals have clearly failed both junkies and Bostonians. It's time for the cops to step in and the agents of failure to move out of the way.
I'd like to see the research supporting that "Hey, you should stop doing drugs, unless you want to be called a junkie!" is an effective treatment approach.
No, eeka, it's more like this: If YOU don't want junkies to be called junkies, why don't YOU treat them? After all, you are the professional, I'm just a man who enjoys strolling through the Public Garden, sans junkies. But feel free to call them Nice Little People With Somewhat Different Chemical Intake Habits as you administer care and compassion on their way to an early death at the end of a wasted life.
These aren't slurs, and AP is silent on all of them. Cripple is a slur, unless my grandmother is using it to describe herself.
American Heritage Dictionary (the only one handy at the moment) has the first definition of bum as a tramp; hobo. 2. A person who avoids work and seeks to live off others. [It was the middle of the day]
Junkie: (slang) A narcotics addict, especially one using heroin. [how fitting]
Thug: A cutthroat or ruffian; hoodlum; a tough. [this might not fit so well, but with further investigation into the individuals present, it might prove to be true]
So, you could refer to him as a junkie, especially if he was shooting up. Besides, newswriting is its own animal with its own style rules. AP governs most, but each paper has its own voice. The Herald chooses precise language rather than committee-developed adjectives.
As for labels, they are OK if they are properly used. They don't limit my personhood. If I have cancer, I am a cancer patient, not a person who has cancer and is receiving medical treatment in a medical center (hospital). If I have an extra finger, I am a six-fingered man, (or 11-fingered if you count them all).
Your suggestion of "Man" is correct, but what separates him from all the other men in the Public Garden that day, including the photographer? And by me calling him a photographer, am I labeling him by his job or limiting his personhood? Should I refer to him as a man who takes journalistic photos for a living?
You might want to read William Zinsser's "On Writing Well." He discusses use of direct language over passive language quite convincingly.
Finally, as for the timing, news is news. It's no different than posting pictures of a plane crash and the flight number within minutes of the accident. All the families of the people on that plane will know immediately of the disaster before they know the status of their loved one.
Illegal drug use is a sad truth of American society. It is not something we should ignore, turn our backs on, or water down with friendly adjectives. Call it what it is and deal with the problem honestly. To do otherwise is to condescend to the junkies and their loved ones.
I've read it and refer to it frequently. I've cited it in the book I'm writing. Good stuff.
I definitely don't think we should ignore drug use or water it down. I don't believe that I ignore drug use, or any of the other ills of society, while I'm discussing them frankly at work every day. I also am a huge advocate of accuracy in describing people and events, just as it seems you are. We don't know that this person was addicted; the story didn't even identify him, let alone ask for statements from people who might have done a diagnostic evaluation for him. If he were an addict, I still think that it's a lot more respectful to refer to him as a man with a heroin addiction. "Junkie" is just not a respectful term. I don't think many of us use the term to describe a spouse or a sibling or a friend. We might dislike their substance abuse, particularly if it's active, but I don't think most of us refer to our loved ones using a slur, and I don't think this person's loved ones would appreciate it.
Regarding slurs, slurs referring to addiction are considered slurs in the disability community. They are discussed frequently in publications about avoiding ableist language. It seems exactly the same to me to call the clients of the substance abuse program upstairs from me "junkies" as it would be for me to call my clients "tards" or "gimps" or "psychos."
As far as insensivity goes, true, junkie and the rest aren't. But it doesn't mean the term isn't correct or fitting. However, the key difference between using tard to refer to someone with, say, Down syndrome and junkie to refer to a drug user (or addict), is that drug use takes a conscious choice, whereas someone with Down syndrome doesn't choose to have a learning disability with certain identifying physical characteristics.
With the exception of babies born to drug-addicted mothers, no one is forced to take street drugs. Those babies, however, don't come out of the womb and start shooting up with illegal drugs. They must still make that conscious choice when they are older. Indeed there are myriad arguments that could launch from here about how people become addicted; one example being someone who takes prescription OxyContin after knee surgery and later turns to heroin. But that's not for this discussion about the language used to describe "a person who has a propenstiy for the addiction to illicit narcotic substances" (Read: drug addict).
As for this story, though, it does appear to follow the pattern of most over-dose victims (or victims of over-dosing on narcotic-like substances), according to the follow-up story in today's Herald, the deceased was a regular user and addict. AND, it appears the family is -- well grateful for the coverage isn't the right term -- but hopeful that their loved one's tragedy will be a calling card for his drug-addicted friends. Also, what this shows is that drugs aren't limited to inner-city gangs. It shows that, in fact, a white guy from an otherwise good family (one that society believes to be good, at least), in a hard-working suburb of a major city can be addicted to heroin, and so can his brother.
Again, this is an example of the scourge of illicit drugs. No one has found the correct answer to rid society of them. Making them legal isn't a very good solution, because there would still be the pain and loss of addiction. And there would still be junkies shooting up in the Public Garden just as likely as they would shoot up in Newstead Montegrade.
Until a solution is found, we must endure scenes like these, and printing them in the newspaper is as much fair game as any other human tragedy, such as a plane crash as I said before, or a baby falling from a third-story window. Death and their circumstances are a fact of life, and when they are a public spectacle or particularly noteworthy, they are news.
I'll leave off with this question: Would anyone have been upset with the pictures if these were scenes of gun-wielding bank robbers leaving a bank with armloads of money and firearms pointed at police and bystanders?
...and mad props for including a Newstead Montegrade reference.
>I'll leave off with this question: Would anyone have been upset
>with the pictures if these were scenes of gun-wielding bank robbers
>leaving a bank with armloads of money and firearms pointed at
>police and bystanders?
I'd have been upset if someone had been killed or seriously injured in the robbery and there was a shot of someone "moments before s/he died" or a picture of shots being fired or a mangled body or something. Just the piece of respect for the family. Like, the mainstream news doesn't usually post photos of a mangled body from a car accident or fire or such. They might show plane wreckage or a car being towed off, but usually not, like, carnage. I think it's just a matter of respect.
I actually don't think that people choose to have such poor coping skills and such a lacking support system that they turn to drugs. Sure, people definitely consciously pick up the drugs and take them, yes. I just find it really interesting which mental illnesses have what stigma. Because you can say that we "choose" any behavior. Where do we draw the line? Am I choosing to write this post? Am I still choosing if, say, this thread was really triggering and I was someone who goes off on people because of trauma issues? Am I still choosing if I'm someone who talks to people who aren't there and believes that my thoughts are controlled by a spaceship? Am I still choosing if I'm a person with a profound cognitive disability who got a hold of a keyboard and is banging away on it?
I pretty much hold the belief that any person, if they have the skills to, is going to choose to have their needs met. They're going to choose to have a job and an education and friends and a place to live and a healthy lifestyle. When people engage in behaviors that cause other outcomes, I think it's because something's getting in the way. I think this is what mental illness is. I don't mean in the sense of major mental illness, but rather "illness" as the opposite of "health," as in the barriers we all have that keep us from having 100% mental health all the time.
A good comparison I like to make in terms of the stigma of different mental illnesses is that between substance abuse and eating disorders. The thought patterns and behavior patterns are VERY similar, anyone who's been in treatment for one or the other will tell you. The therapeutic approaches are often very similar. I can even think of several adolescent programs that treat mainly kids with one or the other. Or both. They're very similar patterns. Yet, when I've mentioned working with people with eating disorders, I never have heard anyone say that these kids are losers who choose to starve themselves and that the community needs to be rid of them. I know, eating disorders aren't tied into crime and so forth like drugs are. But in terms of the person who has a substance abuse problem or an eating disorder, they are usually VERY similar in terms of the needs they have that aren't getting met, the areas in which they lack coping skills, and their areas of strength. I think it's really important to separate out that, yes, drugs and drug culture are bad and harmful. But the people who get sucked in and harmed aren't inherently bad. Just like how eating disorders are bad, but the people who develop them aren't inherently bad.
You'd get fired because your profession (counseling, social work, disability rights) is uber-PC. It is the heart of the PC world. In your community, "junkie" is unacceptable. But your community's views and standards are not the norm. For most people, "junkie" is a fine word.
I remember when my ex-wife was studying for her MSW. I read some of her course texts, including a paper by a nutjob professor who seemed to be arguing that all phrases including the word "black" should be avoided. (Black as night, blackball, blackhearted.) He felt the stigma of putting "black" with anything dark or negative was designed to keep black people oppressed. (He also had some false etymologies to present.) He was loony. I learned then that the social work field is full of people whose standards are far to the left of mainstream society. So far out, in many cases, that they are safely ignored by most people.
eeka, your worry about "junkie" may be an example of this. The way you hear things is different, perhaps, from the way most of the rest of us do. It's good to hear. It may provide some balance for my reactionary descriptors. But I'm sticking with junkie. And thug. And even punk. And gang-banger. You are what you do.
...are largely loony. I'm absolutely with you there.
But we've talked about political correctness. I'm not PC. For exactly the reasons you pointed out, like the idea of avoiding saying that something or someone is B/black. I do believe though in being descriptive whenever possible. FWIW, I take issue just as frequently with writing I receive that's written in "proper" professional terminology. I get referrals all the time that make blanket statements about someone's behavior or thoughts, don't tell me what they're basing it on (individual's report, other's report, their impressions based on X), and don't give me any examples. It's not helpful. It's actually less helpful than assessing an individual who is sent without paperwork.
I also find that inaccurate language is inherently disrespectful to the person, because it labels the whole person based on what might not be characteristic. Someone might have been a bad fit for a particular classroom and/or been targeted by other kids, and then they go around with paperwork saying generically they're hyperactive or antisocial. They at least deserve the accuracy of a paper trail that says that a particular teacher described them as hyperactive (not that teachers are licensed to diagnose people, but that's another issue...).
It's actually really disturbing how MUCH people in healthcare will accept random blanket statements without attribution. I mean, if I found that my personnel file at work had a piece of paper, not signed by anyone or dated, saying I had poor leadership skills and didn't show up to work on time, I'd demand to know what on earth was going on. Yet people receiving healthcare often have stuff following them around that's just as poorly documented. And a lot of providers don't question this. WTF?
I think we agree more than we disagree. Certainly, no child should be labelled so abruptly and dismissively by his educators. And no medical professional should diagnose (worse, treat) based on one-word descriptors. But those aren't the standards of normal conversations, where labels are needed to identify concepts. Or of journalism, where conscise deascriptors are a boon.
Incidentally, I heard "junkie" used on last night's episode of Starved on FX. It was used to refer to someone with an eating disorder who binges on a particular chocolate cake regularly.
I think calling someone a junk-food junkie or a latte junkie or whatever isn't labeling the whole person so much. Especially because you have to add the specifier of what behavior you're discussing. If I tell you my friend is a junkie, you don't assume I'm discussing her Diet Coke habit.
It is interesting that only the headline directly refers to the men as junkies; the other two junkie references are more abstract, referring to the idea of heroin users at large.
I think the issue here is that there journalistic language and language used in conversation should absolutely be different. Right or wrong, in a casual conversation in one’s home it is his or her prerogative to use pejorative words like junkie, ‘tard, fag, spic, etc. However, one professional code of journalism is to be objective. We can make all the assumptions we want, but the article did not present any information indicating this man used heroin before the day of the photos. We also do not know the circumstances of how he became addicted or how long and how hard he may or may not have struggled to kick this hobbit. It is only through the loaded language of the article that we have a picture of this man as a junkie, when perhaps he was a man earnestly seeking recovery. The fact is we don’t know. Maybe the man is a junkie, but it’s not the journalist’s job to tell us that. The journalist should only lay out the known facts of the man’s addiction (or lack of) and allow the reader to apply his or her own label, right or wrong.
Also, on the topic of negative terms like “black ball, black cat, man in black, black Monday, black sheep†– the professor may be looney, and it may not be some big conspiracy designed to oppress black people, but it is entirely wrong to dismiss how this type of language effects peoples perception of the world around them. What little I know about the Sapir Whorf hypothesis shows scientifically that the way we form our ideas is very closely tied to the way we perceive the words in our language.
It is at the very least interesting to contemplate. Make a list of all the bad things in our culture that are symbolically associated with the word/color/idea of ‘black’ (see above) and then make a list of all the things symbolically associated with white (the white light at the end of the tunnel, the good guy dressed in white, the White House, the ivory tower, angels are usually dressed in white). Then consider that Caucasians are called whites and African Americans are called blacks. Again, I am not saying there is some sort of grand design behind all this, but our culture is constantly reminded through art, literature, and mass media that white = good and black = bad. If these associations are formed at a very young age then it will shape the way a person sees the world. I am not on a campaign to change the way we speak and write, but I do think it is interesting and something to be aware of in the course of discussion and reading.
And if our local newspaper the Herald constantly uses loaded language, it shapes the way Bostonians view their world. I wish they would give us more credit for our intelligence, give us the facts, and let us decide how we see it, not how the editors see it.
Three factual questions on the Herald's drug photos and story. 1) It's been described as "an unidentified heroin user in the process of killing himself." I went through the photo gallery several times, and I don't see a photo of the guy who died shooting up. We have a photo of his friend shooting up, but not the guy who died. Do we know that he did? 2) Do we know that he died of an overdose of heroin? 3) Did the photographer really show the cops photos of the other guy shooting up, leading to his arrest? Is that the right call?
To be clear: We see a photo of the deceased, but no photo of him shooting up, right? We do see a photo of him while his friend holds a needle. But no photo of the deceased shooting up.
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At least Professor Media
At least Professor Media Critic hasn't missed a beat.
Respect?
It isn't clear from the article; did they run the photo before family members had all been notified of the man's death? I'd really hate to learn of the death of a sibling or friend or coworker from seeing a photo of him on the front of the Herald. Even if the family had been notified, I'd really hate to have a loved one die and then see a sensational tabloidized photo of the person right before he died. Obviously the paper isn't running the photo to memorialize him, since it doesn't say who he is.
And when will the Herald stop referring to individuals with slurs such as "junkie," "thug," "bum," and so forth? They must not use AP or Chicago or any of the mainstream publication styles.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
What should they call him?
"Person whose life was disrupted by an unfortunate addiction to illegal, controlled substances?" That's a junkie.
Using language to avoid the harshness of reality does no service to anyone. Not everything is morally relative. Heroin use is wrong. It is destructive. And it is often fatal. Making it sound gentler doesn't help.
Man?
"Man" would work quite well for describing him.
Yes, heroin use is definitely bad. But this doesn't make the person bad. We all do good things and bad things. There is no reason to label the entire person based on very little information. So I wouldn't call him anything other than a "man."
As a professional, I'd be fired if I ever referred to any person, regardless of whether I had a professional relationship with them, with any sort of label. I can't write that I saw a junkie today or that a client reported speaking to some junkies.
I also would wish to be treated with respect and as a whole person if I were to develop a substance abuse problem. Golden rule. There's no reason to refer to any fellow human with a label, especially a derogatory one.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
junkie
Junkie is a wholly adequate term. Those who do not wish to be called junkie should stop doing drugs, especially in the Public Garden.
Don't try to Golden Rule us. A bunch of junkies are turning the Public Garden into Needle Park. You and your fellow professionals have clearly failed both junkies and Bostonians. It's time for the cops to step in and the agents of failure to move out of the way.
Hmm...
I'd like to see the research supporting that "Hey, you should stop doing drugs, unless you want to be called a junkie!" is an effective treatment approach.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
uh-hum
No, eeka, it's more like this: If YOU don't want junkies to be called junkies, why don't YOU treat them? After all, you are the professional, I'm just a man who enjoys strolling through the Public Garden, sans junkies. But feel free to call them Nice Little People With Somewhat Different Chemical Intake Habits as you administer care and compassion on their way to an early death at the end of a wasted life.
Use direct language
These aren't slurs, and AP is silent on all of them. Cripple is a slur, unless my grandmother is using it to describe herself.
American Heritage Dictionary (the only one handy at the moment) has the first definition of bum as a tramp; hobo. 2. A person who avoids work and seeks to live off others. [It was the middle of the day]
Junkie: (slang) A narcotics addict, especially one using heroin. [how fitting]
Thug: A cutthroat or ruffian; hoodlum; a tough. [this might not fit so well, but with further investigation into the individuals present, it might prove to be true]
So, you could refer to him as a junkie, especially if he was shooting up. Besides, newswriting is its own animal with its own style rules. AP governs most, but each paper has its own voice. The Herald chooses precise language rather than committee-developed adjectives.
As for labels, they are OK if they are properly used. They don't limit my personhood. If I have cancer, I am a cancer patient, not a person who has cancer and is receiving medical treatment in a medical center (hospital). If I have an extra finger, I am a six-fingered man, (or 11-fingered if you count them all).
Your suggestion of "Man" is correct, but what separates him from all the other men in the Public Garden that day, including the photographer? And by me calling him a photographer, am I labeling him by his job or limiting his personhood? Should I refer to him as a man who takes journalistic photos for a living?
You might want to read William Zinsser's "On Writing Well." He discusses use of direct language over passive language quite convincingly.
Finally, as for the timing, news is news. It's no different than posting pictures of a plane crash and the flight number within minutes of the accident. All the families of the people on that plane will know immediately of the disaster before they know the status of their loved one.
Illegal drug use is a sad truth of American society. It is not something we should ignore, turn our backs on, or water down with friendly adjectives. Call it what it is and deal with the problem honestly. To do otherwise is to condescend to the junkies and their loved ones.
Zinsser...
I've read it and refer to it frequently. I've cited it in the book I'm writing. Good stuff.
I definitely don't think we should ignore drug use or water it down. I don't believe that I ignore drug use, or any of the other ills of society, while I'm discussing them frankly at work every day. I also am a huge advocate of accuracy in describing people and events, just as it seems you are. We don't know that this person was addicted; the story didn't even identify him, let alone ask for statements from people who might have done a diagnostic evaluation for him. If he were an addict, I still think that it's a lot more respectful to refer to him as a man with a heroin addiction. "Junkie" is just not a respectful term. I don't think many of us use the term to describe a spouse or a sibling or a friend. We might dislike their substance abuse, particularly if it's active, but I don't think most of us refer to our loved ones using a slur, and I don't think this person's loved ones would appreciate it.
Regarding slurs, slurs referring to addiction are considered slurs in the disability community. They are discussed frequently in publications about avoiding ableist language. It seems exactly the same to me to call the clients of the substance abuse program upstairs from me "junkies" as it would be for me to call my clients "tards" or "gimps" or "psychos."
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
You know...
I think it's pretty fair to assume that someone who shoots up heroine in broad daylight in a public park is a junkie. I'm just saying, is all.
tards, gimps, psychos, and, yes, junkies
As far as insensivity goes, true, junkie and the rest aren't. But it doesn't mean the term isn't correct or fitting. However, the key difference between using tard to refer to someone with, say, Down syndrome and junkie to refer to a drug user (or addict), is that drug use takes a conscious choice, whereas someone with Down syndrome doesn't choose to have a learning disability with certain identifying physical characteristics.
With the exception of babies born to drug-addicted mothers, no one is forced to take street drugs. Those babies, however, don't come out of the womb and start shooting up with illegal drugs. They must still make that conscious choice when they are older. Indeed there are myriad arguments that could launch from here about how people become addicted; one example being someone who takes prescription OxyContin after knee surgery and later turns to heroin. But that's not for this discussion about the language used to describe "a person who has a propenstiy for the addiction to illicit narcotic substances" (Read: drug addict).
As for this story, though, it does appear to follow the pattern of most over-dose victims (or victims of over-dosing on narcotic-like substances), according to the follow-up story in today's Herald, the deceased was a regular user and addict. AND, it appears the family is -- well grateful for the coverage isn't the right term -- but hopeful that their loved one's tragedy will be a calling card for his drug-addicted friends. Also, what this shows is that drugs aren't limited to inner-city gangs. It shows that, in fact, a white guy from an otherwise good family (one that society believes to be good, at least), in a hard-working suburb of a major city can be addicted to heroin, and so can his brother.
Again, this is an example of the scourge of illicit drugs. No one has found the correct answer to rid society of them. Making them legal isn't a very good solution, because there would still be the pain and loss of addiction. And there would still be junkies shooting up in the Public Garden just as likely as they would shoot up in Newstead Montegrade.
Until a solution is found, we must endure scenes like these, and printing them in the newspaper is as much fair game as any other human tragedy, such as a plane crash as I said before, or a baby falling from a third-story window. Death and their circumstances are a fact of life, and when they are a public spectacle or particularly noteworthy, they are news.
I'll leave off with this question: Would anyone have been upset with the pictures if these were scenes of gun-wielding bank robbers leaving a bank with armloads of money and firearms pointed at police and bystanders?
Lots of good points...
...and mad props for including a Newstead Montegrade reference.
>I'll leave off with this question: Would anyone have been upset
>with the pictures if these were scenes of gun-wielding bank robbers
>leaving a bank with armloads of money and firearms pointed at
>police and bystanders?
I'd have been upset if someone had been killed or seriously injured in the robbery and there was a shot of someone "moments before s/he died" or a picture of shots being fired or a mangled body or something. Just the piece of respect for the family. Like, the mainstream news doesn't usually post photos of a mangled body from a car accident or fire or such. They might show plane wreckage or a car being towed off, but usually not, like, carnage. I think it's just a matter of respect.
I actually don't think that people choose to have such poor coping skills and such a lacking support system that they turn to drugs. Sure, people definitely consciously pick up the drugs and take them, yes. I just find it really interesting which mental illnesses have what stigma. Because you can say that we "choose" any behavior. Where do we draw the line? Am I choosing to write this post? Am I still choosing if, say, this thread was really triggering and I was someone who goes off on people because of trauma issues? Am I still choosing if I'm someone who talks to people who aren't there and believes that my thoughts are controlled by a spaceship? Am I still choosing if I'm a person with a profound cognitive disability who got a hold of a keyboard and is banging away on it?
I pretty much hold the belief that any person, if they have the skills to, is going to choose to have their needs met. They're going to choose to have a job and an education and friends and a place to live and a healthy lifestyle. When people engage in behaviors that cause other outcomes, I think it's because something's getting in the way. I think this is what mental illness is. I don't mean in the sense of major mental illness, but rather "illness" as the opposite of "health," as in the barriers we all have that keep us from having 100% mental health all the time.
A good comparison I like to make in terms of the stigma of different mental illnesses is that between substance abuse and eating disorders. The thought patterns and behavior patterns are VERY similar, anyone who's been in treatment for one or the other will tell you. The therapeutic approaches are often very similar. I can even think of several adolescent programs that treat mainly kids with one or the other. Or both. They're very similar patterns. Yet, when I've mentioned working with people with eating disorders, I never have heard anyone say that these kids are losers who choose to starve themselves and that the community needs to be rid of them. I know, eating disorders aren't tied into crime and so forth like drugs are. But in terms of the person who has a substance abuse problem or an eating disorder, they are usually VERY similar in terms of the needs they have that aren't getting met, the areas in which they lack coping skills, and their areas of strength. I think it's really important to separate out that, yes, drugs and drug culture are bad and harmful. But the people who get sucked in and harmed aren't inherently bad. Just like how eating disorders are bad, but the people who develop them aren't inherently bad.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Your job is super-PC
You'd get fired because your profession (counseling, social work, disability rights) is uber-PC. It is the heart of the PC world. In your community, "junkie" is unacceptable. But your community's views and standards are not the norm. For most people, "junkie" is a fine word.
I remember when my ex-wife was studying for her MSW. I read some of her course texts, including a paper by a nutjob professor who seemed to be arguing that all phrases including the word "black" should be avoided. (Black as night, blackball, blackhearted.) He felt the stigma of putting "black" with anything dark or negative was designed to keep black people oppressed. (He also had some false etymologies to present.) He was loony. I learned then that the social work field is full of people whose standards are far to the left of mainstream society. So far out, in many cases, that they are safely ignored by most people.
eeka, your worry about "junkie" may be an example of this. The way you hear things is different, perhaps, from the way most of the rest of us do. It's good to hear. It may provide some balance for my reactionary descriptors. But I'm sticking with junkie. And thug. And even punk. And gang-banger. You are what you do.
Social workers...
...are largely loony. I'm absolutely with you there.
But we've talked about political correctness. I'm not PC. For exactly the reasons you pointed out, like the idea of avoiding saying that something or someone is B/black. I do believe though in being descriptive whenever possible. FWIW, I take issue just as frequently with writing I receive that's written in "proper" professional terminology. I get referrals all the time that make blanket statements about someone's behavior or thoughts, don't tell me what they're basing it on (individual's report, other's report, their impressions based on X), and don't give me any examples. It's not helpful. It's actually less helpful than assessing an individual who is sent without paperwork.
I also find that inaccurate language is inherently disrespectful to the person, because it labels the whole person based on what might not be characteristic. Someone might have been a bad fit for a particular classroom and/or been targeted by other kids, and then they go around with paperwork saying generically they're hyperactive or antisocial. They at least deserve the accuracy of a paper trail that says that a particular teacher described them as hyperactive (not that teachers are licensed to diagnose people, but that's another issue...).
It's actually really disturbing how MUCH people in healthcare will accept random blanket statements without attribution. I mean, if I found that my personnel file at work had a piece of paper, not signed by anyone or dated, saying I had poor leadership skills and didn't show up to work on time, I'd demand to know what on earth was going on. Yet people receiving healthcare often have stuff following them around that's just as poorly documented. And a lot of providers don't question this. WTF?
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As usual,
I think we agree more than we disagree. Certainly, no child should be labelled so abruptly and dismissively by his educators. And no medical professional should diagnose (worse, treat) based on one-word descriptors. But those aren't the standards of normal conversations, where labels are needed to identify concepts. Or of journalism, where conscise deascriptors are a boon.
Incidentally, I heard "junkie" used on last night's episode of Starved on FX. It was used to refer to someone with an eating disorder who binges on a particular chocolate cake regularly.
Are either of you familiar with this song?
Are either of you familiar with this song ?
YES!
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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Yes, indeed
And I think it demonstrates how mainstream the term is. Thanks for the memory.
Well...
I think calling someone a junk-food junkie or a latte junkie or whatever isn't labeling the whole person so much. Especially because you have to add the specifier of what behavior you're discussing. If I tell you my friend is a junkie, you don't assume I'm discussing her Diet Coke habit.
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Language
It is interesting that only the headline directly refers to the men as junkies; the other two junkie references are more abstract, referring to the idea of heroin users at large.
I think the issue here is that there journalistic language and language used in conversation should absolutely be different. Right or wrong, in a casual conversation in one’s home it is his or her prerogative to use pejorative words like junkie, ‘tard, fag, spic, etc. However, one professional code of journalism is to be objective. We can make all the assumptions we want, but the article did not present any information indicating this man used heroin before the day of the photos. We also do not know the circumstances of how he became addicted or how long and how hard he may or may not have struggled to kick this hobbit. It is only through the loaded language of the article that we have a picture of this man as a junkie, when perhaps he was a man earnestly seeking recovery. The fact is we don’t know. Maybe the man is a junkie, but it’s not the journalist’s job to tell us that. The journalist should only lay out the known facts of the man’s addiction (or lack of) and allow the reader to apply his or her own label, right or wrong.
Also, on the topic of negative terms like “black ball, black cat, man in black, black Monday, black sheep†– the professor may be looney, and it may not be some big conspiracy designed to oppress black people, but it is entirely wrong to dismiss how this type of language effects peoples perception of the world around them. What little I know about the Sapir Whorf hypothesis shows scientifically that the way we form our ideas is very closely tied to the way we perceive the words in our language.
It is at the very least interesting to contemplate. Make a list of all the bad things in our culture that are symbolically associated with the word/color/idea of ‘black’ (see above) and then make a list of all the things symbolically associated with white (the white light at the end of the tunnel, the good guy dressed in white, the White House, the ivory tower, angels are usually dressed in white). Then consider that Caucasians are called whites and African Americans are called blacks. Again, I am not saying there is some sort of grand design behind all this, but our culture is constantly reminded through art, literature, and mass media that white = good and black = bad. If these associations are formed at a very young age then it will shape the way a person sees the world. I am not on a campaign to change the way we speak and write, but I do think it is interesting and something to be aware of in the course of discussion and reading.
And if our local newspaper the Herald constantly uses loaded language, it shapes the way Bostonians view their world. I wish they would give us more credit for our intelligence, give us the facts, and let us decide how we see it, not how the editors see it.
(Sorry for the long post.)
Mmmhmm.
>I wish they would give us more credit for our intelligence
TOTALLY.
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Questions on the drug photos
Three factual questions on the Herald's drug photos and story. 1) It's been described as "an unidentified heroin user in the process of killing himself." I went through the photo gallery several times, and I don't see a photo of the guy who died shooting up. We have a photo of his friend shooting up, but not the guy who died. Do we know that he did? 2) Do we know that he died of an overdose of heroin? 3) Did the photographer really show the cops photos of the other guy shooting up, leading to his arrest? Is that the right call?
re: Questions
To be clear: We see a photo of the deceased, but no photo of him shooting up, right? We do see a photo of him while his friend holds a needle. But no photo of the deceased shooting up.