Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: offensive language in the game

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

Hmm. I think this is discussion about name calling?
Should we engage in name calling or not?
And, if it turns out a thing we are calling someone is something that
they hear as name calling, should we stop?

Or I suppose, we could say to them "cut me some slack, I like name calling"?

Or perhaps what we are doing is saying "lets cut some slack for the
people who do name calling since they didn't intend harm?"

It is good to have good intentions but you can still cause harm. Good
intent doesn't prevent causing harm. A way to show good intent is to
try to avoid causing harm, and thus to avoid name calling.
It doesn't feel like a big ask to ask people to apologize for creating
harm by calling names and to try not to do it again.

"It is hard to keep up with the language changes." Well, yes, yes it
is, and it means sometimes I say the wrong thing. But because I care
about people, I go ahead and make the effort.

Liz
Mosaic Commons in Berlin, MA

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 10:20 AM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L
<cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 9, 2021, at 9:25 AM, R Philip Dowds via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> > [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> >
> > I’ll return to my earlier point:  I agree that language counts, and words 
> > matter.  But as we all try to learn the most constructive way to say 
> > things, maybe we should cut each other some slack?
>
> And remember that one of the goals of cohousing, that gets mentioned a lot, 
> is diversity. What does deciding how people should behave mean in terms of 
> diversity?
>
> One of our members died last month. In writing about my memories of him, I 
> talked about his seeming love of arguing. For 21 years, he was as dependable 
> as waterfalls:
>
> > Steve had a habit of asking people what their opinion was about something 
> > and then arguing with them about their response. It was a mystery why he 
> > asked in the first place — except for the argument. Just after Carrie moved 
> > in she witnessed one of Steve’s arguments with me in the dining room. Of 
> > course, Carrie explained to us how if we used different words we could 
> > easily resolve this. I should say this and he should say that. Of course, 
> > we ignored her. The whole point was the argument.
>
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
>
>
>
>
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-- 
-Liz
(The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
www.elizabethmaemagill.com
508-450-0431