We Need to Stop Saying Things Like “The Last Acceptable Prejudice”

I came across an article yesterday entitled “Laughing at Dwarfism is the Last Acceptable Prejudice“. It’s a great article actually. It talks about how the author and other people with dwarfism have both experienced general prejudice and the added bizarre phenomenon of having people basically ask them if it is ok to tell a story or joke at the expense of someone (or all people) with dwarfism. It is important to talk about these kinds of social interactions and dissect how problematic this behaviour is.

It is however simply not true that there is only one single group that experiences prejudice that is either socially accepted or ignored as being not as big an issue as it is. A quick google search for “the last acceptable prejudice” netted me several groups that are currently vying for the title. The most common being Catholics. The list quickly extended to include; sexism in sports, obesity, ageism, LGBT people, rich people, and people with accents. There are like others who would also claim the title. In terms of actually experiencing prejudice some people who claim the title have more valid reasons to cite prejudice than do others (rich people for example, this assertion came from Donald Trump for those of you who didn’t click through). The fact remains that for the majority of these groups, their claims to experiencing prejudice–prejudice that was likely ignored by others–is entirely valid.

In 1989 Diane Driedger wrote a book about the fight for civil rights for disabled people. She titled this book “The Last Civil Rights Movement” I can personally think of a few advances and set back in civil rights for a number of groups other that disabled people that have occurred since 1989. Momentum on marriage equality only really picked up this century, racism is still very much a thing and attacks on women’s reproductive freedom are alive and well. I have heard Driedger speak and she spoke about joining the disability rights movement because all of the other major movements were over. I have always been troubled by this as other oppressions still clearly exist and there is still activism battling those oppressions. She is also not the only person to label a movement “The Last Civil Rights Movement”

I know phrases like this don’t actively deny other prejudices and oppressions but they do unnecessarily minimize them which creates competing oppressions or the oppression olympics with everyone shouting over each other to either simply validate their experiences or even actively suggest that theirs is worse. It would be almost impossible to quantify this in most cases and I genuinely don’t think it’s useful to try. At the end of the day oppression and prejudice are terrible things to experience and I don’t think anyone should have to wait in line to have their experiences addressed just because someone else’s have been deemed worse.

Acceptable prejudice particularly is after all pretty subjective. We live in a world where a man who is running for president can say that he thinks a significant portion of undocumented immigrants are rapists. Last I checked, he’s still a strong contender for the nomination. The fact that a lot of people were horrified and shocked and actively protest him doesn’t change the fact that a significant and influential number of people actually seem to like that kind of rhetoric.

We also live in a world where calling out prejudicial behaviour is attacked. The backlash against political correctness is strong and growing. The number of people who think being able to say offensive things without backlash is already large and growing. People who disagree with them are labeled whiny and thin skinned. The fact that these people often know that they are saying offensive things is irrelevant, they are still actively trying to make it acceptable for them to do so without criticism.

I sincerely doubt there is a prejudice that is universally accepted by everyone who doesn’t belong to the targeted group and there is likely a large group of people who find prejudices against every marginalized group acceptable (even if that acceptance isn’t universal. There is no “last acceptable prejudice” I assure you there are many and it only hurts people when one experience of oppression is given unnecessary precedent over another.

There needs to be a way that people can talk about their own experiences of prejudice without erasing those of others.