Intelligence is an ableist concept.

Describing people in terms of intellectual inferiority is ableist.

And "stupid" is a slur

Now you ask: How can it be a slur when everyone uses it?

To which I respond: This just means it's a commonly used slur.

It's still a word rooted in oppressive ideology and ableist concepts which were and are used to deny marginalized individuals their humanity

"but what should I use instead?"

You mean, a non-ableist way to insult people by calling them intellectually inferior? Yeah, no, I'm afraid I can't help you there

The same applies to every word that means "less intelligent". It's literally impossible to insult someone for supposed lack of intelligence in a way that isn't ableist.

So it's not about specific words, it's about patterns and habits of thoughts. It's about oppressive ideologies that have been drilled into our heads our whole life.

And we should try to unlearn those things

Some people object like "you focus on the wrong thing, nothing's gonna change just because we stop using a word like 'stupid'."

And, well, yeah. Erasing that particular word from our vocabulary will not do much. That's why I talk about the reasons why you should not use it

The point isn't to just "not use this word".

It's about interrogating our internalized biases and oppressive ideologies, and to make an effort to unlearn those.

It's about understanding that it is wrong to use "low intelligence" as an insult

And if you think that I'm just saying "don't use this or that specific word" then that just shows how much you need to work on this.

As long as you just think about it as "which words am I allowed to use" you won't get anywhere

You shouldn't be comfortable with seeing people use "intellectual inferiority" as their go to insult all the time. You really shouldn't.