Absolutely surprising to me that one of the easiest ways for people to appropriate the idea of being allies has been to talk about how not to use slurs. Like what, slurs are not systems of oppression in and of themselves, they are a way to reinforce that system. (1/

Like nowadays a lot of the caste talk is happening, media is picking up, twt trends happening, so people are talking about how not to use casteist slurs. Which yeah obviously you should not, but why is the conversation stopping there only? (2/

I am not going to talk about castiest slurs. But I can give "personal experience", queer slurs. Absolutely shocking that even in queer spaces we have lengthy talks about "reclamation" and "appropriation" but zero self reflection. (3/

We need to have better conversations about slurs, how they have used to specifically aid systems of oppressions, you don't become an ally by doing things like not saying dyke and still fantasise about a threesome cause it's like the dream bro (4/

I have seen the same trajectory with casteist slurs nowadays, no self reflection(specially from my savarnas "educating ourselves"). We have been through this before, specifically in urban spaces, about queer people. (5/

Your "education" on castiest slurs (or yes, even queer slurs) should not stop at just oh I will not say this now. You have to reflect on how the normalisation and deregatory nature of the words happen. Why and how they are used. (6/

Slurs are used specially to reinforce heirarchy (caste, class, gender, sexuality), that's why people use tranny or bhangi, it is a way to tell the already oppressed group where they belong in society, in heirarchy imposed on them. (7/

And yes I know many people already realise it, but it just becomes a truism, just like oh yeah this system exists, and my only job as a good ally ™ is to make sure what words I don't use. Like no! Our job as an ally is to dismantle oppressive structures! (8/

And part of it is yes, trying to reorganise language to be more accessible, of course it is. But so much energy is wasted on language, that it just becomes a thing about what not to do, and like why? Then we start policing and do only that. Why? (9/

That's also the reason why cissies or whatever is not a slur, there simply doesn't exist systemic backing to reinforce that hierarchy. I beg of people "educating oneself" atleast have a more indepth talk other than "stop using this" (10/

not using slurs is a good thing, yes stop that. But coupled with it we all need to think about how language has been used as a tool for domination (including spelling, civility in language etc) if we don't do that, it doesn't mean anything, it's just performance then. (11/

Also how the mental anguish it is supposed to be. Personally, I am of the view that if we destroy oppressive structures first and then someone uses a slur on me? Yeah cool who cares. But like sure stop using them before also. (12/

And you know, I get it, slurs are one of the more overt and yet seemingly not horrendous forms of violence(like rape) they are easy to point out as they become common all over. But that should be the starting point, that is not where allyship ends. (13/

Even the utter sheer Audacity of using this whole slur thing as posturing to then tone police others? Like what are you doing, atleast spend your energy organsing if you are that worried about oppressed groups, would help much more. (14/