An Observation

A lot of privileged progressives easily get on board when I make an economic argument about how bootstraps narratives—and the associated conservative economic policies that are based on the fantasy of equal opportunity unaided by privilege—task individuals with finding solutions to systemic problems.

They intuitively understand it isn't fair to expect a person acting within a system of intersectional oppression to singlehandedly overcome systemic inequity by sheer force of will.

But many of the same privileged progressives will obstinately resist the idea that marginalizing language cannot be ripped from its history and rebranded as context-free words that exist in a void.

And yet. Admonishing marginalized people to not "give power" to words used to demean us is tasking us with an individual solution to a systemic problem. We do not give those words power. The institutional oppression of which slurs are mere currency give them power.

I have control over whether I allow slurs to harm me. I do not have control over the harm done to me by people who are empowered by those slurs. And they are empowered irrespective of my personal reaction, as long as the culture privileges their attributes and marginalizes mine.