Attitude vs Vocabulary

When I hear the term "donkey", I always associate it with a 4 legged animal carrying a whole lot of weight being steered by a washerman or stupid, silly person. The former is a natural association because donkeys have been used for carrying heavy load and many folk tales talk about the donkey exploitation by the washer community. The latter also seemed like a fact until a few months back.

I was on a road trip and saw a herd of donkeys standing on the side of the road. One of them moved pretty close to the vehicle I was in and it was almost as though he/she had made eye contact with me. That's when I observed how pretty those eyes were. Looking at the herd, I could make out that all donkeys had similar beautiful eyes. The whole herd suddenly transformed in my mind from ugly creatures who make awful sounds to good looking creatures who still make awful sounds. 

This change in perception made me wonder about the other known trait associated with a donkey, silliness and stupidity. Why are they called stupid? Is it actually science or the society?

One of my friend's suggested that they are probably called stupid because they are risk takers and stubborn. Due to this nature of theirs , in the past, they were used to herd cattle.

Another told a folklore of how a washerman and the donkey who wanted to be free. The washerman would tie the donkey everyday to the tree near his house. The donkey would struggle to break free but was not successful. Months later, due to some reasons a rope wasn't available and so the washerman just took the donkey to the tree and left him there. The donkey assumed that it was tied and so didn't move or escape. The story was probably meant to be a take on the conditioning trap. But possibly some people interpreted it as an act of stupidity.

On looking online, I came across an article in a science journal about how donkey's association with stupidity had no scientific basis. The article stated that donkeys possess a decent number of cognitive abilities which human posses. The association of stupidity with a donkey had probably it's roots in the social classes. Donkeys carry heavy loads. People who carry heavy loads or do the physical labour were probably referred to as donkeys by some person from a higher social strata in a derogatory manner. Since people from labour class were not educated or exposed to the worldly ways, their ignorance was categorized as stupid. So possibly a combination of ignorance and risk taking made the association with stupidity and donkeys were deemed the same.

Donkeys probably wouldn't know or care as to how they are perceived. They are not human beings and so nobody cares whether they are affected when being referred to as stupid. 

But say we live in a world where animals fight for their rights and donkeys protested and refused to carry heavy loads because they are associated with stupidity even though they have been proven to be comparatively smart. 

So what is the way out here? Some person comes up with a another name for donkey, lets say: Falafel . So Falafel refers to a donkey and the term donkey is still a slang for stupidity.  

Sometime later another set of people make the association between donkey and Falafel and start using it  as a slang for stupidity.

A name change happens again: Blake and again after sometime the same cycle repeats,

The crux lies in the fact that the attitude of the people who associated stupidity with Donkey, Falafel or Blake is still the same.

Changing the name isn't going to bring a difference to their ways of thinking and it is going to make life difficult for people who don't use the term donkey in a negative way.

Looking at changes to in vocabulary, or the new words introduced or used to represent certain people or attributes, has the same bearing.

In certain countries, people who do household work are referred to as house help. The evolution of this word has possibly been

servant > maid > help

I was seated once at a birthday party next to my friend's mother. An older lady who was her friend came by and gave me a very weird stare from top to bottom. She pointed at me and asked my friend's mother

"Is this your new help?"

I was taken aback. My friend's mother was embarrassed and explained after an animated No. The lady who posed the question couldn't see me eye to eye throughout the party.

It was a plain question and the simple answer was either Yes/No.
But the authoritative and disapproving tone in her question was quite evident indicating a disgust for the people who do housework as a profession. As a passive receptor of that question, I felt insulted and would have felt the same irrespective of whatever her tone was.
Her tone or attitude and my social bias of associating an insult with being called a servant/domestic helper would never change irrespective of whether they are called Fairies or Angels, unless we both actively try to change our attitudes towards dignity of labour.

The same parallels can be drawn across so many words in English vocabulary

Fat > over weight > obese > heavy > healthy
Dark skin > black/brown skin > tanned > dusky
Physically disabled > differently abled
Mentally disabled > Mentally challenged
Airhostess > Flight Attendant> Cabin Crew

The change in vocabulary in all above cases can possibly stall the negative bias, but at the end of the day people just have to individually look beyond their bias.