What is going on with personal attacks/disablist language being left to stand?!

Really Lass? How would you define it? And how do you think it has been traditionally used?

Imbecile is a term used to describe persons with learning difficulties

Really? I don't think so.

it seems like mn hq are on their hols as no response on this thread or to any reports

Well we've been told that there aren't many people in so I guess they are on holiday...

how many times?? i have done it about 3 times.
all they have done is a link to TIMC thats it. disbalist stuff still there.

Yes there are PAs on me still there. Which is nice. Spose it's Sunday rhough

but the vile ons on the other thread are still there. even reporting does nothing

it seems like mn hq are on their hols as no response on this thread or to any reports

Many blessing to all of you brave and outspoken people. I am honoured to be on the same forum with people who are able to speak with compassion about SN.

I have just lost my nut on a thread. I shan't be posting about SN for a long time. I just can't manage to hold myself together.

i never post anything much about my child on here. having been hounded by a group of sn poster(yep really) nt able to take part in the TIMC campaign(the agist one) as dd was too old. and all the goady shit from the temp able bodied posters......I gave up.
have to say its so much better now I don't

The GFs have won for a bit.

Well I fail to see any appeal in me posting on MN for a good while.

hazey

I think I am going to have a break from ever mentioning my ds on these threads, or of bothering to try and 'educate'.

There seem to be a shitstorm of threads laying into posters who point out that something is disabilist at the moment. My favourite post has just popped up, 'Why should children with SN have to get everything they want and behave how they want all the time?' I mean, really? Is that what people think, are they really so fucking dense. I just don't think I can be bothered any more.

I have been told I have no sense of humour, suck the fun out of a thread, am professionally offended, think my child's needs trump the needs of others, and so on.

I (nearly) always try and post with good humour and be balanced. I might just start posting Go Fuck Yourself Arsehat, and see where that gets me (banned obviously!)

In the meantime I shall stick to talking about bell tents and tv shows for a bit!

I shall go have a glass of something to celebrate

Respect to you Pag - sensible exchange of views with both of us agreeing it's shit when it's abused. I've been out with my much loved foster brother ('severe' Autism and LD) aged 19 now but I've taken him out since he was 8 and heard comments and ignorant terms.

My career means I object to bigots and not the words they use and wouldn't censor those words without thinking they knew what they meant.

But some of those people are probably discriminatory twats but as a HCP I try to not view people as twats.

Oh my God - two people on MN with experience of the subject not really agreeing but respecting each others views and not resorting to PA or head tilts!.

I'm quite happy for us to disagree ain'tgonna - I enjoy other people's views

I'm never going to get excercised about whether the person shouting 'retard' at my son, or the person saying 'fucking retarded' has some nuanced understanding about what it actually means.
I'm not responsible for educating the public. I come here to chat and mess around and I don't have to put up with that stuff.
So they can be deleted and go away and figure out how to conduct themselves in a way that conforms with the ethos of the site.

I agree Pag - completely. But I don't think that everyone knows what those terms may mean or how they may be abusive. And again, the term itself isn't offensive but if it's used abusively then it may be - but I don't think the user always knows that.

Retarded means clinically - someone that isn't functioning intellectually, socially or emotionally the same as their peers.

I think a lot of people in society think 'retarded' means someone stupid, slow or 'backward'. If they mean someone on a thread here that they think is stupid then I think they're ignorant but I wouldn't necessarily think they were being deliberately abusive or disablist.

I'm not defending anyone,.just saying that many, many people don't have direct experience of disabilities or knowledge of them. It's the education we need to do rather than say these words are wrong and offensive and delete you for it - we need to try to inform (in my humble opinion).

On a tangential point - I have seen/heard 'autistic' used (about apparently NT people) as an insult/criticism so many times recently. It seemed to start with the Gordon Brown debacle a few years ago.

I think Paggy's criterion of 'contemptuous' is important.

Well yes.

It's not often someone objects to the use of medical/technical terms in context.

What I object to - and I don't give much of a toss how often medical terms get appropriated - is the idea that when you want to be as rude and contemptuous as possible, you reach for a word that describes SN/disability.

So yes the attitude is the problem but in the meantime we have to focus on the words so that people can't do the 'well yes but the words keep changing and it's hard to keep up'
Stop using them as an insult

I think that the difficulty is that often, these are medical terms that actually describe conditions and are then seized on as terms of abuse and it's that that leads to them being considered disablist.

I work in MH in the UK and saw someone last year that the Dr I was with (from elsewhere in Europe) later referred to as retarded. In the clinically appropriate use of the word and he was upset and confused when I told him we don't use that term.

Spasticity is a medical term that was abused and then when the spastic society changed their name, people used 'a bit scopey' as a term of abuse. Same as 'special needs, a bit special or he's a spesh' are now all terms of abuse and discrimination.

We can object as much as we like about certain terms. It's not the terms that are the problem - it is the lack of understanding and knowledge of what that term may mean that is the problem.

We'll understandably object to the terms and then when we replace them - those 'acceptable' new terms will still become shorthand for a disablist opinion.

It's attitudes we need to fight, not words.

I saw A and E the day after. But will go back to GP on Monday