STAND UP AND BE COUNTED AND STOP THE ATTACKS ON SN PARENTS

[4madboys]

ok NOT an aibu, but this is where it will be seen the most and it NEEDS awareness.

quite frankly, i along with others am appalled at the comments that are being made and left to stand, toward the SN community, they are downright offensive and quite simply appalling.

i am sure (or hope) that the majority on here do NOT agree with them but yet the SN community on mn are not being supported, whether this is because people do not know what to say, or they havent seen these posts i do not know?

BUT IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT THINGS CHANGED, so this a thread where you can stand up and be counted and say that you do not agree with the disregard, blatant trolling and offensive behaviour towards our lovely mn who have or are dealing with sn in their family.

they need this place for support, not the vile behaviour that they are getting.

so please post here and show your support and help make a change for the better.

all it takes is a smile next to your name to show you agree :)

[2shoes]

startAfire Tue 13-Sep-11 21:03:29
i think that's key really with all of the bigoted attitudes on here - the silent majority (i'm holding out hope) need to speak up a bit.

that imo is the key to it all

[SinicalSal]

As the thread title says - stand up and be counted

[JustineMumsnet]

@dittany

A personal attack is "you are an x, y, z"

A comment on how someone is behaving, even if you say they are behaving like an arse, is not a personal attack. People can change their behaviour.

Broadly speaking this is about right Dittany. Lissielou, apologies looks like we might have been a bit trigger happy on your deletion. And you could have done with a fuller explanation of why the post was deleted - in reality I think it was probably due to a little over-concern about troll hunting/opening the floodgates to a bunfight but in retrospect it was certainly the wrong call.

We do try our best to be true to our talk guidelines and more importantly to the spirit of the place but inevitably there is a bit of inconsistency/human error from time to time, particularly when things get hectic. The mod team really do work very hard behind the scenes in investigating all reports but when the floodgates of reports open and people are very cross, trust me, it can be extremely hard to make the call on what to delete and what to leave - much harder than it might seem from the other side of the shed.

Anyway, we're sorry for any irritation caused here. Please do continue to report any disablist posts - we are absolutely committed to Mumsnet being a safe haven for those with special needs and/or those with children with special needs and will delete disablist posts and ban any posters whose sole intention is to inflame. (Although it may not always happen instantaneously)

[Thumbwitch]

Well that's good to hear Justine - hope it actually happens.

Tianc makes a very good point about when opinion becomes more than that - and yes it would be difficult to police (how many times does one poster have to offend with their opinion before it constitutes harassment?) but in reality it IS about having the ability to appreciate that if someone is reasonably upset by your opinion, having the manners to stop shouting that opinion is the way to go.

People like amberlight face this all the time in RL and she spends all her working life educating people about it, sometimes to little apparent avail - it's hard if you have to spend time on MN having to do it too.

[madamarcati]

'"Somebody answers in a way that parents with SN children don't like"
What? Like an offensive way? A prejudiced way? A spiteful way? '

But that all depends on your own perspective though doesn't it?
For example a poster writes on AIBU 'I believe many children diagnosed with ADHD are just naughty' (I don't necessarily believe this btw just using it as an example) Well 0bviously many parents of children with ADHD would disagree strongly with that, but the poster it is not spiteful, offensive od prejudiced because it might be that the OP has come across this lots in her own field of work for example, so her POV is different and she genuinely believes that

[amberlight]

Justine, thanks.

Madamarcati, perspective is important, yes. But the example you give would lead me to pose another couple of theoretical statements that I don't believe are true:

"Quite a lot of Blind children are just pretending they can't see. If people gave them a good slap, that would sort them out"
"A lot of supposedly Deaf children are just pretending they can't hear. I blame the parents for not being firm enough with them."

Er, no.

It may be a point of view, but it's a bit weird to express it. Unless the poster is a diagnostic professional, or quoting other diagnostic professionals and can back it up with hard evidence, I'd say it was still a wrong thing to say. Especially since brain scanning is now showing that there is hard evidence for neurological disabilities.

[Thumbwitch]

justa, I thought it was prejudice as well, yes - basing your opinion of everyone in a subset of the population on your knowledge of just a very few of them = prejudice, doesn't it?

[IrmaMuthafucker]

Definitely prejudice and also ignorance. Stating an opinion as a fact when factually it is wrong is what a bigot does.

[Peachy]

madam perhaps and I suspect that following a statement such as the adhd one some debate is possible BUT it depends on how that is received.

It is quite possible for trolls on here to spread misinformation and crap (the ADHD one is for example, I posted much further back that many children with ADHD when scanned with High Res MRI scanners show damage to the corpus callosum, but that it was unaffordable as a diagnostic tool) and that crap damages those with the condition as wella s those who care and campaign for them.

There may be an argument for watching how a thread progresses for a very short time- if OP comes back and says oh I didn't know that- but I well remember the horriblethread where people set up a zone just to post reams and reams of spiteful nastiness without being challenged then got nasty with anyone who dared too: spreading spiteful and blatantly incorrect information is ahrmful and if something seems to be set up or posted to establish support for those views it needs to vanish into the ether rapidly.

A similar one was the post that misrepresented something an eminent researcher had dsaid to suggest that tests were availeble for ASD and so why didn;t famillies like mine stop existinga s we could ahve terminated- except even if we'd been thatw ay inclined the test does not exist. Would the OP listen? nope. Kept telling us we werewong in fact and hurling teh accusation back. Why set people up with the power to do that,; if we argue we are attacked if we do not 689 people lurking thinks oh i didn;t know that

I don't know where you draw the line but it's not clear cut

[madamarcati]

Hi folks-Can I just re-iterate i was using that sentence as an illustration.It is not what i believe!
But the interesting thing is that many people who have replied eg Irma, have ignored the fact that the sentence began 'I believe' and was therefore an opinion and not purporting to be a fact

[IrmaMuthafucker]

Actually madam my point was quite clear. Prefacing with "I believe" or "I think" ie expressing an opinion does not make a difference when the statement is factually wrong.

And I can't see anyone who has thought what you posted was your personal opinion. We took your example and collectively explained why it was not sound.

[4madboys]

well i dont think the thread has gone off subject, we are just discussing it more :) which imo is good :)

i meant to come back last night and reply to the comment re f***d but fell asleep when putting the baby to bed!

anyway my comment on that is that to me its common sense that yes its offensive, at least once you know the origins of the word, so if once you have had that pointed out to you, you continue to use it then you are being offensive and stupid.

and simply prefacing a comment with ' i believe' does not make it less offensive or prejudiced! as has been explained by the ladies before me :)

need to go and feed the baby and tidy up as hv is coming round (the joys ) but i will try and get back online later and add more :)

[OracleInaCoracle]

thank you justine.

[OracleInaCoracle]

thank you justine.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Actually, Irma, it does. "I believe" or "I think" or similar is a subjective opinion. Facts are facts and they are different.

I could say that "I believe the moon is made of cheese". I would be presented then with facts to the contrary that would dispute my belief and I'd either change my mind or I wouldn't, but facts and opinions are not the same.

[hazeyjane]

I hope that some of the posters who have thought about leaving, are going to change their minds, and stay. It is good that this discussion is happening, however difficult it is to have. And I can't emphasise enough how important mumsnet and the SN boards have been to me over the last year. It is such an isolating experience to find out that your child may have special needs, and to discover a community of parents who have gone through/are going through a similar thing is an enormous comfort.

I really don't think that saying 'I believe...' before stating an opinion based on ignorance or prejudice is some sort of Get Out Of Jail Free card. If that was the case would it be ok to say, 'I believe that the reason there are higher levels of unemployment amongst young black people, is because black people are inherently lazy'

(I really, really do not believe the above statement, btw!)

[MrsVoltar]

But LyingWitch and madamarcati if you replaced "children with ADHD" with "black/traveller/blind/deaf children" then most would accept that is clear discrimination, whether you use the phrase "I believe.." at the beginning of the sentence or not.

Parents with SN chidren want the same respect and equal treatment.

[amberlight]

It's a 'greyer' area than that, I think.
Let us consider another couple of statements that I do not in any way believe myself, just as an example to think about:

"I believe that many Black people are psychopaths"
"I believe that many people in the LGBT community are liars and thieves"

What would be the likely effect on the reader?

Would it be fine to express those sentiments in writing on someone's internet board covered by UK Equality laws, because they're just an opinion? Especially given that the Directors and staff of such an internet service become liable in law for any harassment or intimidation caused by its members, if they don't take clear action in a good timescale? Plus of course the PR aspect. And basic good manners to its own users.

If our answer is 'no', then neither is it ok to say we believe that many children with (say) a diagnosis of ADHD are simply naughty.

The Equality Act 2010 comes with some fantastic guidance on disability discrimination and the law around service providers such as internet boards. It describes disability harassment as 'unwanted conduct related to a disability, and the conduct has the purpose or effect of
(a) violating another person's (B's) dignity, or
(b) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B'

That conduct can come from the service providers themselves, from staff or volunteers of that organisation, from people hired by the service providers, or by other service users.

There doesn't have to be an intent. An 'effect' is enough. That effect, it says, is measured by asking B how they felt, and using the test of common sense to work out whether B's feelings are reasonable.

When you have a whole posse of SN mums and disabled people regularly saying (paraphrased) "we feel harassed and intimidated on a regular basis on these boards because of conduct and phrases X and Y", then there is little doubt that those feelings are real and reasonable.

[MrsVoltar]

Absolutely hazeyjane

[amberlight]

(sorry, first sentence above was re LyingWitch's thoughts)

[PeneloPeePitstop]

I think MrsVoltar has a sound point also.
Replace the target of any of the opinions aimed at a generic group of people (ie people with disabilities) with people of a certain race or religion and they ARE removed. Asking the same for families who deal with disability on a daily basis isn't too much to ask surely?