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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that Chris Huhne's son was very wrong to call him 'autistic'

357 replies

Sallyingforth · 04/02/2013 17:03

He is may be an unpleasant creature but that word should never be used as an insult.
order-order.com/2013/02/04/peter-huhnes-texts-to-lying-father/

OP posts:
Spero · 05/02/2013 16:12

It's clearly my fault for not making my point clearly enough. Otherwise I would have to believe people wilfully want to misunderstand me.

Which would also be sad.

PessaryPam · 05/02/2013 16:13

HecateWhoopass I don't think you have a clue about Peters life.

MorrisZapp · 05/02/2013 16:14

I can only assume that he did not choose to use the word randomly as a general insult, but was making a direct attack on his father's behaviour and failure to understand how angry he had made his son, by referring to a condition that he mistakenly thought meant a failure to understand other people's meaning.

He was wrong, but to him the word was descriptive of his father's action. Lots of people think that autism is characterised by difficulty with social interaction, myself included. Education is clearly needed, but you can't compare the word autistic with spakka in that context.

HecateWhoopass · 05/02/2013 16:15

and we're back to talking about him specifically.

I give up. I really do.

MorrisZapp · 05/02/2013 16:16

It's the topic and title of the thread.

HecateWhoopass · 05/02/2013 16:16

Grin I'd achieve a lot more if I gave up mumsnet, sally. Pissing about on here for no good reason wastes too much of my day.

fromparistoberlin · 05/02/2013 16:16

penelope

do one, there's a love

stop being so passive agressive and how DARE you suggest that other posters would use the vile term spakka?

Just because people are not "horrified" (purely given the context of child being a minor, under presure bla bla ), you thinks that equates to us being disablist haters that use the terms spakka????

hecate I would love to say this thread has taught me stuff, but sadly it hasn't

HecateWhoopass · 05/02/2013 16:18

I was responding to pam. Yes, it's the title and op, but the whole of the thread has been about moving away from this specific example! And an attempt to move the discussion to the general point about autism as an insult and autism awareness.

PeneloPeePitstop · 05/02/2013 16:21

Paris, do one yourself, there's a love Smile

Christmasberry · 05/02/2013 16:22

I have a deaf daughter, the amount of times people say to their children 'are you deaf' just because they didn't answer the first is a little shocking, usually idiots who say it!

PessaryPam · 05/02/2013 16:23

FFS cut the poor boy some slack, your specific home life is not figuring in his comments. It's not all about you and your children. I feel so sad for him. It's a difficult age at 20 and to have such a total Huhne of a dad is hard.

PeneloPeePitstop · 05/02/2013 16:26

Is it ok to use any -ist term, even in anger, even in private?
I say no.

Doesn't mean I don't have any sympathy for the situation of the young man who typed it.

desertgirl · 05/02/2013 16:27

The deaf one is a good point. I am pretty sure I use that on occasion. I guess I need to rethink. Apologies, Christmasberry and other people who find it offensive.

megandraper · 05/02/2013 16:28

*is it ok to use any -ist term, even in anger, even in private?
I say no. Doesn't mean I don't have any sympathy for the situation of the young man who typed it. *

This. It's in anger and stress that our prejudices reveal themselves. I don't think this boy's prejudices are unusual, that's the issue. If he was unusual, there wouldn't be much to say.

Pagwatch · 05/02/2013 16:29

I don't think anyone has chosen these comments as some kind of a launch pad for an attack. I am sure i am not the only one one here quite interested in how people see the use of language differently, in spite of some posters thinking that ou have to read the op and then start bludgeoning whoever you think is on the other side.
It was in the news, someone noticed it and started a thread. It's not a lynching.

I have already said it repeatedly but it is worth saying again - I think everyone sympathises with this boy. I think saying 'poor, poor boy. What a hideous situation but I really wish he hadn't used that word' is reasonable.

I have found people's comments in the most part pretty interesting.

It reminds me of a conversation in about 1986 when another female team leader and I asked our Director if he would reconsider calling us 'sweetheart' in presentations.

AmberLeaf · 05/02/2013 16:32

Yet we are using the words of a distraught teen that we wrongly released (someone elses kid) to make a politcal point and have a bun fight

Do you really think that people here are trying to make a political point?

Like we are trying to be 'right on' or something?

PeneloPeePitstop · 05/02/2013 16:34

Interesting the reaction to the word spakka though by the way.

Until relatively recent times 'spastic' was used as the name of a national charity for people with cerebral palsy. Until it got hijacked by people using a medical diagnosis in a derogatory way.

Can no one else see the irony?

HecateWhoopass · 05/02/2013 16:35

I'm currently more interested, Amber, in the invisible font that I appear to be using every time I stress that this is about the general issue of using autism as an insult.

MorrisZapp · 05/02/2013 16:38

Pag, that may be true. But this thread has many voices on it, including one saying that if anybody wasn't horrified by what the guy said then it was saddening.

Lots of people in the middle ground surely between 'that wasn't the right word to use' and being horrified.

This story is all over the news, I think it's futile trying to debate the issues it throws up in a more general context under that OP.

In this instance, most people think the story is the MPs behaviour and the effect on his family. And they will keep coming back to that, inevitably.

AmberLeaf · 05/02/2013 16:40

I know Hec, its baffling.

I see the irony PeneloPee!

Good to see that some are taking something positive from this discussion though.

MorrisZapp · 05/02/2013 16:41

You didn't say spastic Penelope, you said spakka.

My lovely old gran still says spastic. She genuinely means no insult by it. Spakka (which I have never heard btw but I'm in Scotland and have heard plenty other unpleasant terms) is something different altogether.

MorrisZapp · 05/02/2013 16:47

Op and thread title must also be in invisible ink then. Start a new thread for general discussion, surely?

Pagwatch · 05/02/2013 16:47

MorrisZapp,

Yes. I take your point. I think every thread around this now gets forced to the extremes of the discussion with no room in between.
I think that as soon as people start arriving with 'ffs' and 'PCness' and 'haven't you got more important things to talk about' it starts circling the drain.

Shakirasma · 05/02/2013 16:51

Totally agree with everything Hecate has said.

I am also sick of people trying to excuse his upsetting choice of insult on his age. He's only 20, he's naive, he was upset etc.

When I was his age I had a small child and was in the process of leaving an abusive husband. I was young naive and stressed out but I never used disablist insults any more that I would have used racist ones. It wouldn't have occurred to me to think of any.

Some of the arguments I've seen on here remind me of tha arguments made in defence of racist language 10-20 years ago. Eg, don't be oversensitive, it wasnt mean offensively etc etc.

fromparistoberlin · 05/02/2013 16:51

its not hecate, your font I mean! !!! I can see it , I am just not convinced this thread is the right place thats all!

and I think given your comment, you are thinking the same?

I did read and ackowledge what you write earlier about your DC, and how you worry for their future. I heard you , really

I dont think this is the best place

amber, you love a ruck dont you! racism, SN, always there! !! grrrrr Grin