to find the title of this BBC drama offensive

[junipertree2]

I am referring to the show 'Subnormal' which tells the story of how black children were inappropriately placed in special education in the 1960s and 1970s. The BBC website is carrying the stories of people who were placed in these schools and they are described very negatively.

While I'm sure this is an important story that needs to be told, I struggle with the implication that special need schools (which of course still exist) were filled with life's no hopers, who would 'struggle to get a labouring job.'

My son has MLD and autism and is highly intelligent in some ways. He attends a special school as there is not really the provision within the mainstream. Is anyone else feeling the same way when they see this word plastered everywhere on the BBC and in the media?

And yes to everyone pointing out that it is not a drama.

Entirely appropriate that this title was given to this shocking documentary... Surely it was meant to shock in our partially enlightened times...

If you haven't watch it, do....

It shows you everything you need to know re culture specific intelligence testing that the original compilers called was culture blind (it wasn't..)... And the appalling treatment of people who just needed support for their dyslexia

If your dc had been alive back then op, that's the word that his teachers would have used to describe him.

It's abhorrent isn't it. I think we are meant to hear the title and feel shock, revulsion and disbelief that that was ever a term in common use.

The programme was about race and labelling. Another programme a while back ( really bugging me what progamme) also looked at the labelling of young black children as subnormal by various agencies, thus condemning many black children and massively altering their life chances. Labelling is the very point. Please watch it.

*Maybe I am just over-sensitive, Mumsnetters! Maybe it's just years of having my son called 'Spacker' and 'Retard' by neighbourhood kids, and having the school bus called 'the Mong bus'. Perhaps they can add the word 'subnormal' to their vocabularies now.

Must be nice to live in the enlightened paradises that you do.*

Ah yes, because you are the only parent who has a special needs child and care about the wording used against them. 🙄

Get over yourself, OP. Many parents who have children or adult children with special needs understand the reasoning behind the title. You being “offended” doesn’t make you more sensitive than the rest of us.

YABVU and just looking for a reason to be offended.

The point is that back then “subnormal” is as the official word that schools and teachers used

Yep, I struggle to understand how the OP missed that entire point.

It's a term that was used about a family member and it's snagged my attention because of that.

We're still angry about it and it will be interesting to see the documentary.

@junipertree2

Maybe I am just over-sensitive, Mumsnetters! Maybe it's just years of having my son called 'Spacker' and 'Retard' by neighbourhood kids, and having the school bus called 'the Mong bus'. Perhaps they can add the word 'subnormal' to their vocabularies now.

Must be nice to live in the enlightened paradises that you do.

It’s not about an enlightened paradise, it’s literally saying “look how shit it was” by using part of the term that was officially used.

We are meant to be sensitive to it. Be cause it wasn’t ok... Do you see?

The full title is "Subnormal". A British Scandal.
I was at school in the 60s and 70s.
This is what we were called.
It's distressing to watch. However, it's an important documentary exposing some serious issues which few people in the present day are aware of. It's my age group. Some of us have thrived despite it, doubtless there are so many others not as fortunate.
Watch it if you are able.
Black children, written off by the education system, by virtue of a now discredited IQ test.

I trained to be a teacher from 1970-1973 and remember Educationally Subnormal as a widely used term. I also remember being told that children from Afro Carribbean backgrounds were less intelligent (and later discovering that this was because of cultural bias in IQ tests). I thought it was a really interesting programme and a fairly accurate representation of how things were at the time.
It was really good to see those people who had become academically successful in later life.
It does show how things have changed that we find Educationally Subnormal an unacceptable term
I have a son with Asperger's Syndrome, and had he been born in that era he would have been regarded as Maladjusted.

I can understand the OP @junipertree2

It grates on you when people you love are hurt by other people's unthinking language.

It's a pejorative, offensive term. The BBC could have titled the programme with some awareness of the people affected directly by such terms still being used as OP says.

Would everyone be as happy if the N word was used? In fact we now don't use that term because it offends. Well so does that title. What's the difference?

With the best will in the world, OP, you are projecting here. The use of ‘subnormal’ was and IS offensive. This helps make the impact of the programme felt.
My child has ASD and a number of other disabilities. He is about to move schools to a specialist provision school - parents, professionals, etc, absolutely do not refer to his new school or others like it as ‘special’ school. I actually find your use of the term mildly offensive and backward. Specialist provision is much more accepted, and reflects the schools’ provision in a non-derogatory way.

“Special education school” is what my son’s school is listed as.

Classifications change and historically they have often been unflattering to say the least but these terms were the norm, way back when.
You cannot take them and apply them to the world of today.

Besides that, the documentary is not about being labeled "subnormal" for having some physical or mental problem that facilitates the need for schooling other than can be provided at a mainstream school.

It is about being labeled as such and treated accordingly just for being born black as I understand it. That is disgusting and offensive.

Use of the word is shocking, I think it's meant to be. In my opinion, it would be worse to not use it or change it for something else as it would diminish the suffering of those labeled with it based only on skin colour.

The show is not about you nor your child who both live in the modern world. Please let those personally affected tell their stories without making it about your feelings.

Sure. The Title reflects an offensive story - a group of kids whose life chances were dramatically reduced by their ethnic and social backgrounds. Difficult and uncomfortable stories need to be told, because they are part of the story of where we are now.

I get that it’s triggering for you, and I’m sorry about that, and the experiences you’ve had with your son, it must be very difficult and it’s certainly wrong. But I am surprised you would use that as a reason to reduce the impact of this story - as like you and your son the people concerned were marginalised by society.

@madroid

I can understand the OP *@junipertree2*

It grates on you when people you love are hurt by other people's unthinking language.

It's a pejorative, offensive term. The BBC could have titled the programme with some awareness of the people affected directly by such terms still being used as OP says.

Would everyone be as happy if the N word was used? In fact we now don't use that term because it offends. Well so does that title. What's the difference?

We don't use educationally subnormal either ,now but it was the correct term at the time , Currently the school my son attends is called a special school for children with moderate learning disabilities and complex disabilities The high school he wil go to in September is called a special school for children with severe learning disabilities,and children with profound and multiple learning disabilities,and complex disabilities,wording around disabilities changes all the time.

@madroid

I can understand the OP *@junipertree2*

It grates on you when people you love are hurt by other people's unthinking language.

It's a pejorative, offensive term. The BBC could have titled the programme with some awareness of the people affected directly by such terms still being used as OP says.

Would everyone be as happy if the N word was used? In fact we now don't use that term because it offends. Well so does that title. What's the difference?

The N word was never used officially. There was never a school for N... so it's not the same thing at all.

Subnormal was the word used in official educational settings, appalling in itself, and applied wrongly to African and Caribbean children. This is part of history. It should offend you.

It's supposed to be offensive, but reflect the language used at the time.

On the 1881 census enumerators had a field asking whether people were "imbeciles, idiots or lunatics".

It was the subject matter of the documentary, that, shockingly, as it showed, people from African/Afro-Caribbean communities were deemed by many in education etc to be subnormal me Look, at least make an attempt to find out about something before going all 'hot take' offended. It is utterly wearisome.

Must be nice to live in the enlightened paradises that you do

Did you actually read the full thread?

Special needs was only an expression used that I recall from the late 1980s. When I was at school in the 70s, the special needs school that still exists on the other side of the town where I lived at the time was generally referred to as having children who were ESN, or educationally sub-normal.

Whatever word is used to describe children who need (or in the case of the documentary, didn't but were assumed to be as a result of their ethnicity) a particular type of education becomes offensive precisely because it's used as an insult.

At present, some children attend Special Schools. And from the moment that became their title, 'Special' became a disablist insult. Give it time and the current phraseology will be looked back upon as 'How could they use that term?'.

I was born in the 50s and I remember doing IQ tests. I don't remember what was in them, but I am sure they would have been very culturally narrow, just as children's toys, books etc were at that time. I have medical text books from that era and earlier and a lot of the things in them are pretty grim. It was what it was. We know a bit better now, but there is still a way to go.

It's making a point about the time. So no I wouldn't be offended.