MNHQ .. Can we talk about disability bashing?

[Brownsugarshortbread]

Over the years i have posted on and enjoyed MN.
Sadly there seems to be a growing culture of it being okay to have a go at disabilities, those who claim DLA and those who's children have 'invisable' disabilities such as ADHD and ADD.
The terms 'freak' and 'scrounger' have been batted around and comments from some posters IMO certainly boarder on harrassment and discrimination.

When certain posts or posters have been reported, some have been removed, yet a lot haven't.

And while I agree with free speech, these types of comment or reaction to these comments, are not an education for those bigoted posters. Nor do those whose lives are touched by disability wish to be used to educate those posters.

Disability Harassment

is unwanted behaviour based on disability,
impairment or additional need. Such behaviour may include comments that are patronising or objectionable to the recipient or which creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for people with disabilities. Disability harassment includes inappropriate reference to disability, unwelcome discussion of the impact of disability, refusal to work with and exclusion of people with disabilities from social events or meetings.

Threadworm, if we are going to split hairs, then the original meaning of 'idiot' was 'uneducated or ordinary layperson'. It was only in the 18th/19th century that the word 'idiot' was used to describe those people who had a mental age approximation of 3 years. According to wiki anyway.

I suppose it's a question of drawing a line. There are some words which have such general usage that context is all-important.

There are other words which can only be offensive, IMO.

I mean, can anyone come up with a legitimate phrase that involves the word 'moron'?

Words like moron or idiot are used in common parlance away from any reference to disability though. I don't really see how you can insist that people on a discussion site stop themselves using language that would be reasonably acceptable in any newspaper. That is quite different from tolerating hate speech against people with disabilities.

I can Lougle: "you fucking moron"

same as idiot in my world...

sorry in my 16 years I have never met anyone with a dx of anything that includes moron or idiot.
mental retardation, spasctic cp, for instance are proper medical terms, offensive when used in other contexts.

TheFlyingOnion...you are saying 'You fucking person with a mental age of between 8 and 12'.

If, infact, the person you are directing that to, does NOT have a mental age of between 8 and 12 years old, you are insulting them by using a disabled person's condition against them.

Just as it would be racist to say 'you fucking paki'.

Lougle, to be honest, I don't think they don't get it. I think they don't see it as interfering with their business interests and as such, they just don't care. To a certain extent, I think it suits MNHQ to have these debates for some reason. It is horrendously patronising to cast people with disabilities, their parents and carers into the role of "educator" in this context but I suppose it generates traffic and that, after all, is the raison d'etre of the site. MN peddles a certain sort of identity but for some reason, disability politics is deemed outside of this white middle-class female agenda. God knows why, disability matters are very much feminist matters with many women and parents of disabled children pushed into poverty as a result of dealing with disability. But it's not a matter of interest to MN, for whatever reason. Reflecting society's prejudices as a whole, I guess?

If someone were to take a case, suddenly MNHQ would become very keen to promote a disability-friendly editorial policy. Interesting how when Riven's situation was in the media, there was much trumpeting about the rights of the disabled?

MNHQ are doing bad business in this case but perhaps they fail to see it. More fool them.

The piece I posted above is from an essay on internet communities but says a lot about the nature of cyberspace fora like this one. It was referenced in a documentary on BBC2 last night and it has certainly made me think..

That, Shoesytwoesy (good to see you btw) is because we are not in the 19th century

Except, there are times when I think we must be, because it is the only rational explanation for the utter ignorance on this thread.

don't be so silly, Lougle

If I call you a dude am I saying "an ill-bred and ignorant, but ostentatious, man from the city" (wiki it if you don't believe me)

Wise up to the 21st century...

I don't think I was being hair-splitting. In ancient greek it simply meant something like 'stupid'. It was introduced as a "medical" term in 1910 and dropped as such a few decades later. Currrently, I imainge that its status as a former diagnostic term is unknown to almost all of its users. It is linguistically legislative to insist on returning to a superceded use in order to label users of it as disablist. This is what I had in mind when I posted earlier about values becoming 'exsanguinated': there is no real connection here to the actual linguistic pactice of the speakers.

I just think we have to be careful not to go overboard, some words like idiot have been in common use since I was a child and I am very old, same with moron, if we go to far we loose support,

You have never seen anyone call someone a retard FO? I have seen it several times.

When someone politely points out that it is offensive some posters will aplogise and even thank them for explaining but many will argue that its fine to use it and its meaningless.

I am not sure about moron tbh. Its not a word I associate with people with LDs because its not been used for so long in an official sense. I am however willing to listen to those who feel its inappropriate.

I am willing to listen to anyone explain why they find something offensive. That comes from years of having people dimiss me when I challenge their use of language.

Agree shoesy. I do very much indeed want to supprt the absolute necessity of avoiding disablism. I just feel that objective is badly pursued in this case (the case of "moron")

LeninGrad we do but mn hq don't

TheFlyingOnion no retard is offensive and disablist, but you know that don't you, are you enjoying your wind up.... cos I am hiding you now>>

so mn hq you can now see from TheFlyingOnion post that you can't educate some people they will still go out of thier way to offend and upset and troll

Retard is NOT losing its clout and it is still to be found in some medical literature from the USA.

Why would you feel the need to use a word like Spaz?

Aahh I can see that the wind up wankers have landed