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.

I bet you did. One less battle to just have a chance at a nearly level playing field.

TheHumanCatapult - had to read through or skim through quite a lot of threads to find your post, but I agree with you - disability bashing threads ought to be deleted just like racist or homophobic ones are. What about some threads where various posters have actually been quite intimidating/bullying in tone - those are left (actually, most of the offensive race or homophobic ones I came across didn't even get deleted by MNHQ - I am just assuming nobody noticed them or reported them). I often found it so distressing or bizarre (or both) that a parenting forum could have such belligerent debating tones that I just logged off and did not want to even look at the website for a long time. I really feel for the fellow mums and dads here who have been on the receiving end of some awful prejudice and bullying in real life. It isn't justified on MN. And it's about time we phased out and came down hard on posters here who are actually using the words "spaz" or "retard" (other than in quotation marks to express their disagreement with said quote) believing that they are cool or "with it" - as parents we should know better.

Potoroo - I'm so sorry to hear what you've been through.
Brownsugarshortbread - thank you for bringing up the matter for discussion and attention. I will look out for any threads (even those I don't plan to follow or post in) and report if I see those offensive words - or phrases/sentences. It's a timely reminder.

Coming late to this thread, but wanted to add my thoughts.

I did not see the thread in Relationships as being provocative, but perhaps my radar is not so well developed.

It is so difficult sometimes, to see how patiently posters point out to those who use words like this that they are offensive, only to have the "oh ffs" brigade appear.

While I agree that offensive posts are sometimes better left so that everyone can see what a wanker the poster was, it is only right that disabilist posts are removed.

Use the acid test.
Would you like that comment to be made about you/your lifestyle?
Would you like your child to be called that name? Or what they suggest to happen to your child (eugenics)?

If no, delete.

I have difficulty understanding anyone who, once people have explained that a word is offensive to them, deliberately continue to use that word. Even if you personally never thought of it as offensive and still don't, why would you want to continue to upset someone? And the 'we always said it' defence is so ridiculous. In the past a lot of things were said that are no longer considered acceptable. These words can be added to the list.

And it's a false equivalent anyway, isn't it? I mean surely the equivalent would be "mum worried her son might have SN" or "mum concerned that her NT child is going to a school where most children are SN, will she get an appropriate education?" - both of which would be entirely valid, and entirely different from the threads in question. If a thread had been started which said "all gay people are paedophilic perverts who should be made to undergo shock therapy" that would be very clear-cut, right?

EvenNarkyPuffin - quite. Take away the legal/moral aspects, I always thought it was common courtesy to avoid needless offence. Seems that common courtesy is thought too boring these days

Puffin
Exactly. If someone were to tell me that a word that I had used in innocence was offensive to many people - eg spastic or retard - then I would stop using it. It is not as if we have a limited vocabulary in the English language. There are plenty other words that have the same meaning as that which I intended.

And yes, the comparison is not right.

"AIBU to think those on DLA are benefit scroungers" vs "AIBU to think a black man should not be allowed to be a teacher" - why should the latter be so abhorrent that it is deleted and the former not?

i quite agree with you, narky, regarding this thing of 'well if someone's just told you that they are uncomfortable with/offended by a word, why keep using it?'

BUT it has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not the way MN works. i am in no sense drawing a line between the offence caused by cunt names and the offence caused by disablist language, fear not, but the day when MNers changed their names to cunt names to campaign for the freedom to offend was a watershed i think.

HQ wanted cunt names gone, and instead they increased. that said to me that the matter of offence is a community matter, not an MNHQ one. so it seems unfair to put the burden back onto them to police the site for words alone, rather than, as they do now, let threads play out a bit before deciding whether to act.

Aitch I agree too that it is a community matter. So many good points on this thread! :)

I see mutterings about ' the disablist threads' around and about. To me this is not offensive at all, what it means to me is people on mn are at least have a nose at what is going on, forming an opinion and in a way talking about it ( whether in jest or not). Nobody wants to take the right of free speech or to offend away, MN is well loved for it's feisty attitude. Heck that's what I love about MN. But the community here isn't just those who wish to have a free for all with any minority group. It's here for everyone.
If you search the words spaz and retard there years of their usage, a lot of it has been challenged and posters 'educated', some have slipped by as you would expect. MN is a big ole cyberplace. Yet considering the amount of times words like these have been used and pulled up on, it still happens.. Education isn't working.

Like I say I personally hate the word cunt. However I also believe that because it isn't an 'ism' as such it's not contravening ( sp) the DDA and the equality act. You know those things have been placed in society for a reason, the same way that there are reasons you shouldn't steal. Etc.

oh how I refrain from bringing up grape eating in supermarkets :).. Yet in a side of seriousness there is more outcry at a few munched on grapes by a toddler than there is about some of the DLA/ spaz etc threads.

When these issues are bought up, it can jested at as a disablity mutany ( sp again).

They do police the site for certain words. As they should. Hate words like n, homophobic words like pfter etc. This is about recognising that more words should be on that list. Words that target specific groups and are recognised by the police as such should be dealt with. If people posted that someone was 'acting like a pfter/pki/reard' which one would currently be allowed to stand? All* are hateful terms that are/were shouted at asian/gay/SN people in the street and playground. Only with the last one would you ever get people arguing that they didn't mean it to be offensive because they weren't saying it like that.

This isn't about swearing, which offends some people's sensibilities. It isn't about a small minority of people who are 'sensitive' to certain language. It's about the fact that some words are no longer acceptable to use. Full stop. If someone used them unthinkingly and was pulled up on it, fine. But this is about people deliberately using the terms to cause offense, or continuing to use them when they've been told it's not acceptable.

maybe we should all name change and have spaz or retard in our names, see if that is noticed.
I don't like seeing teh word cunt.
so I don't open the thread or ignore,
but I think there is no comparison to a thread with cunt in it and the disablist posts.

I did ask mn hq to look at this thread again and post but was told that they had already posted!]
that is how much they care.

"It isn't about a small minority of people who are 'sensitive' to certain language. It's about the fact that some words are no longer acceptable to use."
And there is the legal aspect to consider as well, of course.

maybe it is time to give up this idea that MN is a site where you can say whatever you like.

it isn't.

it is policed for certain words and terms.

I agree with Leningrad - if it were my site, i would draw a line and say "no. not this. it will not happen here" - this is already done for other hate terms.

it would not mean the end of the ability to use the word cunt. and, tbh, I have always found the endless harping on about freedom to use expressions and words in whatever way people choose to be a little disingenuous anyway.

the whole cunt argument was just a band wagon rolling past. lots of people jumped on, because it suited them to do so, and they were a bit bored, or whatever.

not so many people leaping up now, are there? and I would argue that there are more people being hurt/offended/upset/having to walk away from support because the endless sniping cannot be ignored.

I think it is time MNHQ actually took control and responsibility - too often they get swayed by "we will do what the majority say" - as in the cunt protest. well this time, it is not good enough.

what if the majority (in this case) protest for the right to use mong, spaz, retard, etc? sadly, it is entirely possible. but it would still be wrong.

the SN section on here has always been such a good resource.

look at it now. so many posters no longer post there (and on MN in general about SN issues) because of the lack of support form MN as a whole. because time and again they have been let down. because time and again they have been hurt by the majority remaining silent while a vocal minority name call, snipe and criticise.

and yet, when anyone complains, they are told over and over "no, we value your input - you have changed the way I think about things. you have opened my eyes. without your posts I would know nothing about X"

sadly, all too often, this seems to be a one way street, and not much is given back when these posters are in need themselves.

growingstrawberries a lot of people have left or stick to the sn topic, as they believe it to be safe(yeah ok) I rarely post about dd now, I think it is wrong to share about a person with sn on a site that treats such people with contempt
tbh I don't like comparing disablist words with swearing. I would hate to see this serious thread bogged down with a debate about swearing.
BUT..... mn hq do ask people to change posting names if they offend, but threads are allowed to offend, confusing, double standards and wrong

but if people are referred to as spaz or retard or cunt or nigger etc it is deleted, it doesn't need to be a personal attack, those are words that are disallowed.

however what happened in the last few days was that someone posted to express their disgust that their husband called them a spastic, and everyone agreed so vociferously that he was an arsehole that she got pissy about it and went on a wind-up herself. was she seeking attention with the word spastic? absolutely. should it have been asterisked by mn? i think so. but zap the whole thread? i'm not so sure.

likewise the freakshow thread, imo that post should not have been deleted. however also imo the poster should have acted like a grown up and apologised properly. but do we zap her for being immature and arsey, when she clearly felt very wounded by the response she got?

i mean don't get me wrong, i'd zap 'em all, i don't give a fuck, it's not my website. i'm with pagwatch on this one... wanker... zaaaap.

but if people are NOT using these words to offend and harm (in fact technically the freakshow poster was speaking up for disabled people who she felt were being exploited) then what? what precisely do we ban, and when do we act?

i have definitely used the words freak show to talk about television programmes that parade small children with disabilities in the past, where appropriate (the problem yesterday was the the poster had picked the wrong show) and i will continue to do so. in fact more or less had i posted what catmilk did yesterday i would have got away with a few s and some wot u on abouts, because people do know that i am not for the most part a wanker.

i think MN must be allowed to use their discretion, tbh, because this whole place is so bandwagonesque at the moment that all it takes is for one influential poster to start yelling and the whole mob descends. i've seen it on the natalie cassidy and the BTBD threads recently, and been pretty shocked.

oh, and poof isn't banned. not so long as you are pretending to talk about furniture while coming out with a load of offensive, stereotypical shite about gay men fucking.

"this whole place is so bandwagonesque at the moment that all it takes is for one influential poster to start yelling and the whole mob descends"

which is why I think it is time MNHQ came out with some hard and fast rules too, rather than relying on the wishy-washy approach that has served ok in the past.

doesn't mean that discretion cannot still play a part.

but the whole bandwagon thing is just wearing thin.

and, quite honestly, as a community, MN is NOT doing well at self-policing. the loudest voices are the ones listened to - and when those voices are the ones shouting "it was only a bit of fun" (re: the poof thread - I agree with you, aitch), or "it's PC gorn maaaaaaaad, I tell you" - well, that is not really particularly enlightened, is it?

so someone, somewhere has to start drawing the line.

and it might as well be MNHQ, since it is their site

(or alternatively, if they don't want to - be upfront about that. say openly that actually, they would rather not offend posters by asking them to show some moderation and consideration, which woudl at least give (for eg) the SN posters the fuller picture - that they will never be fully supported here and might as well bugger off and start a new forum/club. which, incidentally, a lot of them have done anyway, mostly due to similar threads in the past, and lck of support)

yeah, you're probably right...

so you would zap the spastic thread and the freakshow one (where btw one of the mums from BTBD has just gone on and told the poster how wrong she is)? or zap the words? i would be inclined to zap words, i think. dunno why that's not possible.

I don't know

I think what I would start doing was to be more vigilant overall. send out some polite reminders to posters who seem not to be getting the message. and then temporarily suspend them if polite reminder ignored.

one strike and you're out (for a while)

coupled with more posts on threads - a more public message of "we've had to send out some "play nicely" reminders. please do, or you're all in trouble." (you know, the equivalent of a parental "I don't care who started it - sort it out, or there''ll be trouble!")

I don't think there is enough thought that goes into posting, most of the time. and all the posters who always fight for the right to say (whatever, whenever, we're not fluffy here" - do they really mean that? because right now, MN appears to be being taken over by a lot of rude, unthinking people who do not care who they upset. and when it is pointed out that people are upset, not only do they not care (and not apologise) they laugh a bit more and twist the knife.

and that is not a community to be proud of, tbh.

(and yes, I know all the good that MN does too - and I do not discount that. but the left hand and the right hand are joined. and it is not enough to do good with one, while ignoring the slapping down handed out by the other)

I agree that zapping words would be a good idea. But that would mean the thread/words having to be reported in the first place unless it was a OTW.

I really don't agree with the 'if you don't like it, hide it' school of thought. If you could hide posts or posters that you found offensive, then that may work but a lot of the time, there are parts of threads that I want to read, for imformative reasons or to add my advice etc.....

Whoever said it was time for some hard and fast rules is right to a certain degree, but will that please all of the MNers?

If you ban certain words/phrases, who decides what they should be?