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.

Peachy

It is an excellent list.
I also understand that people love name changing but tbh I think it's abuses now outweigh the fun.
One name. One alternate.

Good list justabout.

The thing about r; yes I realised even I do that,I will say 'words such a N word or retard'.

I must stop doing that; either use the N word (no) or say the r word / r

Great list, I'm all for that.

Am "de-lurking" just to say I agree. Good list, justabout.

Just for the record, words like "s" and "r**" may have been used freely and widely in the playgrounds of the 1970s but they were never ok. As a small girl I knew they were offensive and dread to think what my mother would have said and done had I ever used them. I am horrified that 30 years later people seem to be defending their right to use such words when they can blatantly see the distress it causes. I am truly sorry that so many of you have your lives made harder because people think these names are acceptable and "just a laugh".

my only concern about that list (apart from the stopping name changing, I namechanged, and will do again soon after my hounding on the sn topic, sometimes people have good reason for doing it`) is that we can't treat disblist posts different from racist post, so they would have to do the same for booth

they don't as I have said with the s thread they left it but if it had said n it would have been deleted

That m-word concentrates about as much prejudice and negativity as it is possible to manage within a single word. As well as the playground abuse associated with it, it's also absorbed all the horrible attitudes that were prevalent in state and medical 'care' of learning-disabled people until recently and it originates in an out-and-out piece of racism on the part of the man who conjured it as a diagnostic term. It shocks me now that we used that as an accepted term until so recently.

I remember 'you mong' being banded about freely at school, and 'you joey'.

I think it is about parenting and peers at that age. If the parents use words or phrases of that nature, or don't correct their children, then they will just carry on.

And if everyone at school is using those words, some of the other kids will too.

Look at the Dambusters (sp?). The dog was called nigger in that film, because he was black. It caused a massive uproar and rightly so. Do you think that if they show the film on tv again, that they'll dub the dog's name into something more acceptable?

Mouseface possibly in fact- a few eyars back my club did a quiz with the name of the dog in damnbusters as a question adn Dh and I refused to print them sheets out until they changed the question. Just seemed so pointless a choice, especially as the bloke writing it was a councillor so should ahve known better!

It's true that if one child uses a word otehrs will, indeed ds1's name caller was tackled today only for another to call im an R: thing is, he now knows it is wrong and school had a person for him to run to who took immediate action. And word will spread.

I also see signs of slang usage feeding back into images of the chidlren with the conditions. I am thinking in particular of an Sn teacher I witnessed referring to a child with DS (aged about 6) as lazy constantly in front of him, when he ahd clearly the most obvious processing delay I had ever witnessed (would walk past you then turn a good minute later to wave). Made me furious.

Peachy - I can't stand people in positions such as teaching who just don't get it. At DD's first primary, before we moved, there was a boy in her class with ADHD and LDs that stood out a mile to me, and other parents, but the teacher of their class (young, first teaching post etc) had no idea how to handle his behaviour, he had a 1:1 every day but she wouldn't even talk to him.

I really felt for him and I'd sometimes go into the school to read to the children. I always made a point of including him in the stories so that the other children would too. Lead by example as it were.

He had no friends, was often sent home and arrived late most days.

I'm sure that if that teacher had a bit more life experience, then she would have tried harder to include him, rather than exclude him from the rest of the class.

It's almost as if because he had a 1:1, she felt she didn't need to educate him.

A lot of children left her class/the school because of her. How sad is that?

Very sd. I have actually walked away from my palcement and am wondering whether to call the LEA about some things I have seen but cannot discuss on ehre (DS child was something diferent). I have also seen some of the best teaching of my life. it's a shame that it's not better regulated.

Words like mong and retard are as bad as nigger and paki. End of.

Of course there are no fewer racists in the world just because the words nigger and paki are no longer bandied about.

It's just that it's no longer socially acceptable to use those words. In effect, people are scared to say them (scared socially or even scared physically sometimes).

People aren't scared to use words like mong and retard, because disabled people quite literally can't fight back, or even talk back sometimes.

So people are free to use offensive words chortlingly behind their hands, because they are cowards and know that beautiful but disabled children like my boy can't fight back.

Shame on them. Hopefully one day disabilist language will become as socially unacceptable as racist. It's already legally unacceptable, but that's not enough and we need social convention to outlaw it as well.

so you all think that a poster saying 'my dh called me a paki' would automatically get deleted? i'm not so sure.

I think if paki was being used as a term of abuse or derision for a person from Pakistan, definitely MN would delete it

And nigger would be off the board in seconds, rightly

I reckon it probably would Aitch, the outcry would be enormous and tbh i think MNHQ have SN-outcry fatigue.

but there is always the simple option of rewording before deletion: Mn change Paki (goodness I hated typing that) to ' a racist rerm', or similar. Easy. Thread remains, but boundaries established.

Agree Peachy

I think it needs to be defined whether the thread is for real or a wind up too. If the poster is willing to change the offending word to something more suitable, then let the thread stay.

Another thing I thought about was repeat offenders. 3 stirkes and your out should be a rule maybe?

What do you think?