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.

She also said they were 'pretending to be normal".

With all due respect if you don't have a child with SN you cannot understand how hurtful it was to read those terms used in relation to these children.

I am pretty tough and I cried

I didn't see the original post referred to on the other thread, but aren't we getting sidetracked here? I'm not arguing against the term "freak show" but against really offensive words - used as insults, let's clarify - such as mong, spaz and retard. We all know that the word nigger is now verboten not because of its meaning (black, in Latin) but because of its original hateful usage by racist, slave-owning wankers. Has anyone ever heard spaz, mong or retard used in any way other than abusive or derisory?

i am so sincerely very sorry about that but you 100% wouldn't get 'pretending to be normal' deleted under normal circs, and she came back and acknowledged that wasn't the word she should have used and i believe gave one of her pissy apologies for it.

mrsdevere it was crystal clear to me from the minute she posted. i saw hers when it was the only post on there and didn't post because i thought 'oh, they'll point out to her that this programme isn't one of those ones'. by the time i came back a few mins later she was well under attack.

Tha't a horrible thing to say ('pretending to be normal'). I only looked at the post in isolation and don't want to defend it or anything else on the thread, but I just wanted to express a reservation about the idea that MNHQ has dual standards on this.

it is, threadie. it was about the only thing she held her hands up to getting wrong, iykwim?

You can't imagine what we all go through because our kids have difficulties doing 'normal' things.

But fair enough, if you feel so strongly you would leave over it, I think a lot of us will leave if we have to keep reading deeply hurtful things on here.

sickof, problem is though that loads of people on that thread found that post 'really offensive' and demanded it be removed.

Yes.."pretending to be normal" is just as hurtful/offensive as saying effing r* IMO, just not as blatant

It was 'really offensive' to people dealing with SN.

She sounds fairly crass to have posted that unthinking comment about such a sensitive subject, even if she apologised later. I would probably have called her a xxxxx C* rather than asking for her to be removed: perhaps she would learn more that way. The programme in question by the way is on at 9 and is one of the most rivetting and heartwarming docs I have ever seen on Channel 4.

but in truth she wasn't talking about that programme. she hadn't even seen it. use of 'normal' aside - do people not share her misgivings about the type of programming that Five do on their 8pm strip? i do. and bodyshock and all the rest. seems to me exploitative of poor people and their disabled children a lot of the time, and i personally find freak show an adequate description of that.

And I'm not sure waving a freedom of speech flag is really helpful here. In a civilised nation, even freedom of speech exists within a legal and societal context. We have laws against incitement to hatred or violence against minorities or those less able to defend themselves. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to say whatever the hell you like, regardless of its effect on others. Sometimes if you let the verbal abuse go, it leads to worse. Look back on the casual anti-semitism of the 1930s. Let's hope mumsnetters, had they been online then, would have objected to the use of the word "yid " for Jew.

are you talking to me, sickof? i don't believe in freedom of speech. i believe in manners and kindness. but the MN massive is into freedom of speech, as has been amply demonstrated.

It was the 'pretending to be normal' that hurt, can't explain it, it hurt a lot.

And i have sat at work while my colleagues have called each other 'r*s" and just thought 'silly wee girls', so not that oversensitive.

No, aitch, that wasn't aimed at you, sorry cross posted. I was looking back over this thread and I really object to people wrapping up prejudices in the freedom of speech flag. I wanted to point out that freedom of speech does not exist in a vacuum.

I do actually agree about some of those shows on channel 5, but this particular show is very different and much more real.

But this is the point isn't it?

Each thread/case/word has to be treated as individual?

Freak show alone, maybe as in, 'the fancy party we were at last night was like a freak show', wouldn't get deleted but freak show along with horrid comments about SN children pretending to be normal or whatever that bloody poster said, are wrong and should be treated as such.

There are plenty or words and phrases out there that can cause harm and upset if chosen to. It's the tone and context that they are used in.

i'm not surprising that it hurt, and i am not for a second minimising it. but she DIDN'T mean it to hurt you, she did apologise and acknowledge that it was an entirely loaded term that she shouldn't have used and she was to my mind, despite that loaded phrase, actually speaking out in favour of poor families and disabled children that she feels are being exploited for the entertainment of the masses. i.e. a freak show.

that thread IS important in all this, btw. MN gave into mob rule and they deleted her, and they should not have done.

perhaps they could offer people like her a temporary edit facility, to clarify what she meant from the off? too many people were responding with fresh outrage and she got really arsey about it. (she did behave v oddly in response, i think. as i mentioned to her four or five or fifteen times)

i know that, sickof, i've seen this series already, it's great. and i said so on the thread.

but the tone and context of her post were... okay, mouseface. not brilliant, but you shouldn''t be deleted for not expressng yourself perfectly first time if you later come on and say that you have been working with disabled children for years and take those types of shows kinda personally and you accept that BTBD is probably not the best target for your comment.

Aitch (call me mouse)

I didn't see her other posts, just figured out what had been said by the replys.

I agree if that's the case, which is why I think a three strikes and you're out rule would work. As in you get three public/private warnings and then if you continue to use inappropriate words/phrases as deemed by MNHQ, then you get banned.

There needs to be VERY clear rules from the off on this. It has to be CRYSTAL to all posters, and public too. None of this, 'I didn't know' wah wah wah.......

That happens on just about every AIBU thread though doesnt it? Someone says something, gets a pasting, admits they may be U and people keep joining and re-pasting.

Its certainly not exclusive to that horrible thread.

If you saw the post for what is was meant then I accept that but I honestly didnt. I am very cynical about medical/disablity/poverty programming myself and have ranted a fair bit in the past. Her post just seemed too off tbh .

But she came back, swore it was not the case and I accepted that. Why would she bother to lie? The pretending to be normal bit showed a real lack of insight though.

Personally I prefer for posts to stand so the poster can be challenged and their words are there as testament to their bigotry. But I accept that this is not how everyone feels and understand the wish for deletion. Sometimes the words are just too hurtful.

What would make me happy? If someone posted a hateful word or view I would rather that the majority put them straight, that everyone truly understood the damage and distress caused and refused to leave it unchallenged. This would make me happier than MNHQ deleting and barring posters. BUT until this happens we should have some protection.

she basically went on the attack to defend herself - because she was horrified and furious to be accused of calling disabled children freaks. (as any sane person would be). so a lot of her posts got deleted, i think.

what she should have done was said 'oh fuck, wrong show, so sorry,' and backed away. but she didn't. it doesn't make her an absolute bitch, which is how she was treated tbh. (this is funny because i think she thinks i am the enemy... she was so angry she didn't even get that i was on her side).

like i say, i believe in manners and kindness. but that is not the ethos here any more, by virtue of the size of the place, and i do agree that Something Must Be Done. hopefully it might also calm the rampaging mobs down a bit as well.

"rampaging mobs " not sure what you mean by that, sound a bit like the stuff we get thrown at us, perhaps it is all part of the mn hq education thing.
they seem to like a poster getting a bashing. you report a sick post and get the oh we believe in self moderation and it is being handled on the thread...
but having once had a thread go really bad because people objected to something I said , I can say that saying sorry I shouldn't have said that doesn't work, people don't read that bit, they just keep jumping and jumping, and in the end you bite back and become the villan.
I was unlucky, I started the thread at a weekend back in the less people at mn hq days, so it was there for the whole weekend, I cried a lot I tell you.
so I do understand why when cornered people fight back even when they are/or feel cornered. but there has to be aline, mn hq shouldn't allow it ot go that far. this is a big site and the days where self moderation worked is over, there needs to be someone who will step in and delete, not only to protect us, but the posters who make mistakes.