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.

can someone report my thread. pretty please.

if its not reported then they will pretend that they weren't aware.

Done

Well done to Smallwhitecat for shoehorning the Guardian into a totally unrelated topic.

you should have done three identical ones mamazon, one with a nigger/ paki neighbour, one with a homo neighbour, and one with a spaz neighbour. i suspect they'll just delete your protest thread and leave the real ones though.

marking thread anyway.

fortunately i haven't seen most of the threads in question.

it is a real flashback to the 70s. the whole spastic thing was blue peter's fault. i often wonder how joey deacon fared after that.

Agree 100%

MN need to something about the comments re: disabled people and children on here.

Truly shocking.

If posters make comments about a persons race/gender/sexuality it - rightly - is not be tolerated.

There is "free speach" and there is breaking the Equality and Discrimination Laws!!

Err I'll disprove that.
I read the guardian and there's NO WAY i'm soft left.
I just can't abide the Tory shite the tabloids are spouting atm.

thank feck i'm not a guardian reader.

At least the Guardian have bothered their arse to report on the cuts to DLA.

If it's a left wing thing Smallwhitecat explain this thread to me. I've already asked about it.

A woman who was woken up by her a new boyfriend trying to have sex with her. She told him no in no uncertain terms and tried to move away from him. He kept trying to enter her. This was repeated 6/7 times. He kept trying to enter her. She finally managed to get away and 2 months down the line he's still contacting her trying to get her to see him. She hadn't reported it to the police because she thought they might be dismissive. She was told that she gave him mixed signals by sharing the bed with him and that she was basically consenting by being in the bed. The harassment continued for several pages. It reads like trolling with at least one sock puppet. MNHQ actually let it go on and then deleted individual posts rather than scrapping the thread. Someone looking for support got interrogated. It wasn't an AIBU, it was a Relationship thread.

Hide threads we find offensive? Really? Thats the best they can come up with?

Good example, swc.
The opinion stuff can be hit & miss but I do like the society section

MNHQ .. Thank you for responding, not for your response.

I know I can hide threads.. I'm quite a bright spark really.
Yet in order to hide an offending thread... I have to read it first, therefore am already bloody offended. And more offends that it seems a low tollerence rather than zero tollerence attitude to these things exists, on MN or in RL.

Would you like me to type out a letter my son wrote to me, when he wanted to take his own life, at age 11, because of constantly being called 'spaz', 'retard', 'mong'? By children whose parents had a sort of, well, low tollerence to such comments too.

No, didn't think you would want actually see what effect these comments actually have on RL people, including young children, when it is basically deemed okay to used them. ( we will ignore the law bit for now).

Oh.

My.

Jeff.

'You can hide threads you don't like' ??

Really

Why didn't you guys tell me that before?

I can't see how it is a low tolerence. It is just allowing posts to stand unless they are directing their offensive bile spoutings to a specific MNer.

brownsugar - similar here. DS attends a SN school. He has come back to me in tears so many times because he is called "dearswood" (the name of the old SN school in the area) "mong" "spaz" "flid" "retard"

telling me he doesn't want to go to his "mong school" anymore.

He doesn't want to go to the school that have literally changed his life for the better. He doesn't want to go to the school that has managed to bring his academic age from a 5yo to a 8yo (he is 10) in the space of 18 months.
All because the local lads have parents who have freedom of speech. Because they have fought back against those "wooly do gooders" who tell them that such phrases are wrong.

mumsnet isn't the world. But it is a major stepping stone to reaching parents, to getting teh message filtered through to the next generation that such terms are wrong.

As i said elsewhere.

Mumsnet. By parents for parents. so long as your child isn't a "spaz"

Hear hear mamazon.

so your other thread has gone, mamaz0n.

90 minutes from being reported...

So MNHQ the other thread vanished far far quicker than many of the hideous disablist posts that are allowed to stand for hours or days sometimes.

Yes. The other thread has gone.

Despite being told that down right offensive posts that are clearly disablist are allowed to stay and the person offended is told "just hide it if you don't like it"

IT IS WRONG