Madmouse's open letter to MNHQ about the treatment of those with disabilities on MN

[madmouse]

Dear MNHQ

I joined MN when I was pregnant with my lovely ds. That heady autumn with bump before such words as NICU, neonatal seizures, brain damage, cerebral palsy, speech delay, special school entered my vocabulary.

That was 5 whole years ago - and all that time MN has been a part of my life. Got a lot of support from my ante- and postnatal buddies and from experienced SN mums. Gave back where I could. Became ill with PTSD, found the MH threads, recovered, started to give support on the MH threads.

Now I've come to the point that the only thing stopping me from leaving MN is that I would let down people on the MH threads. Other than that your (MNHQ) behaviour today has been an eye opener and a bit of a final straw.

MN has become, like RL, a place where disabled people and people with disabled children are not safe, not treated equally and not extended the same courtesy and respect as those without disabilities.

What happened today is just a tip of the ice berg. Day in day out threads appear with the same old theme. AIBU to use this disabled space because my baby's maxi cosy is too big and the P&T spaces are full, AIBU to use the wheelchair space on the bus (those two appear weekly by and large), AIBU to think it's nice to be disabled because you get lots of benefits, AIBU to think disabled people have it easy, AIBU to think I should have a free car too seeing as that I pay taxes.

It goes on and on and on. And none of it is ever challenged other than by a small group of us who do all this fighting in RL too - because it affects us and our children.

There is such thing as discrimination. And you do have a duty to stamp it out. Hand off moderation is no excuse certainly seeing how quick you were to delete 2shoes thread when some of us started fighting back against the endless threads of threads which in turn are copies of last week's threads.

I am very disappointed. And I think you have some thinking to do.

Best wishes

The trouble with all this,is, that MN itself is the problem.
They want everything to stand and dont care who gets offended.
I am talking about the owners of MN,not the staff who have to come on here and try and defend this and that.

KnowItAll a quick google suggests that, by law, all buses must have a space suitable for wheelchair users to travel in.

However, other passengers may also use the space. There is no obligation, under law, for anyone to vacate the space to allow a wheelchair user access. There is also no obligation for the bus driver to remove non-wheelchair users from the wheelchair user space.

In summary, whether or not you choose to move to allow a wheelchair user to access the bus is entirely a matter for your conscience.

I have reported a very unpleasant post too - also waiting to hear.

Fact is knowitall - it takes rules and laws to make people do the decent thing. If everyone was considerate to each other, regardless of disability, we wouldn't need all these rules.

Just adding my support to madmouse. I saw the threads but having a bad time physically atm and just couldn't join in after the thousandth 'first come first serve, why should I move' style posting

It's like back a few months ago when a few people on MN were trying to raise awareness of how the welfare cuts would affect disabled people. The lack of interest and support was just appalling, but comments about benefit scroungers etc allowed to stand :(

Thank you It's all going to be fine

So me saying that I would vacate the space unless I had an urgent appointment to get to makes me disablist in many people's eyes, and only people who would always vacate the space are not being disablist.

My own conscience is clear.

dittany,they cared about fathers For justice,because it was upsetting their advertisers,ie their income and potential income.That is the reason they got so worried.

dont know about the trans bit of what you said.

well said dittany

I was not showing obvious enough symptoms till 30, no one knows if they will always be in good health.

Is it just me that thinks there's a poster on the new thread deliberately misunderstanding and misquoting to spoil for a fight?

There is definitely shit stirring going on Glitter - just wondering whether or not it's worth reporting.

There always is, they do it everywhere. Unfortunately, MNHQ give them the benefit of the doubt in case they're posting in ignorance...

#bangs head against wall#
and so we come around again..... HQ care to justify that one?

@PurplePidjin

There always is, they do it everywhere. Unfortunately, MNHQ give them the benefit of the doubt in case they're posting in ignorance...

Well, yes. But not if the same poster persists in doing so again and again - beyond the point where they could reasonably be assumed to be posting in ignorance. We'd appreciate a heads-up on anyone who's doing that.

You'll need someone with a better memory for names than me then! And a better spreadsheet for tracking name changes!

Well I have reported that poster....

knowitall Can't you give it a rest about the bus? I don't know about anyone else but I'm a bit sick of the bus...

Maybe we could have a list of Myths: the motability car is free, wheelchair users need the space on the bus less than the dog in the pushchair, etc, and promote the Myth Busts like is being done with the Rape Myths.

Maybe MNHQ could then add to any disablist post (added in the post, not just posted a bit later) the Myth and then answering Bust, and the post could then be highlighted in a really nasty colour - poo, or puce or something.

(I wasn't really being serious about the colour.)

Actually, I do quite like the colour idea.....

Or a nice shade of vomit...