dear mn hq why are so many disablist threads being left up

[Samcro]

one today for instance and mn hq post
"We don't think that this thread is disablist, it is a valid discussion that we don't think should be shut down. "

yet it has obviously been reported.
cause hurt and upset
how is that making life easier(or better) for the sn community`?

or this message from mn hq
That CBeebies is just far too PC
Thread deleted
Message from MNHQ: Thanks so much for all the reports about this.

Although there has been some interesting debate and discussion, we do agree that the OP and some of what ensues is disablist, so we have decided to delete.

how can these be interesting debates??
\not long ago mn hq said that they were going to be quicker dealing with this stuff
what happened??

There is a current thread where many posters find jokes about hearing impairments are funny and harmless.

And many of them are hearing impaired. If those with hearing problems are not offended or find it funny themselves then who is right? I know my profoundly deaf grandfather would have done, he made such jokes himself.

I have read this thread from start to finish over the last few hours and unfortunately the arguments/debates within it have proved to be the perfect distraction for mnhq not to address the OP.

They wouldn't have anyway.

Apart from

1. (possibly deliberately) misquoting hate speech, to make it seem harmless.
2. (possibly deliberately) misunderstanding why people were annoyed at them.

They've not done anything.

If people with ASD said they found jokes about the condition funny, would that make jokes about autism by 3rd parties alright too? No, of course not.

I wouldn't dream of telling them that they weren't allowed to find it funny. You cannot tell people what to think, it's rude and patronising.

However, if someone were to say that autism isn't a real condition, I would take great exception. Because it is real. Denying disability exists is something that MNHQ need to stamp on.

Jokes about disability are often a question of taste. I love Adam Hills and The Last leg where they do make fun of their own disabilities and l laugh along with them. I expect others are offended.

But none would deny that Adam has an artificial foot.

Disabilism has many forms - none are acceptable.

I don't want to divert the thread any more than it already has been but I have to answer that. You don't get to decide that. If people with disabilities choose to make jokes about it then it's not for you to say they can't.

Joking about our disabilities may help us cope day to day. Denying they exist is a whole other area. I don't understand why you can't see that.

I agree, no body should deny that disability exists. No body should seek to invalidate proper diagnoses, such as Autism.

I would ask for some moderation in approach, though, because not all developmental delays involve life long disabilities. I personally have experienced unqualified people, out of ignorance, in their aim to not deny the existence of disability, have seen disability exist where it does not and have taken it upon themselves to apply their own totally unqualified 'diagnoses' totally innapropriately and detrimentally. This erodes the meaning of proper diagnoses which involve highly rigourous testing and investigation.

Pointing out the inappropriateness of unqualified people's prejudiced attempts to diagnose is not denying any very real disability.

And those with hearing problems who said they were fine with it or found it funny? They shouldn't be allowed to?

Such a non-issue to make a fuss about when there're huge issues facing people with disabilities.

But it's dog whistle threads

Agree with this. mnhq are totally wrong with this and I'm astonished they can't see the issue. It feels like they are handwringing over what constitutes debate so err on the side of caution through inaction. I would prefer them to become more point blank "delete and ban" disablist threads even if that means they make errors of judgement and become too heavy handed at times. It won't last long - people will get it much quicker than the sane handful if posters popping up constantly to "educate".

You don't get to decide which things people with disabilities are allowed to find important.

I (as a person with disabilities) do get to decide, actually. You don't get tell me I can't. Or those with hearing loss who did find it amusing. I will continue to make jokes about my issues (as Adam Hill does about his) and laugh with my friends when they make similar jokes. I am not offended and it isn't your place to tell me I should be.

I make jokes about my own disabilities. I don't think that was the point anyone was making?

SilverChair you are not reading the posts properly. Nobody said that a disabled person cannot make jokes about their condition, or find a joke funny - of course they can. Nobody is disputing that. But for a third party to make those jokes is unacceptable. And if you think it is all right for a third party to make those kinds of jokes, perhaps we should go back to the 'good old days' of the 70s and have racist and homophobic jokes on mainstream TV? Because, using the measure you appear to be using, that would be all right as some of the people in question there might find those jokes funny.

No disability should be mocked by those who don't have it. I am fat and I can say that, but I would never tell another person they are fat, or make crass jokes about their size. I am not a 'professionally offended' person either, but I find your attitude distinctly unpleasant.

of course people who are disabled can make jokes about it.
if my dd wants to call herself a spazz she can she has that right, but if anyone else does then I will rip their head off.
(she can't speak so doesn't) but you get my point.

Silver, there has been the same arguments about comedy and perceptions about other unacceptable areas. Tv studios used to show black audience members crying with laughter as roy chubby brown for example made racist jokes - the argument being that if "they" are laughing it's ok for him to say. See quote from an interview below...are the below comments ok because some people being mocked didn't take offence. It may laugh at aspects of their culture themselves?

It is perhaps not the novelty of his material which irks his critics, however. With the common perception of Brown being that his act promotes intolerance through racist and sexist jibes, he is written-off as somewhat of a relic. Such an assertion clearly angers Brown, who claims that it is completely unjust given the racial diversity of his crowd.

“If you’d have been in my audience last night you would have seen that there were four lads at the front who were obviously Asian and they were falling laughing.

“If you had been at my show in Hayes in Middlesex on Thursday night, we had eight people five rows back with turbans on, and they were f crying laughing.

“Especially when I said ‘what the hell’s that there? I thought it was a shelf with towels on!’”

Indeed, Brown also claimed that most jokes made about any minority group in his act were sourced from the minorities themselves.

“I get most of my Indian, Pakistani and black jokes from them type of people,” he says. “I go to the gym with coloured people, they don’t even want to be called ‘coloured’ now.

“They say ‘if you are calling us coloured, or black, or any of that, you’re distinguishing us from another race of people’.”

And despite claiming he has no prejudice at all against anybody, Brown says that if a joke materialises that he finds funny, he will crack it regardless of who it offends.

He explains: “I know that if there’s 1,000 people in that room, 600-odd of them will fall off their chairs laughing because what’s at the back of their mind is ‘I f wish I’d dared say that’.

“Even a little thing like, ‘Did you see the start of the 100 metres? – I thought it was f Crimewatch!’”

He laughs: “It might be a racist remark, but it’s funny with it.”

Chubby Brown...
What an arsehole. not new news

I'd also add - Adam Hills is scrupulous about only mocking his own disability. He never extrapolates the joke to include others with the same disability. He jokes about himself and his own experiences in the same way. The "joke" in the OP wasn't about themselves - it was a joke at the expense of another person's disability. Similarly Francesca Martinez has joked about her experiences of life as a woman with cerebral palsy. That's ok, she is talking about her own experiences. It's not ok for me, as a woman without cerebral palsy to joke about her - can you not see that difference?

beyond, he really is repulsive and I hesitated to post the interview but I want to try and explain to silver why someone joking at your expense rather than at your own expense isn't acceptable - regardless of who finds it funny.