dear MN HQ could you please be so kind as to explain to me publicaly why you allow thread like the super race one

[saint2shoes]

to continue? IMO it has some very offensive posts on it, but you still have not pulled it.

I wouldn't. But, to be honest, I thought it was just a tactic to get the thread noticed, as with tabloid headlines. Maybe we think in tabloid headlines now? Where is the OP anyway? Maybe we can ask her if she really meant 'super race' or was just appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Don;t leave cos of me Pagwatch. I;d hoped my cigar waggle would have signalled that I was quite relaxed actually and wasn't taking it personally. I was going to put a wink after the genius pun, but I got wrong for being facicious of Ms last time, so I didn't. That'll learn me

God, I have no beef with any of you, ever. I just like arguing the toss. (And yes, that does make me a wanker, I know).

(You are all very good practive though and have helped me develop mo end of hypoitheses - I'm not taking the piss - but who gives a shit) blurgh

Sorry, that was to you about 'super race' Peachy.

People are alwsys going to make culural faux pas with language, arenlt they. You can say, 'ahem, what do you mean 'super race' - as in Nietzsche and Hitler and all that, or are you just taking the piss a bit?' give them a chace to answer and go on from there.

But we know that is impossible on MN? Just maybe it might be better before people jump to the worst conclusion about a post, they count to 10 and ask the poster to clarify. Unworkable, again. Probably.

One things for sure, once the bottle of outage is uncorked thought it's like MN is channeling Mary Whitehouse with a sweat on.

If you read the enttire thread OP didn't change her mind: indeed at one point she said the majority of posts were meaningless to her or something like that.

And you know what- we could read such thread titles and think 'oh look the Tosser brigade is out tonight' because in many ways it seems thats what we are expected to do: to think that 'it is obvious that the vast majority don't think like that' and be done. Yet..... whenever the SN threads are raised we are lauded for our power to educate; there have even been instances where posters have admitted they didn't realise we loved our kids! So if we do as the show-the-tolerance crowd would ask we miss that chance.

The chance to educate about the negative sides of such a phrase, such a concept.

And you know what? I can actually see why a person never exposed to difference would see disability not as a difference but as pain and suffering: I really can. But that is the very same lack of education that allowed racism to breed, or homophobia. The not like me so not quite right mentality in many ways, I guess.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I'm pretty used to debate as are you I know, with philosophy as a major part of my degree, and can accept diversity of opinion quite merrilly. However ,this is becoming a no win subject for the SN group: if we disagree with such terrible statements (and I bet that if there were a post saying AIBU to think my DH is right to beat me if I burn dinner? you'd be right in there wouldn't you? because it matters to you (and i'd be in there too btw)) we are piling in; if we ignored it we'd be failing to educate or somesuch.

Anyway this has become an incomprehensible stream of consciousness post now (maybe people will get so deeply mired they'll never extricate themselves to post further? Hmm, tactical.... ) but I guess what we need you to understand (you being all posters) is that the children often referred to as 'these children' 'the suffering' 'the disabled' or just by the name of their diagnoses are real people to us. OUR children, our adored precious little babies. For whom we have had to fight just to get the most basic things imaginable, whom we lay awake worrying about and whom we are aware we will ultimately not be able to give us much as they need us to simply by reason of our very mortality.

BTW the I worked with the disabled really doesn't equate to having your own loved one disabled; I probably thought it did when I was nursing in an ASD unit 15 years ago and I certainly cared about my clinets but 2 asd kids on I have learned better!

PlainOldPeachy what a good post.

Disability Discrimination Act:

"... harassment of someone for a reason relating to the person's disability is unlawful. It is defined as conduct that violates the disabled person's dignity, or which creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Once again, this sits well with the positive duty to promote disability equality, because it is about how we can create a positive environment, even when it is not known whether there are any disabled people present"

The Duty applies to the owners of websites who declare that they are based in the UK for legal purposes or who can be safely construed as being so.

It especially applies when someone on their website has a learning disability/cognitive disability such as Asperger syndrome, where the level of bullying is proven to be 4 times higher than for other disabilities, and we cannot defend ourselves adequately when an attack gets personal, nor work out the dynamics of it quickly enough to make a good argument. (It doesn't help when we have people mocking their argument on this thread, for example). Therefore the law is now looking for a high level of responsible behaviour from service providers.

The current maximum penalty under the DDA is £500,000, or if a criminal harassment case against a particular individual with a disability because of that disability, it counts as an aggravated offence and can earn some time in prison.

Healthy debate, fine. But in disability issues we all now have to tread very, very carefully indeed to ensure that the debate remains healthy rather than intimidating, humiliating, hostile or belittling.

I think you'll find that thread is peppered with hostile and humiliating comments to those with a disability or about those whose children have a disability. I certainly find it so. I'm rather sad.

Yes, amber, but the whole point of MN i that everyone is here on an equal footing. No-one knows anything about anyone else's circumstances unless they choose to share that. As such I would be very doubtful that the DDA would be applicable. And I doubt that anyone would want people's right to self-expression limited because they may unintentionally have said something that offends someone else, without having any clear idea of whom they are offending.

Some people are just not that good at arguing without going on the defensive. That doesn't mean they are "harassing".

Incidentally, does anyone knows Godwin's Law on internet forums? I find it amusing that the other thread descended to Godwin's law just before the cutoff- clearly 1000 is a good number to end a thread at...

I've made it very clear on there that I have a disability, and stated which one. And I'd asked mumnset to keep an eye on that thread because I was worried.

"harassment of someone for a reason relating to the person's disability is unlawful"

Disagreeing with someone on the subject of disability is not.

You can't tell who is disabled on here so how could it apply anyway?

I think if someone tried to enlist the aid of disability law to discourage others airing their views on mumsnet that would be pretty pathetic.

They can air their views any way they like that falls within the law, Onager. That's what laws are for. They should have tried being a person with a disability reading the comments on that thread. I felt absolutely sick. If people want to debate ethics, that's fine, but just try reading some of the things that were posted on there.

I'm an adviser, not someone suing anyone. I'm not here as an official adviser, but I am a disability adviser and I'd be telling any website that there was a risk IF I were here in an official capacity. But I'm not, and I'm not trying to be other than to flag up what the current situation is. I'm sure mumsnet knew all that already. As it is, I'm here as a sad, exhausted aspie who feels like half this site wishes she'd never existed so she wasn't this huge suffering burden to society. And is sad that apparently her son is seen the same way. I have a right to an opinion too. That's mine.

I have talked about disability. Only a bit because early on it annoyed me that there was no real debate. Try and discuss screening and someone leaps in and says "ha! so you want to round us up and kill us all!!!!!". We even had someone's DH threaten violence if we touched his child ffs. What thread was he reading? presumably one in a parallel universe.

Then there are all the screams that we shouldn't be allowed to have opinions on it anyway.

It's a waste of time posting here really, but I will keep my opinions and express them as and when it occurs to me. I wouldn't let reminders of disability law stop me even if I did think they applied, which of course they don't.

Peachy, I am not saying it is equivalent. And by plain human empathy I have no problem knowing that 'these' people are beloved of their parents, just as any child is.

I actually don't think that this is becoming a no win subject for the SN group, though. There will be more people reading this thread than joning in. Planting a seed in someones mind who is a bit intimidated by the whole discussion, but non the less can hear all sides, is the best we can hope for - and it does work.

Conflating the argument into good vs bad doesn't help, I believe. That's just my opinion. As Mn said, this is a important discussion for our age, and it will happen whether we like it or not. maybe we just need to be cleverer in getting the positive message across. Arguing with idiots never works. As you know

I've posted links to numerous films made with people who have imparements. They're made by a small group of people, some of whom are disabled themselves, who care passionatley about promoting positive messages about disablity. They are pioneers who have won awards all around the world. They will be at the San Fransisco disablity film festival in the beginning of Feb to pick up another award. What they do not make are patronising films about 'special people'. They make them with the individuals around them, playing to their individual strenghs, to be entertaining without pulling their punches. They even produce their own soap opera. If they could get enopugh people to watch it on youtube, channel four might even give them some money for a godforasken slot on real telly - but it's a start.

But the links are always all but ignored. At some point we (general we) have to ask ourselves why that is, because we can't poke a finger at 'society' saying 'you don;t care' when even the SN community seems just as apathetic about championing cutting edge stuff when it happens. They need your help in getting the positive message about disablity over to the mainstream. People without imparments or family members with imparements just have other things to do with their time

That might fill you with fury. I hope it doesn't. I have no grudge to bear here.

I'll post the link again and if people would be so kind they will browse the years of work that has been done here.

Look up the two soap episodes too. It's called 'Hope Springs'. They are great. I hope you will end up being just as addicted to HS and Corrie. Send the links to your friends. The internet is a very powerful tool, especially for people with imparements and their carers.

Typed too much. Willshut the fick up

The films up for contest at San Fransisco are 'Nuts for Pudding','Cared Witless', 'A Quarter of the Lot' and 'Stranger Hero'. Nuts and Quarter have already won many awards around the world at disablity film festivals.

They are all no more than half an hour long, but even close friends of mine get annoyed when I ask them to make time to watch becasue 'we all have busy lives'..

Shoot Your Mouth Off

I agree Onager. Many posts seemed to be reactions to interpretations of what was being said rather than what was being said - along with all the 'thin edge of the wedge' talk. Yes, its been noted, lets keep our eye open for that, but lets also move on into more positive territory. There's a danger that all this thread may do is scare people off from discussing things and asking questions for fear of being called a nazi eugenicist.

The OP's opinion was put in its place. That was good.

MT I will watch those links tomorow when I can have the volume on, sounds interesting.

Thanks 2shoes. Any support is appreciated. They really need to get viewing figures up so they can demonstrate to TV comissioners that there is an audience for this kind of stuff.

Even of you just click on them - you don't have to watch them all - but obvioulsy it would be good if you could

no I will watch, but have to be quiet at the moment so will wait until I can listen.

Mumsnet have suggested I take break from posting to see if I can recover a bit.

thant is really sad, what a shame that it comes to this

how very unfortunate Amber. Hope you feel better soon.

monkey - will have a look at those films you link to.

Amber, no one wishes you didn't exist. I'm really sorry.

Lenin - I think that's a prime example of jumping to the worst conclusion about people on here. I really don;t see what you hope to get from asking such a personal question. And like I said, what people think they would do logically in an abstract situ, is often very different to their emotional response in that situation.

That is why I think we should offer help and respect to all women struggling with such a desicion, whatever her final choice is.