"I wish you'd never been born."
I remember the Sunday morning a couple of years ago when a well-known pro-eugenics tweeter was banging on about how babies with genetic conditions shouldn't be born. Despite claiming he was not disablist towards disabled people once they'd done the getting-into-the-world thing, all I could see in those tweets was that he wished I'd never been born because I have a genetic condition. He might have blocked me on Twitter so he can't see me; but I still see him RTed into my timeline frequently (something he said is actually 4th from the top in my timeline as I type). I'm constantly reminded that someone that thinks the world would be a better place without me in it is so well liked among the people I respect enough to follow on Twitter.
I remember all the times I've read that "parents on benefits shouldn't have kids. They shouldn't have kids other people will have to pay for." That includes my parents. So these people are saying that I should never have been born because my dad was forced out of work and onto benefits by impairment not long before I came along (my mum became a housewife when she married my dad because that's what women did in the 70s). I haven't just read it in the right-wing press. I've heard it from people I know. I've even heard it from other disabled people.
They may not have directly used the words "Lisa Egan should not be here," but it was what I inferred from their statements.
I remember the times my father said it to me when I was growing up. He was, and still is, someone that demands to be the centre of attention at all times. When I was a child my mum prioritised me over him and he resented the little brat getting more of his wife's attention that he did.
It's a powerful statement that haunts you; knowing that people think you shouldn't be here.
I remember a very long time ago seeing a mother on the news with her young child saying that if she'd known her daughter was going to have Spina Bifida she'd have had a termination. That child knows that not only is she unwanted, but she's so unwanted that her mother desired to tell the country about it. Her main passion was dancing to pop music; and at her age (IIRC she was about 4) that should have been all she had to worry about. She shouldn't have had to have heard from the people closest to her that they'd prefer her not to be around.
This week there have been 11 living children hearing all about how they shouldn't have been born. In the unlikely event that there is an afterlife where you look down on the world you left behind; there are a further 6 children hearing the same words.
The press is full of stories about how Mick Philpott's children were only born to milk the welfare state. Right wing commentators are queueing up to appear on the news to talk about how families shouldn't have so many children. There are, of course, plenty of people claiming that people living on benefits shouldn't be having children at all.
The most hurtful thing has got to be that these 17 children have been singled out by someone at the heart of government, the Chancellor, as being "a lifestyle" that needs to be "handled". Not human beings deserving of respect. Not people that have lost siblings. Not lives that have been cut short. But a problem that needs to be "handled" by government.
When I've read in the press that parents on benefits shouldn't have kids I knew they weren't talking about me directly, they were talking non-specifically about a group of people I happen to belong to. The same when I read tweets about how babies with genetic conditions shouldn't be born. But this week, all week, there have been 11 children hearing very loudly and clearly every time they turn on their TV that they - those children whose father is Mick Philpott - should not have been born.
I can't even imagine how it feels to be told on the front page of every paper, and on every news bulletin, that you - specifically you - should not exist because of someone you happen to be related to. Someone you didn't choose to be related to. And at a time when you're grieving for the loss of your siblings to boot.
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
19 December 2011
♫...The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk...♫
In the late-ish 90s I was doing my A Levels for the bazillionth time (ever indecisive I couldn't just pick a subject and stick with it. I kept changing my mind, quitting that subject, and starting something different the following September). Text messaging was the new cool thing and I loved it. Struggling to understand what people are saying when I can't see their lips move meant that mobile telephony was difficult: When you're having a conversation with someone and you're both in the relatively background noise-free environments of your home it's fine, but roaming communication meant people would phone from the pub while you were in the supermarket and the background cacophony drowns out any hope of following the other person's words. But texting... No hearing necessary: Communication on the go without me constantly shrieking "you what?"
The minute someone taught me how to send a text I was in love with the technology. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, greater really: Slicing bread yourself isn't all that hard. It's certainly easier than decoding a drunk friend's speech at 3am when you've got APD.
My A Level theatre studies teacher was not a convert. She decried that such short, swift, exchanges would be the death of human communication. I, obviously, scoffed. How could such a wonderful idea opening communicative doors possibly be a bad thing?
I'm starting think that she might have been right.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of texting, tweeting and Facebooking. Two weeks ago I was in a meeting and the chair tried to avoid using the word "twitter" because he knew I'd start proselytising. Again. But such speedy exchanges have altered the way we interact with each other and I'm starting to pine for the days when people were reliable.
I should say at this juncture that - yes - I know this post makes me a massive hypocrite. I'm well aware that I'm just as flaky as everybody else these days. I'm just as susceptible to life zooming past me as everybody else on the planet. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Everything being so immediate has its drawbacks as well as its merits. I like that I can tweet about a ludicrous conversation with a salesperson and have that company's customer services get in touch with me within a couple of hours because my tweet spread like wildfire. When I'm so ill that I can barely remember my own name I like that I can post one word answers to a question on Facebook without feeling a cultural obligation to ask "and how are the kids? Did your dog recover OK from getting his knackers whipped off?" (That last question especially doesn't go down well with someone who doesn't have a dog and you've just conflated them with someone else.)
I hate that not replying to people has become acceptable because it's just the norm now. With a few exceptions I've learned that if I haven't had an Email back from someone within about 6 hours of me sending then I'm not going to get a reply at all. Most notable exception was in May 2011 when I got a reply to an Email I sent in Dec 2008, but most people don't trawl through 2.5 year old Emails.
I think Twitter and Facebook have a large part to play in creating this environment of immediacy. I think we all follow/are friends with more people than more people than we realistically can keep up with. I don't get to see every tweet from every person in my twitter timeline any more because there's just too many tweets. I'd love to have a cull, or at least to stop feeling compelled to add more people, but there are just too many fucking awesome people on twitter that I just can't not follow. Even if it does mean I miss quite a few tweets from everybody because I just can't keep up: Keeping up with a fair few tweets of 198 people somehow seems more acceptable than only following, say, 100 awesome people but getting to see all their posts. Because I get an extra 98 people's worth of awesomeness, even if it's only intermittent awesomeness.
But this blasé attitude has spread beyond twitter into the rest of our lives. We check our Email and we deal with the really urgent stuff and leave the rest "until later". Except with us all being so in the present these days "later" never comes. The next time we check our Email we, once again, deal with the pressing matters while the "till later" stuff gets shunned to page 2 of your inbox and ends up forgotten entirely.
Blogging is much the same. It used to be the case that I'd read all the blog posts in my RSS feed reader. But now I, like everyone else, only read something if I happen to be online when it's posted because we're so present-focussed we don't scroll down any more. Seven years ago your latest blog post would get just as many hits if you posted it at 11pm on a Saturday as it would if you posted it at 11am on a Monday. Even if the hits didn't come in until Monday morning, the post would still ultimately get read. This is no longer the case. I find myself more and more advance-scheduling tweets and blog posts to be published at time when I know the internet will be busy.
All this means that we tend to keep repeating ourselves. When we write a blog post most people won't just tweet the link once and leave it; they'll keep on posting at different times of day to attract an audience. If you send someone an Email and they don't reply you're faced with the choice of having to either just forget about it or chasing them up. I really hate both of these things.
I can get really paranoid about being annoying. Most of the time I'm fine with it: My high-pitched voice, rapid speech, and opinionatedness do not endear me to the masses. Usually it's my conclusion that they're arseholes for not wanting to listen to me. But sometimes, when I need someone's help, I can't just say "oh, fuck it. I won't chase them up." And when I have to chase someone up I become acutely aware of how annoying I am.
(I should be clear that this isn't a self-loathing thing and other people find me not at all annoying; quite the opposite. I had no problem with being annoying until other people told me how grating I was. And they've told me that in great numbers.)
Welfare reform is currently making me crazy. Actually properly crazy. But I refuse to give up fighting just yet because I would actually like some kind of future. I know we've only got a few weeks left before my fate is doomed, but until that time I can't not fight.
This need to fight while extra crazy is just making my neuroses worse. If I Email someone who has got the capacity to be of some use in the fight against welfare reform but I don't get a reply, what should I do? Well, obviously, I should chase them up. My Email's probably fallen to page 5 of their inbox by now and is never going to get a response unless I do. But I really wish they'd reply of their own volition and save me the time spent sat in the bathroom, in the dark, rocking back and forth repeating "oh God, I'm a terrible person. Oh God, I'm so annoying. Why do I have to be such an awful person? Oh God I'm such a bad person. I wish I wasn't so annoying."
And as for repeatedly tweeting the same thing over and over just to get the message out to people who happen to be online at different times of the day: It'd be interesting to do an experiment to see if people found it easier to keep up with all the people they follow if it wasn't the norm for everyone to post the same thing several times. I don't need The Huffington Post to tweet the link to the same article 3 times in as many hours, and if they didn't then perhaps I might have caught the tweet in which a friend was having a crisis.
My main problem with repeatedly tweeting the same content is, again, that I can't do it because it sends me into mini-meltdown about being too annoying. I have few enough followers as it is without boring the few I've got into abandoning me because I just post the same shit again and again. And giving someone an @ message requesting a retweet is another behaviour that'll make me weep with guilt if I try it.
I'm a big fan of the technology that allows us to communicate so instantaneously. I love that I can have these swift non-verbal interactions with anyone anywhere in the world. Twitter and Facebook are so valuable to me as a poorly person. From May to October this year I didn't write anything longer than a tweet because I just wasn't well enough. But these short, rapid, interpersonal exchanges saved me from being completely isolated in that time. You can tweet using your iPod in bed, you can tweet from a hospital waiting room, you can even sometimes get sufficient signal in the hospital basement to send a text between x-rays. You can check Facebook while waiting for your pharmacist to dispense your vast quantities of medicines. Last week was the 3rd anniversary of my mum's death. One of the first things I did when I stopped screaming that night was to tweet the fact because I wanted support from my friends around the world.
It genuinely makes me quite sad that my old teacher turned out to be so prescient about the death of communication; or at least the death of quality communication. I'm a big fan of short, rapid exchanges you get via text or on Twitter; but did we really have to abandon "old school" replying to Emails and so on? Have we as a species become so wrapped up in our fast paced 140-160 characters world that we can't find the time in our lives to read/write anything longer? Have we become so present-orientated that we really can't reply to any Email sent more than 6 hours ago. Even if it's a really important one?
Stop this world. It's spinning too fast. I want to get off.
The minute someone taught me how to send a text I was in love with the technology. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, greater really: Slicing bread yourself isn't all that hard. It's certainly easier than decoding a drunk friend's speech at 3am when you've got APD.
My A Level theatre studies teacher was not a convert. She decried that such short, swift, exchanges would be the death of human communication. I, obviously, scoffed. How could such a wonderful idea opening communicative doors possibly be a bad thing?
I'm starting think that she might have been right.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of texting, tweeting and Facebooking. Two weeks ago I was in a meeting and the chair tried to avoid using the word "twitter" because he knew I'd start proselytising. Again. But such speedy exchanges have altered the way we interact with each other and I'm starting to pine for the days when people were reliable.
I should say at this juncture that - yes - I know this post makes me a massive hypocrite. I'm well aware that I'm just as flaky as everybody else these days. I'm just as susceptible to life zooming past me as everybody else on the planet. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Everything being so immediate has its drawbacks as well as its merits. I like that I can tweet about a ludicrous conversation with a salesperson and have that company's customer services get in touch with me within a couple of hours because my tweet spread like wildfire. When I'm so ill that I can barely remember my own name I like that I can post one word answers to a question on Facebook without feeling a cultural obligation to ask "and how are the kids? Did your dog recover OK from getting his knackers whipped off?" (That last question especially doesn't go down well with someone who doesn't have a dog and you've just conflated them with someone else.)
I hate that not replying to people has become acceptable because it's just the norm now. With a few exceptions I've learned that if I haven't had an Email back from someone within about 6 hours of me sending then I'm not going to get a reply at all. Most notable exception was in May 2011 when I got a reply to an Email I sent in Dec 2008, but most people don't trawl through 2.5 year old Emails.
I think Twitter and Facebook have a large part to play in creating this environment of immediacy. I think we all follow/are friends with more people than more people than we realistically can keep up with. I don't get to see every tweet from every person in my twitter timeline any more because there's just too many tweets. I'd love to have a cull, or at least to stop feeling compelled to add more people, but there are just too many fucking awesome people on twitter that I just can't not follow. Even if it does mean I miss quite a few tweets from everybody because I just can't keep up: Keeping up with a fair few tweets of 198 people somehow seems more acceptable than only following, say, 100 awesome people but getting to see all their posts. Because I get an extra 98 people's worth of awesomeness, even if it's only intermittent awesomeness.
But this blasé attitude has spread beyond twitter into the rest of our lives. We check our Email and we deal with the really urgent stuff and leave the rest "until later". Except with us all being so in the present these days "later" never comes. The next time we check our Email we, once again, deal with the pressing matters while the "till later" stuff gets shunned to page 2 of your inbox and ends up forgotten entirely.
Blogging is much the same. It used to be the case that I'd read all the blog posts in my RSS feed reader. But now I, like everyone else, only read something if I happen to be online when it's posted because we're so present-focussed we don't scroll down any more. Seven years ago your latest blog post would get just as many hits if you posted it at 11pm on a Saturday as it would if you posted it at 11am on a Monday. Even if the hits didn't come in until Monday morning, the post would still ultimately get read. This is no longer the case. I find myself more and more advance-scheduling tweets and blog posts to be published at time when I know the internet will be busy.
All this means that we tend to keep repeating ourselves. When we write a blog post most people won't just tweet the link once and leave it; they'll keep on posting at different times of day to attract an audience. If you send someone an Email and they don't reply you're faced with the choice of having to either just forget about it or chasing them up. I really hate both of these things.
I can get really paranoid about being annoying. Most of the time I'm fine with it: My high-pitched voice, rapid speech, and opinionatedness do not endear me to the masses. Usually it's my conclusion that they're arseholes for not wanting to listen to me. But sometimes, when I need someone's help, I can't just say "oh, fuck it. I won't chase them up." And when I have to chase someone up I become acutely aware of how annoying I am.
(I should be clear that this isn't a self-loathing thing and other people find me not at all annoying; quite the opposite. I had no problem with being annoying until other people told me how grating I was. And they've told me that in great numbers.)
Welfare reform is currently making me crazy. Actually properly crazy. But I refuse to give up fighting just yet because I would actually like some kind of future. I know we've only got a few weeks left before my fate is doomed, but until that time I can't not fight.
This need to fight while extra crazy is just making my neuroses worse. If I Email someone who has got the capacity to be of some use in the fight against welfare reform but I don't get a reply, what should I do? Well, obviously, I should chase them up. My Email's probably fallen to page 5 of their inbox by now and is never going to get a response unless I do. But I really wish they'd reply of their own volition and save me the time spent sat in the bathroom, in the dark, rocking back and forth repeating "oh God, I'm a terrible person. Oh God, I'm so annoying. Why do I have to be such an awful person? Oh God I'm such a bad person. I wish I wasn't so annoying."
And as for repeatedly tweeting the same thing over and over just to get the message out to people who happen to be online at different times of the day: It'd be interesting to do an experiment to see if people found it easier to keep up with all the people they follow if it wasn't the norm for everyone to post the same thing several times. I don't need The Huffington Post to tweet the link to the same article 3 times in as many hours, and if they didn't then perhaps I might have caught the tweet in which a friend was having a crisis.
My main problem with repeatedly tweeting the same content is, again, that I can't do it because it sends me into mini-meltdown about being too annoying. I have few enough followers as it is without boring the few I've got into abandoning me because I just post the same shit again and again. And giving someone an @ message requesting a retweet is another behaviour that'll make me weep with guilt if I try it.
I'm a big fan of the technology that allows us to communicate so instantaneously. I love that I can have these swift non-verbal interactions with anyone anywhere in the world. Twitter and Facebook are so valuable to me as a poorly person. From May to October this year I didn't write anything longer than a tweet because I just wasn't well enough. But these short, rapid, interpersonal exchanges saved me from being completely isolated in that time. You can tweet using your iPod in bed, you can tweet from a hospital waiting room, you can even sometimes get sufficient signal in the hospital basement to send a text between x-rays. You can check Facebook while waiting for your pharmacist to dispense your vast quantities of medicines. Last week was the 3rd anniversary of my mum's death. One of the first things I did when I stopped screaming that night was to tweet the fact because I wanted support from my friends around the world.
It genuinely makes me quite sad that my old teacher turned out to be so prescient about the death of communication; or at least the death of quality communication. I'm a big fan of short, rapid exchanges you get via text or on Twitter; but did we really have to abandon "old school" replying to Emails and so on? Have we as a species become so wrapped up in our fast paced 140-160 characters world that we can't find the time in our lives to read/write anything longer? Have we become so present-orientated that we really can't reply to any Email sent more than 6 hours ago. Even if it's a really important one?
Stop this world. It's spinning too fast. I want to get off.
20 October 2011
Ricky Gervais and the politics of Mong
I've just realised how long it is since I last blogged. I knew I'd been ill for a while but I didn't realise it'd been nearly 6 months.
You know that feeling when you've eaten a huge, huge, meal (e.g. on Xmas day): You feel exhausted because all your blood has rushed to your stomach leaving no energy for the rest of your body to do anything. But at the same time you can't sleep because your digestive system is working so hard. And of course you can't force any food down because you already feel like you're going to explode. Normally the sensation only lasts a couple of hours until your system has made good progress of dealing with the oversized meal.
I've felt like that since the beginning of June. I've spent much of the summer depending on meal replacement drinks because I couldn't force any food down. I've had no energy to do anything (e.g. blog) because my digestive system has been being so irrational and I've also not been sleeping because of the digestive mania which has been increasing the sensation of exhaustion.
Despite the fact that I'd much rather be lazing, watching telly and eating Cadbury's Deadheads (because they're the only thing I've managed to eat today without ending up bent barfing over the bog within 60 seconds) I felt I had to quickly comment about this week's Ricky Gervais mong twitstorm. Everyone else is blogging about it and I just love a bandwagon.
It seems a lot of people don't know the origin of the word, so in a nutshell: It's an impairment-specific insult and refers to people with Down's Syndrome. In the 1860s Dr John Langdon Down decided to classify people with learning difficulties by "which country they looked like they came from" (really!) and he thought people with an extra 21st chromosome looked like they came from Mongolia so named the condition 'Mongolism'. (Later renamed after Dr Down because the Mongolians took offense.) So 'mong' isn't really associated solely with people with DS, it's also a slightly racist term with regards to citizens of Mongolia.
Gervais apparently thinks he has some kind of "right" to reclaim the word "mong"; despite the fact that - as far as I'm aware - he does not have Mongolian citizenship. He maintains that the definition of mong has moved on and it's no longer anything to do with Down's. Though that argument loses credence when you realise that 4 hours later he posted a tweet using the word "twongols", clearly derived from the term "mongols" further establishing the link between "mong" and the outdated diagnosis of mongolism.
It's been quite big news with most papers and radio shows discussing whether or not "mong" is offensive to people with Down's. I've seen quotes from Nicky Clark, Richard Herring and Christina Martin on the offensiveness debate. Odd thing is: They're all non-disabled. Don't get me wrong, they're all great disability rights activists and I value their contributions to making the world a slightly better place. I'm constantly pointing out how much we need non-disabled people to give a crap about disability issues. So I'm gonna repeat it and italicise it this time to really drive home my point: they're all great disability rights activists and I value their contributions. And I have no issue with them giving their opinions on these issues when asked for them.
But it's odd that when the subject is "is mong offensive to people with Down's Syndrome?" That the only people being asked for their opinion on the subject are non-disabled disability rights activists. Radio presenters would never ask "is using 'gay' as a pejorative offensive to homosexuals or has the meaning of the word changed?" Without including LGBT folk in the debate. So why aren't people with Down's Syndrome invited onto the radio to discuss how they feel about Gervais's words? Why is it only non-disabled people who are being asked for their opinion? That's the bit that bothers me; not that non-disabled people are giving their opinions, but that people with Down's are not being asked.
Not only is the exclusion of people with Down's from a debate about Down's almost as problematic as Gervais's original tweets, it also seems like a circular discussion that we'll never reach the end of. People without Down's can express their opinions but until we ask people with Down's Syndome "does mong offend you?" We'll never have a definitive answer to the question "is mong offensive to people with Down's Syndrome?" AOL can run polls asking the general populace their opinion but until people with an extra 21st chromosome are included in the debate it's all very abstract and inconclusive.
I'd be particularly interested to hear the opinion of actor Russell Ramsay who was in an episode of Extras so having worked with Gervais probably has an insight into both sides of the debate. (Random fact: When I was a child my parents would drag me kicking and screaming to church every week. I went to Sunday School with Russell. Haven't seen him in at least 20 years though.)
Despite the fact that we haven't yet got a conclusive answer as to whether or not people with Down's find "mong" offensive today (because they haven't been asked) the history of the word is clearer: It's historically a term of abuse and a form of hate speech. Disablist hate crime is on the up due in no small part to the bullshit rhetoric being peddled by the government and press in attempt to whip up support for welfare reform. People are getting called a "scrounging cunt" in the street or being followed down the road by someone shouting "fucking DLA stick" at them. That Gervais is using an historically abusive term so liberally and encouraging his fans to use it is pouring fuel on the already raging fires of hate. Ironically Gervais is calling people who disagree with him "haters" and stipulating that they only disagree with him because they're jealous of his success. If being successful means that you feel superior to members of oppressed minorities and have a licence to use abusive language then I'd rather remain unsuccessful but a decent human being.
You know that feeling when you've eaten a huge, huge, meal (e.g. on Xmas day): You feel exhausted because all your blood has rushed to your stomach leaving no energy for the rest of your body to do anything. But at the same time you can't sleep because your digestive system is working so hard. And of course you can't force any food down because you already feel like you're going to explode. Normally the sensation only lasts a couple of hours until your system has made good progress of dealing with the oversized meal.
I've felt like that since the beginning of June. I've spent much of the summer depending on meal replacement drinks because I couldn't force any food down. I've had no energy to do anything (e.g. blog) because my digestive system has been being so irrational and I've also not been sleeping because of the digestive mania which has been increasing the sensation of exhaustion.
Despite the fact that I'd much rather be lazing, watching telly and eating Cadbury's Deadheads (because they're the only thing I've managed to eat today without ending up bent barfing over the bog within 60 seconds) I felt I had to quickly comment about this week's Ricky Gervais mong twitstorm. Everyone else is blogging about it and I just love a bandwagon.
It seems a lot of people don't know the origin of the word, so in a nutshell: It's an impairment-specific insult and refers to people with Down's Syndrome. In the 1860s Dr John Langdon Down decided to classify people with learning difficulties by "which country they looked like they came from" (really!) and he thought people with an extra 21st chromosome looked like they came from Mongolia so named the condition 'Mongolism'. (Later renamed after Dr Down because the Mongolians took offense.) So 'mong' isn't really associated solely with people with DS, it's also a slightly racist term with regards to citizens of Mongolia.
Gervais apparently thinks he has some kind of "right" to reclaim the word "mong"; despite the fact that - as far as I'm aware - he does not have Mongolian citizenship. He maintains that the definition of mong has moved on and it's no longer anything to do with Down's. Though that argument loses credence when you realise that 4 hours later he posted a tweet using the word "twongols", clearly derived from the term "mongols" further establishing the link between "mong" and the outdated diagnosis of mongolism.
It's been quite big news with most papers and radio shows discussing whether or not "mong" is offensive to people with Down's. I've seen quotes from Nicky Clark, Richard Herring and Christina Martin on the offensiveness debate. Odd thing is: They're all non-disabled. Don't get me wrong, they're all great disability rights activists and I value their contributions to making the world a slightly better place. I'm constantly pointing out how much we need non-disabled people to give a crap about disability issues. So I'm gonna repeat it and italicise it this time to really drive home my point: they're all great disability rights activists and I value their contributions. And I have no issue with them giving their opinions on these issues when asked for them.
But it's odd that when the subject is "is mong offensive to people with Down's Syndrome?" That the only people being asked for their opinion on the subject are non-disabled disability rights activists. Radio presenters would never ask "is using 'gay' as a pejorative offensive to homosexuals or has the meaning of the word changed?" Without including LGBT folk in the debate. So why aren't people with Down's Syndrome invited onto the radio to discuss how they feel about Gervais's words? Why is it only non-disabled people who are being asked for their opinion? That's the bit that bothers me; not that non-disabled people are giving their opinions, but that people with Down's are not being asked.
Not only is the exclusion of people with Down's from a debate about Down's almost as problematic as Gervais's original tweets, it also seems like a circular discussion that we'll never reach the end of. People without Down's can express their opinions but until we ask people with Down's Syndome "does mong offend you?" We'll never have a definitive answer to the question "is mong offensive to people with Down's Syndrome?" AOL can run polls asking the general populace their opinion but until people with an extra 21st chromosome are included in the debate it's all very abstract and inconclusive.
I'd be particularly interested to hear the opinion of actor Russell Ramsay who was in an episode of Extras so having worked with Gervais probably has an insight into both sides of the debate. (Random fact: When I was a child my parents would drag me kicking and screaming to church every week. I went to Sunday School with Russell. Haven't seen him in at least 20 years though.)
Despite the fact that we haven't yet got a conclusive answer as to whether or not people with Down's find "mong" offensive today (because they haven't been asked) the history of the word is clearer: It's historically a term of abuse and a form of hate speech. Disablist hate crime is on the up due in no small part to the bullshit rhetoric being peddled by the government and press in attempt to whip up support for welfare reform. People are getting called a "scrounging cunt" in the street or being followed down the road by someone shouting "fucking DLA stick" at them. That Gervais is using an historically abusive term so liberally and encouraging his fans to use it is pouring fuel on the already raging fires of hate. Ironically Gervais is calling people who disagree with him "haters" and stipulating that they only disagree with him because they're jealous of his success. If being successful means that you feel superior to members of oppressed minorities and have a licence to use abusive language then I'd rather remain unsuccessful but a decent human being.
13 April 2009
#amazonfail
So... the internet, especially Twitter, is all a buzz with the news that Amazon has removed the sales rank from all lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender titles. What this means is that gay books are now excluded from showing up in bestseller lists, and turn up down the bottom of search lists (if at all).
But what hardly anyone is talking about (yet) is that books to do with disability and sexuality have had their rank stripped too.
Books like Tom Shakespeare et al's sociology text book "The Sexual Politics of Disability". "The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability" has also been de-ranked.
The story is starting to crop up in news articles all over the world, and most articles are citing Twitter. There have also been petitions set up protesting against Amazon's effective censorship of LGBT titles. But none of these mention that us crips are getting censored too.
If you tweet, do mention something about Amazon de-ranking books on disability and sexuality also. And make sure you use the hashtag "#amazonfail"
ETA: This of course isn't the only recent disability-related Amazon fail: http://is.gd/qC8W
ETA2: This blog post explains the importance of literature on disability and sexuality. There's also another blog post on the issue here.
ETA3: Disabled people seem to be taking a double whammy in this whole thing. First our books get de-ranked. And then the mainstream press fails to acknowledge us when writing about this. It doesn't matter if it's a glitch, a new policy, or a hack - the press should be representing us.
ETA4: Amazon have apologised and said "that the de-ranking was not limited to gay and lesbian titles.... In fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as health, mind and body, reproductive and sexual medicine." Hmmm. "Health and mind and body" - their way of saying "disability" and trying to reassure LGBT customers that it wasn't just us (I say "us" wearing my lesbian hat. And I do actually have a hat that apparently makes me look very dykey). What the press still aren't picking up on was that, yes, it wasn't just LGBT titles, it was disability titles too. I even Emailed The Guardian and asked them to even give a sentence to the fact that it affected disability titles too. They haven't.
But what hardly anyone is talking about (yet) is that books to do with disability and sexuality have had their rank stripped too.
Books like Tom Shakespeare et al's sociology text book "The Sexual Politics of Disability". "The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability" has also been de-ranked.
The story is starting to crop up in news articles all over the world, and most articles are citing Twitter. There have also been petitions set up protesting against Amazon's effective censorship of LGBT titles. But none of these mention that us crips are getting censored too.
If you tweet, do mention something about Amazon de-ranking books on disability and sexuality also. And make sure you use the hashtag "#amazonfail"
ETA: This of course isn't the only recent disability-related Amazon fail: http://is.gd/qC8W
ETA2: This blog post explains the importance of literature on disability and sexuality. There's also another blog post on the issue here.
ETA3: Disabled people seem to be taking a double whammy in this whole thing. First our books get de-ranked. And then the mainstream press fails to acknowledge us when writing about this. It doesn't matter if it's a glitch, a new policy, or a hack - the press should be representing us.
ETA4: Amazon have apologised and said "that the de-ranking was not limited to gay and lesbian titles.... In fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as health, mind and body, reproductive and sexual medicine." Hmmm. "Health and mind and body" - their way of saying "disability" and trying to reassure LGBT customers that it wasn't just us (I say "us" wearing my lesbian hat. And I do actually have a hat that apparently makes me look very dykey). What the press still aren't picking up on was that, yes, it wasn't just LGBT titles, it was disability titles too. I even Emailed The Guardian and asked them to even give a sentence to the fact that it affected disability titles too. They haven't.
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