by Dr. Caelus » Tue Nov 16, 2010 5:16 pm
Interesting; I did a quick survey in my Attitudes & Persuasion class this morning, and no one had heard of "Spastic" being an epithet of any form, except as a colloquial, none-to-serious descriptor for someone who is rather neurotic, personality wise.
That wouldn't be so surprising, except:
A) This is a group of people who are generally very sensitive to matters of what would, commonly, be referred to as 'political correctness' - research in our field, especially in the context of this class, is heavily focused on bias/bigotry/discrimination/social oppression.
B) The professor is by far more well traveled than the average American, I believe having spent a great deal of time in Europe, and she had no clue that there was an alternate meaning or connotation to the word.
I have to wonder if the cultural distinction here could run deeper than simply variable word meaning across countries. Anecdotally, it seems America has very strong stigmas attached to race/ethnicity, sexuality, obesity, mental illness, and people suffering from communicable diseases. Discrimination against those physically disabled by seizures, however, while (I assume) present, doesn't seem to be so systematic and 'oppressive' as people are describing it to have been in Europe.
Also, I'll admit that I'm a bit disinclined to get too upset over this whole deal - I remember when we had a poster come through throwing out a heap load of sexist bullshit and talk diminutive of people with Bipolar disorder, and I got bitched out by everyone else for telling him it was offensive and had no place on the site.
So I have to wonder, for all of the longer-standing members that are so quick to take offense over American ignorance of a term apparently disparaging towards the physically handicapped, or to get in a huff because you feel the non-Americans aren't taken racism seriously enough, where were you when I was being demonized for objecting to someone's verbal abuse of women and the mentally handicapped?
Edit: I'm sure some people will feel that was petty of me to bring up, after all this time and in this context, but the hypocrisy on this board sickens me, and playing along by not pointing it out doesn't help.