Post Hiatus ranting: speaking for others

It seems I cannot give up my space for political ranting, so after a prolonged hiatus I am back.

There is one topic this week, conveniently illustrated by two supreme douches (I use this word in the feminist way, as in a douche is harmful, pointless and bad for vaginas ).

Words are powerful and that power can hurt people. Free speech is indeed precious but free speech has a responsibility, there are some things you shouldn’t say because they are offensive, abusive , downright bloody stupid and mark you out as a colossal WANKER. This is particularly fraught when dealing with groups of society who have been marginalised and abused throughout history. When you are not part of that group, when you are speaking from a place of privilege, when the words you are using ‘in jest’ have never been used to dehumanise you; you have no RIGHT to reclaim a word or suggest that it is no longer offensive.

YES RICKY GERVAIS THIS APPLIES TO YOU.

So called ‘comedian’ Ricky Gervais has been using the word ‘mong’ on twitter. Accompanied by pictures of him pulling faces, you know the kind of faces that school-kids use to indicate someone ‘stupid’, by which they often mean someone with a learning disability or similar. School-kids are wrong to do this but they’re kids, they may not know the meaning behind what they do; a grown man DOES.

A white, rich, abled bodied man who has never had a word used to describe him or his disability; what on earth gives him the right to assert it is not offensive to those people who have had it used against them , to bully them, to insult them, to have their humanity questioned? as that is what singling out someone for their disability, race, gender etc. does it singles out a characteristic such as skin colour, disability etc. and uses it to mark you out as ‘different’ and ‘lesser’ and somehow deserving of mockery because of what you are; if that is not an attempt to dehumanise someone I don’t know what is. Perhaps Gervais should educate himself on the very recent history of disabled children being taken away from their families and locked away in institutions for example: 50,000 children with communication and physical impairments, and more than 500,000 adults were incarcerated in institutions in the first half of the 20th century (many were released in the 1980s). Children with significant learning difficulties were deemed in-educable and those with less significant learning difficulty went to educationally sub-normal schools until 1973(source:http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/teaching/disability/thinking/#early).

See this tweet I saw this week: @vivizaraz My 12 yr old autistic son is called a ‘mong’ & ‘retard’ by local kids. Try telling him it’s funny #Gervais

Which I assume is not an isolated one off. a 12 year old kid, by other kids, it is obvious that ‘mong’ is still used to insult disabled people BECAUSE THEY ARE DISABLED. When someone like Gervais asserts language like this OK and is acceptable and paints those who call him out on his fuckwittery as ‘ignorant’ and ‘overreacting’ and other such mind fartery he just perpetuates the negative imagery such words have, and quite frankly as an abled bodied guy swimming privilege HE HAS NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE DISABLED AND HAVE SUCH WORDS USED AGAINST HIM.

Second douche of the week, Steven Greenstreet is a bloke who has been filming  ‘the hot women of occupy wall street’ and posting videos of ‘the hotties’ online and actively inviting men to wank over them. This is apparently part of his support for ‘the cause’ to draw in more protesters.

Again ‘humour’ is used in his defence, because as a GUY it’s totally o.k for him to decide what is sexist and objectifying towards women and if any women happen to disagree we’re all feminazi bitches. As a guy you might think it’s funny, but as women we put up with this shit ALMOST EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES so naturally we have less tolerance towards creepy perverts reducing us to our sexuality and ignoring our voices.

It also implies that the cause of making the world a better place for ‘the 99%’ does not include women, as our feelings don’t seem to matter. Which really shoots the whole thing in the foot.

So two amazing examples of the privilege denying dude gone viral in the real world and inspiring acts of supreme wankery.

I shall also add another episode of extreme fuckwittery regarding a shitty John Lennon song used to justify racist slogans to prove that women can be just as idiotic and arrogant enough to assume that they, in the privileged group, should feel free to assert whether those who are directly affected by the said slur, should not be offended!

FFS the able bodied have no right to assert people with disabilities shouldn’t be offended by disablist terms and white people have no right to assert people of colour should not be offended by racist terms and men have no right to tell women what is misogynistic, it’s quite simple so why are so many people so fucking stupid?

Sometimes I despair of the world, I really do.