agree with everything tera and amanda wrote. we need to really think about the strategies we use or else we isolate people. i.e. i know a lot of disabled people of color who refuse or don’t feel connected to the disability rights movement because of these strategies.

There’s also all the common stereotypes about people of size….

Indeed, I just got accused of doing something wrong just because I told people they were not welcome to say on my blog that black people are loud, obnoxious, and “cry racism” all the time.

(I suppose it’s “crying racist” to point out that’s a racist point of view.)

Another big problem is that people think that “racist” means “nasty evil monster”, so if they don’t view themselves as nasty evil monsters, then they can’t be racist ,and saying that an action is racist is just “name-calling” and “reverse racism” (wtf?).

When the reality is that a racist society puts racist views into everyone’s mind, including people who are the targets of racism. It’s the mark of racism that it’s invisible to most people who hold racist views.

from the NY Times review—this is the first sentence and it suggests that, well, they don’t “get” it:

Despite what you may have read lately, the biggest target of ridicule in “Tropic Thunder,” a flashy, nasty, on-and-off funny and assaultive sendup of the film industry, is not the mentally retarded. Rather, the true targets of this extreme comedy’s free-flowing contempt are the stars, makers, brokers, miscellaneous supplicants and even die-hard fans of the movies, who are all portrayed as challenged in some fashion: intellectually, ethically, aesthetically, sartorially, chemically, longitudinally, you name it.

ok, but not all those who get “hit” were intentional targets.

True–although it depends on what the definition of “overtly racist” is. If it’s “white supremacist and proud of it,” then, yeah.

It’s easy to air racism publicly if, for instance, you avoid words that most white people recognize as racist. Most white people would recognize “uppity n__” as racist. So during the Democratic primaries in the United States, some feminists argued that the media was more sexist toward Hillary Clinton than they were racist toward Barack Obama, because they freely called her a “b***” but didn’t use the n-word. But the media (and the Clinton campaign) called Obama “elitist” very often. And “elite” is, among other things, an uppity word for “uppity.”

“White supremacist and proud of it” is a very narrow form of racism. And when white people get called on many of the vast other kinds of racism, it’s not uncommon for them to feel that it’s “not a big deal” or that people of color are “overly sensitive.”

Jennifer, I think you are right, there are a lot of people who think they are cool using the R word with each other. Problem is, they can’t always tell who has a hidden disability, like my son, or who is a relative or close friend of someone with a disability, so they will offend. Much of it is ignorance, and probably some of the use will be curtailed with informing some people why it is offensive. But there will always be that group who want to be “cool” or who actually do hate people who are different, they are out there.

As Kate has shown the end result of the use of the R word, it is as painful as a physical assault in many ways, maybe worse as the psychological scars can last for years. My heart goes out to your son, Kate, and your family. I was bullied terribly, although the R word wasn’t used as I got very good grades. The effects are still with me after 30-40 years. I have told the teachers at school that I will not allow this to happen to my son, and they have been instituting buddy systems for my son and now the younger kids, which has helped my son tremendously. The kids who have gotten to know him are like little mother hens (most are girls) and they would likely attack someone for bullying him, and would defend him vigorously. It is only the second grade, but my torment started in the first grade, so the earlier the better.

In my less than stellar moments, I hope that the actors’ children receive the same treatment to understand, truly, how soul sucking and killing this hate speech can be.

In my better moments, I hope that no one will be subjected to prejudice for intellectual capabilities, motor capabilities or any other capability that deters from “normal.”