When People Think Disabilities Become Laughable, It Is Time To Act.

[underwhere]

I know that many people here have disabilities. One thing I hate more than almost anything else is when somebody makes fun of a disability. The only thing I hate more is when somebody makes fun of MY disability.

Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda managed to do that this past week, and Brad Pitt was in their cross hairs. Brad Pitt recently told Esquire Magazine that he believes he has prosopagnosia. In other words, he believes he is unable to recognize people he has seen before using the face as the primary recognition mechanism. Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda, in their usual way from what I have been told, made the childish decision to make fun of the word and the condition of prosopagnosia.

I don't know how many of you know that I blog on the web site of Psychology Today discussing some of my life experiences as a result of having prosopagnosia. I just published my most recent blog entry about this particular incident, and I really hope people will read it and share it. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/face/201305/prosopagnosia-is-no-laughing-matter

I'm hoping this goes viral, actually, but a little help won't hurt. My next step is to bring this to the attention of NBC, the network which hosts their show. I don't know exactly what I hope will happen, but I do have some ideas for that too. I'll try to keep you all up to date as this campaign of mine progresses.

Thanks in advance, and feel free to comment either here or by messaging me if you have any thoughts or ideas about any of this.

[puffybedwetter]

I think some people are just too sensitive nowadays. So what if he couldn't pronounce the word or made a joke. Hes a stupid actor! Everyone has a disability wether its a medical condition, of being completely stupid....

[Diapered Jason]

Kathy Gifford is as puerile as she is stupid.

[Guest Sasha]

Really? Who cares? In my opinion, this is dumb.

[ForbiddenFruit]

I think some people are just too sensitive nowadays. So what if he couldn't pronounce the word or made a joke. Hes a stupid actor! Everyone has a disability wether its a medical condition, of being completely stupid....

[sarah_ab]

wow welcome to the world of having tourette syndrome where it is the punchline of countless jokes and is made fun of in so many movies.. and you know what... those jokes, and those movies are fucking hilarious!

[Bettypooh]

It is sad that people have disabilities and far sadder that many peoople make light of them But that is how the world is and there's not much you can do about that except carry yourself gracefully and proudly through it There are many levels of social interaction and luckikly most of them can be handled without needing to remember people or names. I am the world's worst with names so when someone who knows me comes up and says hello I treat them nicely and hope I don't need to mention their name In your situation you might need to explain your problem with the people close to you so they can help you through it. I don't care if someone walks up to me and says "Hi Bettypooh, it's Bob from marketing. Haven't seen you in awhile!" I'd rather have that than to feel awkward at not remembering them1 In RL I seem to be a popular (or at least memorable) person among the thousands who have met me. They all seem to know my name, but alas the reverse is rarely true I've learned to slide throuigh most of these encounters through gracefulness alone, but when I have to I will ask for their name, claiming a temporary mind-block which if hey know me at all they will certainly understand

[Nat]

Honestly it doesn't even bother me. I do have a disability. Only time it sickens me is if they are picking on someone for their disability. It just tells me what kind of people they are and I don't care of they are just doing it to piss that person off and they don't really have anything against that disability in general nor other people with it. They are just making themselves look ignorant and bad than the person they are picking on and I think they have something against people with that disability.

[Codymoogle]

I'm disabled, and here's my $0.02 on the topic...

[sarah_ab]

6. "Inspiration porn" - This is where they take a picture of a disabled person and add an inspiring quote about how to overcome challenges, or gush about how brave the person is and how inspiring they are to us all because they did something an able bodied person could do fairly easily

[Dill_Pickle]

In the US, try being white, and making a joke about being black.....or talking about race...

Same issues....

[underwhere]

wow welcome to the world of having tourette syndrome where it is the punchline of countless jokes and is made fun of in so many movies.. and you know what... those jokes, and those movies are fucking hilarious!

There is a difference between jokes in good taste and jokes in poor taste. There is a difference between jokes told by one group of people about that group of people (and yes, those of us with prosopagnosia have a ready made collection of those at our disposal) than about jokes told by one group of people ABOUT another group of people. I am a white guy. If I EVER jokingly said the word "nigger", people would have every right to "whoop my ass," and I hope they would. Similarly, as a Jew, I get some leeway in humor regarding being Jewish and the difficult situations that Jews have historically faced, but seriously, I would not think too kindly of similar jokes being told by somebody who is not Jewish. The context for understanding of the dark humor simply isn't there. In any event, some jokes, no matter what context, aren't funny anyway. I've heard some really bad ones about Jews, for example, and some really bad ones about blacks, and some really bad ones about a whole bunch of other groups, none of which are worth repeating because they are so vulgar. When I saw this clip, I, and most other people with prosopagnosia who have seen this already, became the butt of a vulgar joke.

Personally, I do not appreciate jokes about any particular disability which are casually thrown about, nor jokes about specific religions, races, or whatever. I also would not object to a well-crafted joke about prosopagnosia if the context of that joke was something I could relate to. Some jokes about some life circumstances are funny. This particular one was clearly intended to be hurtful from the get-go.

Bettypooh, I have no problem asking for help, but I can hardly be expected to ask for help from people who are intent on hurting me. I got enough of that in high school and grade school for 10 lifetimes. I also make do with the coping strategies I do have, and probably could be given an Academy award for best actor accordingly. I'm trying not to let what I can't do get in the way of my life, but when other people insist upon putting up road blocks, it sure would be nice to charge them for the repair to my "tires" when I run over them.

SpokaneGirl, your observations are correct, but again, the context of poking fun makes all the difference. I don't care if people laugh WITH me and my circumstances, but when they start laughing AT me, I have a problem with that. That should not be tolerated no matter what age you are or who you happen to be. Language is also a very powerful tool, and what people say matters a lot, at least as much as how they say it. I think the political correctness police have gone a little too far, but this is not about being politically correct. This is about common decency and treating others as you would wish to be treated. Personally, what irks me most about this is that there was a teachable moment handed to them on a silver platter, and instead, they chose to make a collection of cheap jokes about it in front of an audience of millions of people on national television, many of whom will now have a preconceived notion of prosopagnosia, something most of them have never heard of before, which is completely inaccurate. I've personally spent nearly 18 years cultivating a better understanding of prosopagnosia to the world at large. I don't deserve either to have my efforts mocked or my disability mocked.

Codymoogle, I agree with you 100%.

[sarah_ab]

*sigh*

[underwhere]

and all of the world shall sigh with, and bow down to, sarah_ab.

[sarah_ab]

actually i was just thinking how long you have been a member here and in all that time you continue to let your medical conditions define who you are... or at least that is very often how you present yourself on here. You have a condition, at times i'm sure it sucks to have it... but you continue to take so much offense at something you saw on tv, that didn't have anything to do with you, yet you took it so personally... as if these people were intending to attack you and your friends and family.... After a while you need to learn to let things go...

[babykeiff]

Comedy is extremely subjective. One person might find a joke extremely funny, while another might take offence. This is true for ALL comedy.

[Guest gnappies]

I would suggest to OP goes and meets some veterans from the last couple of wars. If you want to meet people who are completely unconcerned with their disabilities, they absolutely rip it out of each other.

[ForbiddenFruit]

That specific joke to some here will find funny / childish while a fruitearian (person who believes fruit have feelings) may get offended.

[babykeiff]

...you are joking, right? Fruitarianism is just following a fruit-only or heavily fruit-based diet (more specifically, it's about eating things that fall from plants rather than the main body of the plants themselves, so seeds, nuts, and obviously fruit). The only thing it's famous for is doing jack shit for Steve Jobs' cancer and hospitalising Ashton Kutcher.

[ForbiddenFruit]

I'm not making fun of the belief, I'm pointing out that fruitarianism is not the belief that fruit have feelings. Some fruitarians may believe it, but so could omnivores. It's not a piece of fruitarianism by definition.

[underwhere]

actually i was just thinking how long you have been a member here and in all that time you continue to let your medical conditions define who you are... or at least that is very often how you present yourself on here.

I think you actually missed my broader point here, Sara_ab. I try not to let it define me. I've worked pretty hard to not let it define me, but since every rational person expects to be recognized by face unless they are informed that it might be impossible for a certain subset of people to do that, the social consequences of failing to recognize faces can be very severe, and also of note, those consequences are completely out of my ability to control, or frankly even influence. I am, quite literally, at the whim of what I hope will be understanding people.

Yes, having prosopagnosia sucks and makes life impossibly difficult at times. It is startling every time somebody says hello to me, and I must rack my brain to figure out, first of all, if it is safe to let the person know I have no idea who they are, and second, who the heck are they anyway? I fear, only minimally rationally I admit, that I could be the victim of a crime or somehow need to identify somebody for a specific reason, and of course I will be unable to do that.

My point was that in this particular case, I don't have to let my medical conditions define who I am. Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda did a fine job of doing that for me, and I had absolutely nothing to do with that. Their antics and their entire approach to this topic were completely insensitive. That is why I am outraged over this situation.

[underwhere]

Here is an example of a tactful humorous way to handle this kind of situation. It is written by a person who has prosopagnosia, but even if it was not, the writing style and tone are very easy and not antagonistic or completely ignorant:

http://open.salon.com/blog/corkwriter/2013/05/26/thanks_brad_pitt_for_putting_an_er_face_on_prosopagnosia

Note the difference in tone expressed here. If Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda had gotten their message across in a similar less snarky way, I would not be complaining about it. It is possible, and should be expected, that people will deal with issues like this in a sensitive way. The fact that some people don't handle situations like this sensitively may make them assholes. However, for the people they are talking about who happen to have a condition which is already not-well-understood and for which it is clear that those people presenting the topic have no desire to try to understand, in my opinion, that is simply unacceptable.

I ran across a song a while ago, and I don't even remember how this happened. Type this into youtube: old mcdonald had a deformed farm

Some of the humor is clever, but some of it is downright obnoxious. I think we would do much better, on the whole, with clever humor. We don't need the obnoxious humor.

[babykeiff]

I think you actually missed my broader point here, Sara_ab. I try not to let it define me. I've worked pretty hard to not let it define me, but since every rational person expects to be recognized by face unless they are informed that it might be impossible for a certain subset of people to do that, the social consequences of failing to recognize faces can be very severe, and also of note, those consequences are completely out of my ability to control, or frankly even influence. I am, quite literally, at the whim of what I hope will be understanding people.

Yes, having prosopagnosia sucks and makes life impossibly difficult at times. It is startling every time somebody says hello to me, and I must rack my brain to figure out, first of all, if it is safe to let the person know I have no idea who they are, and second, who the heck are they anyway? I fear, only minimally rationally I admit, that I could be the victim of a crime or somehow need to identify somebody for a specific reason, and of course I will be unable to do that.

My point was that in this particular case, I don't have to let my medical conditions define who I am. Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda did a fine job of doing that for me, and I had absolutely nothing to do with that. Their antics and their entire approach to this topic were completely insensitive. That is why I am outraged over this situation.

[underwhere]

You are also missing my point, babykeiff. There are a whole host of things I can do to help facilitate social life for me. I make use of many of those strategies even though requesting assistance must be repeated over and over and over again even if I ask for exactly the same thing. In high school, I would ask people to reintroduce themselves to me by name, and there were still some assholes who would intentionally give me the wrong name because they thought it was funny. I'm done with grade school. I'm done with high school. I thought that I lived in a world of thinking feeling adults. However, being mocked on national television by people who clearly can not think or feel is not going to help me or anybody else who deals with prosopagnosia, or for that matter any other disability.

Let's talk about mocking:

It is akin to asking why a blind person should not be able to take attendance visually. This would never be mocked on television.

It is akin to expecting a deaf person to read lips while turning your face away from their visual field. This would never be mocked on television. (to say nothing of the fact that even the best of lip readers still are uncertain of a vast portion of the conversation in any detail)

It is akin to telling a person who spends their life in a wheel chair (for whatever reason) that they should chuck the wheelchair in the garbage can and "get off their ass and walk on both feet."

It is akin to telling a person with aphasia that they should speak more coherently.

Am I the only person who finds all of these examples grossly offensive? Am I the only person who might stand up and shout "NO!" if I saw one of these happening? Am I the only person who would hope that people would stand up for me if they saw me being bullied? Am I the only person who would stand up to a bully if I saw somebody else being bullied?

Perhaps humanity is more terrible than I thought.

[babykeiff]

You are also missing my point, babykeiff. There are a whole host of things I can do to help facilitate social life for me. I make use of many of those strategies even though requesting assistance must be repeated over and over and over again even if I ask for exactly the same thing. In high school, I would ask people to reintroduce themselves to me by name, and there were still some assholes who would intentionally give me the wrong name because they thought it was funny. I'm done with grade school. I'm done with high school. I thought that I lived in a world of thinking feeling adults. However, being mocked on national television by people who clearly can not think or feel is not going to help me or anybody else who deals with prosopagnosia, or for that matter any other disability.

Let's talk about mocking:

It is akin to asking why a blind person should not be able to take attendance visually. This would never be mocked on television.

It is akin to expecting a deaf person to read lips while turning your face away from their visual field. This would never be mocked on television. (to say nothing of the fact that even the best of lip readers still are uncertain of a vast portion of the conversation in any detail)

It is akin to telling a person who spends their life in a wheel chair (for whatever reason) that they should chuck the wheelchair in the garbage can and "get off their ass and walk on both feet."

It is akin to telling a person with aphasia that they should speak more coherently.

Am I the only person who finds all of these examples grossly offensive? Am I the only person who might stand up and shout "NO!" if I saw one of these happening? Am I the only person who would hope that people would stand up for me if they saw me being bullied? Am I the only person who would stand up to a bully if I saw somebody else being bullied?

Perhaps humanity is more terrible than I thought.