How horrified would you be if your child had Down syndrome and the caption was a slur against people with special needs?
It's happened, and you don't need to be those parents to feel their horror. Now, they're suing in what's said to be the first case of its kind.
It's about time some haters got their due.
Pamela and Bernard Holland are parents to Adam, who has DS; they live in Nashville. At 17, Adam took an art workshop in which he made a sketch that read "Go Titans One." A photo of him holding it went online (you can see it here). And then, it got swiped and people started writing nasty captions. It ended up on the website of Sarasota, Florida radio station WHPT-FM, with the sign Adam holding Photoshopped to read "Retarded News."
"Retarded News" is a segment on The Cowhead Show, one of the radio station's programs. It's designed, court papers say, "to highlight odd stories that are seemingly always in the news. These stories are NOT about disabled individuals."
That may be true, but a radio segment labeled "Retarded News" is offensive to anyone with intellectual disability—it's equating them with weird, stupid stuff. (If you are new here and don't totally get why the word "retard" demeans, read this.) The Cowhead Show still has a YouTube video up called "Retarded News Theater" with a voiceover by a man speaking in a slow, slurred voice. You'd have to be a pretty pathetic human being to find that amusing.
The Hollands are suing the parent company of the radio station, Cox Media Group, along with the Sign Generator website and a Flickr user for featuring images of their son with derogatory captions. Sadly, I've seen photos of Adam online with these captions; I never knew who he was until now. I've seen it happen to other children and young adults with Down syndrome, too. You might recall that something similar happened to Heidi Crowter, a young woman with Down syndrome. A photo of her as a child was stolen online and, for years, used in a nasty photo meme, often with the words "I can count to potato." Heidi's mother put up a Facebook page begging sites to take down the photo.
The Hollands' lawsuit won't stop the slurs, of course. Perhaps the case will establish legal precedents, however, for misappropriating images online. Meanwhile, these parents are sending a message: You can't make people with special needs the victims of defamation and cruelty online without consequences, legal or moral. And they're raising more awareness about an awful word that's no joke if you are a person who's intellectually disabled, or you love someone who is.
Image: Flickr/Hryck.
Man! I like to live in my "little dream world" where I think people have actually progressed! Thanks for sharing this. I was so devastated/angry the other day when I posted an article on twitter. I put the hash tag #down syndrome so people could "grab" it. When I went to the hash tag down syndrome- there were horrific "jokes" about getting rid of them- purging our society. I was sick. Dilemma- keep shouting out the truth and educating people about the equality and preciousness of every life- change my hash tag? We can't tire of trying to Eradicate this hateful thinking.
ReplyDeleteThis suit has been a long time in coming. I am so proud of these parents for taking a stand. If you want to see what happens when pictures of kids with special needs are stolen, go to Google, search for the R-word, and click on images. It should be a serious wake up call about how dangerous the web can be because once your child's picture is stolen and placed on the web, it's there forever. Here is another example from the UK that is truly heartbreaking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYowYqNOjUQ
ReplyDeleteGood for them for taking a stand!!!!! But it makes me sad that this is how our society is now.
ReplyDeleteGood for them! This cannot have been an easy decision. Sending prayers and strength to this family!
ReplyDeleteYou're right about that. This story was on the local new's facebook page. Most of the comments were about them making a buck off this. I couldn't make them understand suing is the only thing we can do. It's not like this is punishable by prison!
DeleteRight on they should sue how can people do this to another human being.
ReplyDeleteKey word: consequences. There haven't been any significant consequences. Howard Stern has been doing this for years and we let him become the "King of all Media"
ReplyDeleteSomething very similar happened to a photo of my son. My son was born with Spina Bifida and the photo was of him in his wheelchair. It was a photo from my blog that someone took, added a horrific tag line and then posted the photo all over the place. It was awful. Of course I will never know who did it because there is no way to track it. I spent hours and hours and hours going to every single site I could find that had the misused photo (and there were hundreds of sites) and I demanded they take it down. It was exhausting and I barely scratched the surface. It felt like such a violation.
ReplyDeleteCassie, that is horrible. Who ARE these people?! There ought to be a law. Hopefully, this case will create ones that protect our children, and other people out there who are victims of this crime.
DeleteThis disgusts me.
ReplyDeleteI often hear that people with autism or aspergers "lack empathy." This is perplexing to me.
They aren't the people sending around meme photos making fun of "retarded" people.
People now a days are just disgusting! It's time someone takes action!
ReplyDelete