Once again the ghost of Steve Jobs took the original version of this blog from me - once again pretty much as I was about to publish. But I think it might have been a good thing. It was all about the same old subject and I think maybe it's been covered well enough for now (though might do a podcast special and possibly even an Edinburgh show about this eventually). It's hard to think of anything else to write about though, because pretty much my whole day was taken up with more fallout. I felt it was important to try and engage and provide answers to the 200 or so angry and embittered tweets I was getting every hour, but it was probably foolish to do so. I was like King Cnut (I am trying to reclaim that word) fighting the tide and on every wave contained human sewage and clumps of soiled toilet tissues and tampons and some condoms that a teenage boy had wanked into (all metaphorical apart from the condoms).
By the end of the day I was exhausted. Though I could take the tweets one at a time, the cumulative effect of being called a mong by thousands of people who hadn't read what I had actually said was somewhat wearing. I felt sad tonight. But then considered what it would be like to be confronted by this anger and ignorance and name calling on a daily basis for your whole life. And it's all tempered by the fact that I have also had the most amazing messages of support from so many people. Overall there are more positives than negatives, but the reaction to me just saying that maybe we shouldn't use a word as a witless punchline and that there might be more worthy targets then the disabled has been head-spinning and disconcerting and distracted me from my work - I am meant to be thinking about tits this week!
On the plus side by the end of the day Gervais was calling people "twongs" which might be as close as he gets to an admission that he made an error of judgement. Making up insulting words is a great idea. Then you do have power over what they mean. And if you secretly are thinking "ha ha ha, no one knows that that actually stands for twatty mongs" then that's OK. Because you've kept it secret. Personally I think the w makes it a much more effective insult anyway. The m is too hard. W is silly and more playful. TW even moreso.
It's a shame that some people have seen this as an argument about free speech or censorship, which it isn't. If you have bothered to view or listen to my other work you'll know that I am for free speech and people being able to say whatever they want, no matter how idiotic. It's really about trying to make people aware of the inequalities that disabled people are still facing and the casual disablism in society, which is similar to the casual racism of the 70s. It's interesting that the BBC were upset enough with Carol Thatcher for saying "golliwog" to fire her, but no one would think of doing the same over this - I am not calling for anyone's dismissal. I don't think Thatcher should have been sacked either, just that we are not yet at the stage where disablism is taken as seriously as racism. Also Gervais earns more money for the BBC and no one hates his mum.
Free speech of course means that we have the free speech to question something someone else says and it's a shame many advocates of free speech aren't as keen on free hearing or free reading. Maybe we should have to pass a test in listening before we are allowed to speak freely. I have tried to discuss the issues and a few people have been prepared to engage with that, but when for example someone says I am all for censorship and anyway didn't I go around dressed up as Hitler (even though I never did) and I say just read the blog or watch the DVD and they say they don't need to.... well you kind of realise there's not much point in engaging. And maybe it's counterproductive to try.
And I wonder if we could stop people using political correctness as a pejorative term if we could reclaim the letter PC and make them stand for Politeness and courtesy. Which is truly all they should stand for. But I guess Ricky has already shown the dangers of taking it on yourself to change the meaning of a word.
To all his supporters though I would say that I have decided the term "Paki" now means "fine and upstanding gentleperson from the Indian subcontinent". So now that's sorted I am expecting you all to use that liberally. And nigger is my new name for ice cream. So please all go to Brixton and ask anyone there where you can get a chocolate nigger. A few people might think the word means something else, but it's OK, don't worry, just tell them that it means something else now and I am sure there will be no trouble. If you don't do it you will be opposing freedom of speech. If anyone complains it's politeness and courtesy gone mad.
I resolved to stop replying or commenting at midnight. And my resolve held for about five minutes. But hopefully I will be drawing a line under all this soon and my twitter feed and blog can move on to other stuff. On the plus side
The SCOPE donation page has had a lot of visits and the comments on there made me slightly blub. But it's been a long couple of days and I am sure I was just tired and emotional.
So before we leave this let me just once again thank the many, many people who have supported me through these weird couple of days and the array of bizarre idiots who have provided me with material for my 2012 Edinburgh show "Not Yet Disabled".
Now let's get back to me being a wrong idiot. You idiots having a go at me would really like me if you only knew who I was. You might not get all the irony, but you'd enjoy the bad words.
