Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!115!778.1!Eric.Bohlman From: Eric.Bohlman@p1.f778.n115.z1.fidonet.org (Eric Bohlman) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Re: public relations Message-ID: <16117@handicap.news> Date: 17 Jun 91 20:31:06 GMT Sender: wtm@bunker.isc-br.com Reply-To: Eric.Bohlman@p1.f778.n115.z1.fidonet.org Organization: FidoNet node 1:115/778.1 - COPH-2 (BGMS), Chicago IL Lines: 31 Approved: wtm@bunker.hcap.fidonet.org Index Number: 16117 [This is from the Blink Talk Conference] SG> form. Let me propose this question to you: How would you SG> like to revert back to all the old terminology. People with SG> Down's Syndrome--we'll call them Mongoloids, does this term stay SG> the same? It was functional, we all knew who it meant to SG> represent. Do I agree with it? NO You have to consider the history of how a term came about. For example, "mongoloid" came from a ludicrous paper that Down wrote entitled "on an ethnic classification of idiots." Down's thesis was that ethnic groups could be ordered into a "great chain of being" and that "subnormal" individuals who belonged to "higher" ethnic groups were essentially "stuck" at the "level" of the "lower" groups. Apparently one boy who had mental disabilities stemming from trisomy of chromosome 21 had some characteristics that reminded Down of Orientals (the kid was very imitative, and at the time imitativeness was part of the European stereotype of Orientals), and the label stuck. Down also tried to associate other forms of mental disability with different disfavored ethnic groups, but little of it stuck. Anyway, the point was that "mongolism" was INTENDED to mean "having the characteristics of someone who belongs to an inferior and hated group" and was therefore a both poisoned and poisonous term. (I actually think it should simply be called "trisomy 21" since I don't think that Down deserves to be honored for his racism, and his intentions were nearly all bad.) -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!115!778.1!Eric.Bohlman Internet: Eric.Bohlman@p1.f778.n115.z1.fidonet.org