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  • From: Thomas Beckett <thomas AT tbeckett.com>
  • To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Evil time wasting things from across the pond
  • Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:36:04 -0400


Bill -

I'm really glad that you did take the time to write out your frustrations. It sucks that some of us fell into and played along with the stereotyping of Tourette's people that you decry. But the upside is that you did just educate 175 of your close friends about Tourette's Syndrome. And a hell of a lot more effectively than some magazine article would, at that. We're all human and we have our foibles, but it is a sign of our better nature that we can learn from our mistakes. Thanks for turning a mistake into a learning experience for all of us.

TaB


At 04:32 PM 5/10/2002 -0400, you wrote:
As a person who has been living with Tourette's Syndrome for more than
30 years, I cannot let this pass by without comment.

First off, when I found that Tourette Syndrome Barbie on the
Internetworkers site a couple of weeks ago, I found it highly offensive
and started drafting a note to the webmaster asking for it to be
removed, but due to time constraints never got around to finishing that.
I find that, as well as the UK version of the tourettes link below,
about as offensive as I would imagine an African-American would find a
racial joke offensive. These tourette jokes and ethnic jokes, which over
the last several decades have become somewhat taboo as an overt
expression of humor amongst the not-so-ignorant, have many things in
common: they perpetuate false stereotypes, they poke fun at something
that the subject of the joke has no control over, and they implicitly
portray the subject of the joke as an inferior human being because of
it. I hope nobody here on Internetworkers seriously believes that
African Americans or people with Tourette Syndrome are inferior human
beings!

The Tourette Syndrome Barbie and the tourettes.co.uk site (as well as
other trash that pokes cheap fun at Tourette Syndrome (TS), such as the
movie "What about Bob") perpetuate many false stereotypes about TS. For
example, the vast majority of people who are afflicted with TS do not
curse uncontrollably. That is a symptom called corprolalia, which often
is associated with TS, but which only a very small percentage of TS
sufferers ever exhibit. Do you ever remember me cursing uncontrollably
on this forum? I didn't think so! Also, people with TS often have vocal
tics, which some have described as "barking like dogs," however those
vocalizations really have no resemblance at all to a dog's bark,
regardless of what Tourette Syndrome Barbie's vocalizations sound like,
etc., etc., etc.

There is plenty of stuff out there that is genuinely funny, and I am
frankly shocked and very disappointed that a presumably intelligent and
educated group like Internetworkers would choose to indulge in this
infantile and offensive type of humor.

Sincerely,
Bill Geschwind


*********************************************************************
Bill Geschwind
Technical Assistance Manager
Department of Technology and Systems Support
Division of Student Affairs, University of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill
03 Teague Hall, CB# 5510 (919) 962-5629
Chapel Hill, NC 27599 geschwin AT email.unc.edu
*********************************************************************

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wolfe, Joanna [mailto:wolfe AT oup-usa.org]
> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 12:07 PM
> To: InterNetWorkers
> Subject: [internetworkers] Evil time wasting things from
> across the pond
>
>
> a collegue from the UK sent me this:
>
> http://home6.inet.tele.dk/bergmann/java/P3_J.HTM
>
> Which made me think of the soda constructor page.
>
> So we ended up discussing the Internetworkers web toys
> page=20 and he supplied this comment after viewing the
> Tourette=20 Syndrome Barbie:
>
> "Someone has recently pointed out that the difference=20
> between US and UK approach to Tourette's in encapsulated by
>
www.tourettes.com

versus

www.tourettes.co.uk"

just a couple of time wasting URLs to brighten up your friday.

Regards,

Joanna

Joanna Wolfe
Manager, Business Technology Services
Oxford University Press, USA
2001 Evans Road
Cary, NC 27513
v: (919) 677-0977 ext. 5242
f: (919) 677-2654
c: (919) 244-7696
e: wolfe AT oup-usa.org
w: www.oup-usa.org

Today's URL of interest:

http://www.oup-usa.org/reference

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  • RE: Evil time wasting things from across the pond, Thomas Beckett, 05/10/2002

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