Blue sky has replaced x and twiter

Culture
885

Surprised Joe.ie would put in print though, It looks worse. if you listened to it on the podcast you’d barely bat an eyelid.

886

What word lads, I’ve read it and can’t see why anyone would get their flaps tangled

2 Likes
887

Goway you spa

888

Conal Kearney, whoever he is, might get cancelled now.

1 Like
889

I haven’t heard that word used in a good few years now. It seems odd to me that it came to mind. Kinda ironic in a segment about interviews and how some lads wouldn’t be allowed to do them for fear of saying something stupid. Overall, I think he needs to be cancelled but I take no pleasure from it.

2 Likes
890

I wouldn’t mind but Keaney if anyone listens to the podcast comes across as the most decent sort you’d meet.

2 Likes
891

I had to read it about 10 times to spot it.

I thought they were offended by players following instructions when doing media.

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892

By the sounds of it just a slip of the tongue, zero malice intended.

I’d have huge respect for a guy like Keaney who stepped away from the high profile and glamour of the Dubs footballers to slog it out with the hurlers instead.

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893

Ah for fuck sake

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894

He has to go

895

it was a phrase used 30 years ago, people have stopped using it

its a derogatory term for people with cerebral palsy

2 Likes
896

Clearly not.

897

Polite society and educated people have.

2 Likes
898

The Wollie curse strikes again

899

He never forgave him

900

He’ll have to go.

1 Like
901

He has back tracked.

902

That’s even worse

903

I think maybe the best thing to do in a situation like this is to explain in a non-vilificatory way to people like Keaney who uses a word like spa that it would be better they do not do so, because the word is hurtful to disabled people – it’s a word that is used to make fun of them.

It’s definitely a word that was used a lot by kids growing in Dublin in the 1980s, and I’ve certainly used it and I imagine pretty much every child growing up in Dublin in that era did - but we should accept that the word is a word used to make fun of and vilify disabled people and we should aim to stop using it.

Explanation and persuasion is probably the best strategy to get people to not use such words but we should also give them a space to apologise in good faith if they do use such words in a context in which they don’t purposely use the words to make fun of or vilify a group of people who have been traditionally marginalised, say if they do it out of ignorance or habit because they grew up using it – rather than out of deliberate malice - which clearly seems the case here with Keaney.

The space needs to be offered for individuals to accept they’ve made a mistake and the individual needs to feel that they have the space to apologise in good faith if needs be.

I’ve often seen John Barnes’s comments about racism referenced on this forum. Barnes to me is quite misunderstood. He generally takes a non-judgmental attitude to individuals who say racist or bigoted things and instead focusses on the cultural context in which individuals say or feel they are able to say such words or opinions – because he feels that by focussing on vilifying an individual, it can make individuals reflexively dig in and continue to say horrible things out of spite.

Barnes’s stance appears to me quietly very radical. It appears to advocate for a deep re-evaluation of society at every level, to examine how society as a whole is supremacist, be it white supremacist, or straight supremacist or male supremacist or able supremacist. This is a much more challenging critique than singling out individuals and saying “this individual is the problem”. Barnes believes that in general it’s the cultural context which is the problem, rather than the individual – though if somebody is deliberately saying hateful things in the knowledge that they are doing so, that clearly is a problem.

However it seems to me that many of the same people who are opposed to vilifying individuals for saying certain words which society in general has now deemed as hateful, are also the same people who are dead against re-examining any of the cultural norms in which some people feel they are able to say these hateful things. These people are in effect against any challenging of hate speech at all, in any way. I don’t really know what can be done about people like that.

6 Likes
904

The ground’s already burned though. The Cork Doctor who turned the pandemic around worldwide backed up his outburst too, so everyone be wary.