I keep wondering if I should have just ignored that thread. No. That's ignorance and if not ignorance, it's evil, and I had to say something. But I'm not going to reply to the last guy who pinged me. When you don't get it, you don't get it. It's not about me being offended, it's about other people being offensive. Does that make sense?
But that last guy has me angry because he made a comment about some kid he knows who has Down Syndrome and he said "it's a shame". I HATE that reaction. It's not a shame. God gave my brother 47 chromosomes for a reason. I don't know what it is, but to say that my brother would be better if he were 'perfect' or that he's not worth as much as I am is just plain evil.
That's an incredible story about your coworker. I've known people who are mildly like that. Saying there's something wrong with them, is wrong. It's just different.
What made *me* angriest was the dismissive use of "young lady", as though your age discounts the validity of your comments. I really, really hate that.
Jen, good for you standing up for the right thing. Some people are ignorant and some are evil, but that's their problem, not yours. You gave them an opportunity to hear what you had to say, whether or not they listen is up to them. Sorry to hear it got you angry; hope that doesn't ruin your night too much.
On savants, I've been fascinated with that since reading a book on that a while back. My theory is savants have the same intelligence as everyone else but they just focus it a lot more than most, which is why they can process certain information so efficiently but not others. I've tried to figure out how they're able to do that and whether it's possible for non-savants to learn to do the same thing.
Yes, that makes sense.
If I had weighed in, it would have been on the social darwinism/eugenics angle. "Mongoloid" was synonymous with and often an euphemism for "lesser races". The social darwinsits and eugenicists are still with us, whether they recognize it in themselves or not. It's no longer the subject of lectures and scholarly work. Now it's subtle. Jokes about West Virginia, Pennsyltucky, and inbreeding is no different than sneering at the lesser races.