Casual hate speech, what are our responsibilities?

I thought we’d managed to put the whole Descendents issue to bed. The band had apologised and said they genuinely were upset to know that ‘Spaz’ was such a harmful word for people with disabilities.

The argument seems to be in the US that everyone uses the word and so it’s ok because the original meaning has been lost. Now can you imagine if we applied that logic to words that had caused harm to people because of their skin colour, nationality or sexuality.

There are plenty of people in the USA writing about how words like ‘Spaz’ are actually harmful but sadly it seems people are not willing to respect that and make the effort to change their ways.

Changing attitudes?

We still get the odd bit of abuse from incensed Descendents fans who cannot forgive us for challenging the band on their LP title, and so it was lovely to see this tweet the other day, it truly made my week to read it. It was from a Descendents fan who was celebrating the band’s reaction and also sharing my blog post about it in a really positive way.

Sadly the Tweet disappeared soon after and I can only assume that was because they’d attracted abuse themselves.

While I was searching for them to find out if this was the case I came across a beer that’s being brewed in Bristol, UK in honour of the band’s LP ‘Hypercaffium Spazzinate’ and another local company which was celebrating the event too.

Now even if people in the US can argue that they hold a totally different meaning for the word ‘Spaz’ – we cannot argue that in the UK. It’s a common term of abuse, has been in playgrounds up and down the land for decades and now sadly is commonplace on Twitter.

I decided to Tweet the cake people and the brewery to point this out, the brewery chose not to reply by Twitter but the cake people did with this:

Now for me the Tweet I would have loved to have seen is

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, what were we thinking of?!’

Casual ableism

It’s amazing to me to think that 280Bakes and Moor Beer didn’t think that having the word ‘Spaz’ in their product may not just cause offence but also real potential harm. What about those people with disabilities who like drinking craft beer? Presumably there’s plenty more brands to try in Bristol.

The point of this is not just about calling out companies that use hate speech, whether by mistake, or in this case defending it because of the context. (Try explaining that one to someone who’s never heard of The Descendents!).

But it’s also about demonstrating the slow and insidious creep of de-humanising language that becomes culturally appropriated to ‘mean something else’ and the people it really hurts are forgotten.

If you were to do a quick search you’ll now find loads of people tweeting at how lovely they think this new beer is and don’t even question the use of the word ‘Spaz’ in the title. Utterly shocking.

What is even more shocking is that this casual ‘abelism’ has been proven to have a part to play in the shocking increase in disability related hate crime in this country.

‘Hate crime against disabled people rises 41 per cent in one year’ (Independent)

So for me if someone asks me the question ‘Moor Beer?’ – I’ll say no thank you. I totally appreciate that this was an act of ignorance on the part of 280Bakes and Moor Beer but there is no place for the word ‘Spaz’ on any product in 2016 and I’m appalled that they’ve defended it.

A response from Moor Beer and 280Bakes

When I started this article I was feeling bad that I was about to shame two very nice looking companies that are run by probably really nice people.

I tussled with whether to write it or not but as I think the issue of casual ableist language has to be challenged, otherwise people are pushed more and more to the margins of society and de-humanised.

I’ve since been in contact with both companies and Louise from 280 Bakes didn’t want to comment any further than it was a one-off cake and it was because it had that flavour beer in it. Justin from Moor Beer explained that he grew up in the USA and didn’t know the word ‘Spaz’ had a different meaning over here, and is just a big fan of The Descendents. He was genuinely sorry that he caused offence.

I’ve written before about how ‘Spaz’ is a word that people in the US still find offensive but its use is so widespread its original meaning has been lost, leaving people on the margins even more marginalised.

At least Justin at Moor Beer has agreed that future brews will be called ‘Hypercaffium’ and has taken down the reference on Twitter.

The fact is ‘Spaz’ is an awful word, it’s unkind and causes people harm. Imagine if we’d have had the same casual use of words that refer to people’s sexuality, skin colour or nationality so that those words were thrown around without thinking. What an awful place society would have become, and it’s exactly the same argument why we need to challenge casual ableist language.

Paul @heavy_load