You'd have thought that having that what with brandishing the racist tag at all an sundry one would be more careful oneself. Even if such comments came from commenters (Guido), or where made in attacks against hypocrisy of one rule for one not applying to a star name (Iain Dale), that Derek Draper would be careful in his own use of language. Not so.
Over the weekend while some of us had more pressing engagements he used a derogatory term for the mentally challenged. This has forced an editor's apology on LabourList. But hang on a second isn't Draper the editor of LabourList? Isn't this the man who demanded a personal apology from Iain Dale?
Now there is a personal apology on his own site, but that was not where he made the statement. Now surely not knowing the entomology is not an excuse for using a term you are not familiar with especially if you are blogging about pretending to be holier than though. It took me all of 2 seconds to look up the term in question.
Now let's look at what Derek Draper has stipulated should be done in such cases of what he has branded "vicious sites".
- They should apologise personally on the site.
- Progressive political bloggers should delete their link to them (as I already don't link to LabourList how do I do that?)
- We should disassociate from all who associate with them* (even allegedly making threatening phone calls [at least inciting others to do so] to any who do get along)
I trust that Derek Draper would expect the same discretion of the Blogophere to be used against vicious slurs against the disabled or other disadvantaged and targeted groups. To do anything else would be "doublespeak" surely.
*Link to Guido's advertisers and LabourList black list strangely missing (more bad blogiquette) Sorry my err0r just couldn't find it amongst all the dross.
they should consider all that IF the person doesn't admit responsibility, apologise and undertake never to do it again. which i've done so your post becomes a silly one doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the only good thing to come out of this is that lots more people - like myself - will know the meaning of the term in question.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to set a bomb off beneath the next person I catch saying, "hung by his own petard", which would be both justified and appropriate.
Please look up the word "petard": it's a bomb, not some sort of rope, and the expression is "hoist by his own petard".
I quote you.
ReplyDelete"Now surely not knowing the entomology is not an excuse for using a term you are not familiar with especially if you are blogging about pretending to be holier than though. It took me all of 2 seconds to look up the term in question!"
While you were spending two seconds looking that up, you should have spent four looking up the meaning of entomology, as opposed to etymology.
Or perhaps it was a spider that crawled across the page. You really are 'Holier than thou'