by Pat Hallinan concerning Racist remarks written by their reporter Miss Mary Ellen Synon.
October 24th 2000
Dear Editor,
I just want to express how appalling and unacceptable
are the comments of Mary Ellen Synon, on sunday last
in her article on the Para-Olympics.
It's an absolute disgrace that the article was written and
it's a bigger one that you published the article, it is totally
unacceptable on your part, that people be referred to in this way.
I demand that miss synon be sacked immediately, but I also
challenge you on your attitude towards me and thousands
others who have disability. I ask do you support her
view, I ask you do you agree with her, and if not, why
was she allowed to write this scandalous article.
I further more ask, am I not entitled to wheel or walk
with a wobble as miss synon refers to it, on the streets of my country no more than my colleagues in the games, without this comment expressed in your newspapers.
Well may I tell you and miss synon something, which
is that I am entitled to carry out my daily life,
and will do so, without being insulted, belittled
and downgraded in this way.
I am proud of my wheels, and any wobble that I have,
because they are part of my life, I do what everybody
else does, work, socialize and so on. I do it different,
I know, slower and at a different pace, because of my
disability, but that's not to say that I will sit back,
and allow you as editor and mis synon, as writer to write
and publish stuff that regards me and my colleagues as
less capable, less equal, and not entitled to participate
in society without insult, from you just because of my
physical ability.
This article spoke of super fit people, competing
against each other, but suggests that no other people have
a right and entitlement to compete or if they do,
it's rubbish. So should we be killed, put down, is that what
you are saying, while competing is in all walks of life,
sport, work and there for all people. How dare you and miss synon
refer to me as being removed from that, because I am part of it,
and will remain so.
The proper use of language to describe me, and my colleagues is
another entitlement, of mine. Cripple is not included, how dare
you call me a cripple, miss, and I won't stand for it in silence.
I ask and demand an apology, from both writer and editor, for
insulting me in public, and belittling my entitlement to
try my best, the same as anybody else.
I don't know is there a criminal avenue available to me, to have someone charged on the grounds of insightment to the use of improper language, belittling of ones character, and so on, on the grounds of physical ability, but there should be, if there's not and it should be used in this case, while this is not a joke.
Yours sincerely,
Pat Hallinan.
Link.
Nine