Scratch Another Word Out of Your Vocabulary
Cameron Diaz has been accused of being insensitive to the disabled.
The “In Her Shoes” star, while discussing her awkward adolescence, confessed that she was so thin and unattractive other kids nicknamed her “Skeletor.”
“I was wild, like an animal and I was kind of spastic, with my arms and legs going in all directions,” she said.
That brought a sharp rebuke from Scope, a U.K. organization that represents people with cerebral palsy. “We are keen to remind Cameron Diaz that, as a role model, she should watch her language,” said a spokesman for Scope, according to IrelandOnLine. “Likening her ‘wild days’ to acting like a ‘spastic’ is extremely offensive to people with cerebral palsy and perpetuates negative assumptions about disabled people.”
I hate to break it to the Brits, but ‘spastic’ doesn’t mean the same thing here that it does there. Ignorant, youthful me, I was educated while touring Scotland. There was a great, imposing facade of a building…plastered with “Scottish Society for Spastics”. After getting the hilarity under control, I was all set to sign Bingley up.
Separated by a common language, that’s us.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 
November 29, 2005 9:41 am
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I never could figure out my Spastic Decoder Ring…
Joe Lieberman, American Democrat
With thanks to Tree Hugging Sister at The Coalition of the Swilling, a WSJ article by none other than Joe Lieberman, who is turning out to be , a WSJ article by none other than Joe Lieberman, who is turning out to be