little-people

The Little People of America held their annual conference in Brooklyn this week, and one of the results was a filing an official complaint to the FCC, requesting that the word “midget” be banned from on-air use.

“The word ‘midget’ objectifies you,” said Clinton Brown, who co-chaired this year’s conference… “Growing up as a little person, because you’re different, you experience the ups and downs of some cruelties and prejudices. How many times have people I don’t know come up to me and wanted to pick me up?” [...]

In April, Little People of America protested an episode of NBC‘s “Celebrity Apprentice,” in which contestants created a detergent ad called “Jesse James and the Midgets.” The contestants, including Joan Rivers, suggested bathing little people in the detergent and hanging them to dry.

I don’t want to come off as callous, but I’m pretty sure that you can swap out “midgets” for “little people,” and bathing them in detergent and hanging them to dry is still demeaning.

Listen, little people, I’m behind the whole “Don’t call us ‘midgets’ thing” only  — ONLY! — because I don’t want to sound like the old man who still thinks it’s okay to call Asians “gooks.”  (“Whaddaya mean I can’t call slopes gooks? What am I supposed to say, ‘Oriental’?”)  Just because a word is inappropriate doesn’t mean it needs to be banned from TV.  That’s retarded.

…Oh, great.  Here come the emails from the tards.