Little people ask FCC to ban the word 'midget' on TV

[The Straight Story]

Little people ask FCC to ban the word 'midget' on TV

BY JENNIFER MALONEY | [email protected]
11:23 PM EDT, July 5, 2009

Little People of America, at its annual conference in Brooklyn this week, has called for the Federal Communications Commission to ban the use of the word "midget" on broadcast TV.

"The word 'midget' objectifies you," said Clinton Brown, 27, of Hicksville, who co-chaired this year's conference at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott in Downtown Brooklyn. "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?"

Brown said the group filed an official complaint with the FCC.

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.

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lilitt0612945347jul05,0,5838605.story

[YDogg]

1. Midget?

[derby378]

2. As if the term "little people" conveys so much more dignity

Come on, already. It's a physiomedical condition known as dwarfism, so if a label is needed, I'd use "dwarves." I haven't seen that much objection to that term, at least.

[hedgehog]

4. There used to be a definition that midgets were small but

perfectly formed people but that dwarves had arms and legs out of proportion to their torso. When my sister took nurse's training, anyone 4'10 and under was technically a midget. Those terms may have been discarded now.

[Towlie]

But there's a difference between a dwarf and a midget.

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=dwarf+midget+difference&aq=0&oq=dwarf+midget

[Javaman]

3. Hicksville? That's my hometown! How about that. nt

[el_bryanto]

5. Seems like a fair request

I mean the term midget certainly isn't meant as a compliment.

Bryant

[tularetom]

6. Whatever they want I guess but the term "little people"

Sounds sorta demeaning to me.

[NoPasaran]

8. "Taxes are for the little people"---Leona Helmsley

[niceypoo]

14. Until you hand them an AK47

...then they are suddenly ten feet tall

[peekaloo]

7. "Them aint no kids, thems is fidgets!"

[RagAss]

12. LOL !

[YOY]

9. Only if "Wee Man" can make a PSA to America.

Wee Man will kick your ass if you call him something he doesn't like.

[-..__...]

10. C'mon...

Which pseudonym has more zest... Bridget the Midget or Bridget the Dwarf?

[obliviously]

11. Jumbo shrimps. N/T

[csziggy]

13. Interesting how many people here have a problem with calling a group of people

By the name they prefer. I think most here would object calling Black Americans "Negroes" or any of the terms currently considered less polite or politically correct. But I remember when that or the other "N" word were the generally accepted terms. It took a lot of effort on the part of the African-American community to have that term or "Black" used instead.

But if little people prefer that term over "midget" or "dwarf" - both terms which carry a lot of negative connotations - all they get here is derision and insults. What does it cost any of us so-called progressives to have the respect to use the term preferred by the group it refers to?

If we are not willing to do that, let's go back to all the old negatively loaded, often insulting terms for every minority, ethnic, and outside the "normal" group there is and eliminate all respect for each other. It just goes with the general trend, at least.

[Seen the light]

15. +1

:thumbsup:

[Feron]

16. The FCC (government) shouldn't be a censor.

Raising awareness and boycotts are the solution to the problem.