Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

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> Is the n word really that disturbing when used by someone without a firm grasp on reality and in the midst of a word salad?

Yes. Absolutely. 100%. While I get what you're saying, it's not on the recipient of an n-bomb to look up the person who just called them the n-word to judge their mental competency.

> “Rule are rules”… well, people in wheelchairs get a different set of rules and I’m perfectly fine sacrificing some of my own personal comfort to make accommodations.

I vehemently disagree. I can't think of any way that making accommodations for wheelchair friendliness inconveniences anyone. The doors and aisles are wider? That's great when I'm carrying a large box! Text is printed largely and in high contrast for people with vision impairments? Yay, now I can read it more easily!

I'm not saying Terry was a bad person. However, his illness caused him to say some outlandishly awful stuff to people. Why should they have to endure having those epithets hurled at them?

> I can't think of any way that making an accommodation wheelchair friendly inconveniences anyway.

Well, I've sacrificed a heck of a lot of great parking spaces to accommodate the differently-abled.

> Why should they have to endure having those epithets hurled at them?

I contest that the mere act of reading or hearing certain words could be construed as a task of "endurance" - one is perfectly free to avoid reading or hearing such things if one finds them overtaxing.

On the other hand, if one chooses to "endure" for a moment, one might realize that the schizophrenic delusions of a madman have little bearing on the exact epithets being "hurled" (hurled where? Nowhere in particular, unless one glows in the dark!)

Sticks and stones... RIP Terry. I also don't mind that he was banned from here though, as much as I'm for unfettered speech, if the person in charge decided they didn't wish to host his, that was their prerogative. Terry certainly had other outlets.

Would you be this hard-line on a tourettes sufferer with coprolalia? Society seems more ready to make concessions for them. Terry was closer to the illness "uncanny valley" for some, I guess.

If the sufferer was repeatedly and unapologetically throwing n-bombs at specific people, yes, of course.

I'm sympathetic to Terry. His illness turned him into a right bastard, though. If someone's illness caused them to punch people, I don't want to be around them because I don't want them to punch me. It's not because I think it makes them a bad person. I still don't want to be punched.

And darned if I'm going to be the one to tell a black person that they have to let someone call them the n-word repeatedly without wanting that person to go away.

My father had schizophrenia, and my wife has tourettes.

It's a completely different scenario. Someone with tourrettes knows what just happened. They're probably deathly embarrassed and apologetic.

In the schizophrenic case, they're being aggressive, hurtful, belligerent -- no one is obligated to sit through that. There's no reasoning with them, there's not even a discussion happening.

> it's not on the recipient of an n-bomb to look up the person who just called them the n-word to judge their mental competency.

This is absolutely true, but the context of the conversation was how community members and leaders could/should "manage" such a person, not as much how should the victims of mentally ill drive by retorts respond.

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