No, it is not fucking ok for carers to hit people with disabilities on the head when they don’t do as they’re told. NOT. OK.
Why does this need saying?
At a football game at Saltergate, groups of Chesterfield fans “invaded” the pitch joyfully as their team defeated Bournemouth.
The Sun described the scene thus:
Supporters dodged stewards to pay their parting tribute to the League Two side before they move next season to a new ground in the town. Among them was a man on crutches and the young man wearing a baseball cap and dressed in the club’s blue and white colours in his wheelchair furiously pushing his wheels and speeding across the pitch.
Moments later an older man dashes on to the pitch and grabs the wheelchair and pushes it back to the stands. And as the youngster is shoved back across the pitch the older man gives him a playful clip across the head.
A spokesman for Chesterfield said: “It was a good natured pitch invasion resulted after the goal. To everyone’s amusement one youngster in a wheelchair got twenty yards on before being rushed off by an embarrassed helper.”
[WARNING for video footage]
This footage has been called “heart-warming” and “comical”, “legendary“, “hilarious” and “brilliant”, “touching” and “a joy”, “fantastic” and “priceless“.
One forum user said “The clip round the ear after is the best bit.”, another “The clip round the ear, pissed myself.”; another said “The slap on the head is great”.
I just want to cry. This footage is horrifying – assault and battery of a PWD who cannot get away, perpetrated by a carer, in full view of thousands. Assaults like this happen every day behind closed doors, as abusive carers and healthcare workers who have PWD trapped and dependent hit them and neglect them and rape them. And people around the world are laughing at this assault.
What is there to say? What is wrong with the world?
Damn, that didn’t *look* joyful at all. The body language is clear: this is abuse.
I’m sitting here in tears, both in terror of what that person faces every day, if that’s zie’s carer, and in abject outrage that people think that it’s funny. Gah, what the hell is wrong with people?
Playful clip on the ear – that was a smack in the head because he embarrassed the carer.
How could anyone find this funny? The carer’s behaviour is proven to be horrible the moment we see him enter the field – his body language is angry. He whips the wheelchair up and around very roughly! He tilts his client way back and just spins and pushes him so quickly across the field, removing his client’s agency and autonomy in one swift action… and to remind him that he is not allowed autonomy, he injures him. Horrible.
Oh my gosh. That man grabs him like he’s a fucking sack of potatoes and just *whips* him around, and then hits him, and it’s funny?
I don’t know what horrifies me more; the carer’s actions or the reactions of the commenters.
Lullaby – it’s a close tie, but the commenters’ reactions disgust me more.
The carer’s actions are horrible, but seeing them praised makes me sick.
I can only think of one example where slaps on the head are not considered BAD, as in a sign that the slapper is pissed off or hates you, and that’s fictional! (NCIS)
This is depressing. I thought (in 2006) if people just KNEW what went on with PWD (in the psych ward) they’d do something to fix it, yeah, the people united against injustice!
But if people are cheering on the guy who slapped his client’s head while treating him like… well… a sack of potatoes. (You don’t treat children that way!)… then why should they care about anything else?
For some reason it’s the spin around that feels the worst to me, even though the slap is horrific. The way he grabs the chair and tilts it so violently upward, leaving the young man stuck like a turtle on its back. Ugh. UGH. This is awful.
This is incredibly horrible.
Response to my comment on YouTube (yeah, I know) informs me that in addition to my needing to lighten up, the carer is the young man’s uncle, and he’s now making the media rounds in the UK and getting his 15 minutes of fame for being the funny guy who manhandled and assaulted a kid in a wheelchair. The nephew is no where to be found in the media blitz.
I’ve done a bit of digging, and it looks like this “youngster”, who was called by metro.co.uk a “young fan”, a “youngster”, and a “cheeky little scamp” (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), is an 18-year-old man.
Which is NOT to say that being younger would make this assault ok in any way; just to note the infantilisation of disabled adults.
I guess the hit just doesn’t *seem* very violent, despite the violent wrenching of the wheelchair (not to mention the guy in it!) and angry body language. I’m sure people think of it as harmless rather than actually being assault–and well over the line for anyone *else*–and thus find it funny. I guess if you infantilize someone with a healthy dose of disabled-abuse denial/ignorance, it’s easy to find it funny?