Little People Want FCC To Squash 'Midget'

Photo via tud5000 on flickr

Last summer Special Olympics made waves when they came out in full force to protest Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder and in the process informed us that they would like to banish "the R-word." A year later, the Little People of America have descended upon Brooklyn Heights for their annual conference with a plan to go after "the M-word." And the pop cultural target they're holding up to ignite the masses: Celebrity Apprentice, after a challenge this season where Joan Rivers created a detergent ad called "Jesse James and the Midgets." The chairman of the conference told reporters, "Historically, the word 'midget' has been used to objectify people, like in the circus." He would like to see the FCC ban the word and has written an open letter to NBC. The president of the Little People's Long Island chapter told Newsday, "It's not acceptable to call people the N-word, just as it's not acceptable to call people the M-word. The chosen term now is LP, or little person." Little people have not made it onto Wikipedia's LP disambiguation page, where they hope to one day be listed alongside Launchpad McQuack.

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By Billy Parker in News on July 6, 2009 3:48 PM

Comments [rss]

iHaveYuppyFriends

why do you all have to be such babies? just call people what they want and stop complaining about how hard it is not to insult people. They wanna be call Little People, no big fucking deal. Call them that and move on and stop whining about it.

Guest

Fine. You shall call me "Master of All". And remember, no complaining. Just call me that, move on, and don't whine about it.

iHaveYuppyFriends

haha, "Master of All." thanks for a joke worthy of Jay Leno. I bet my accountant would think you're funny.

Snoopy

I find it interesting that back in the fifties when I was playing football as a youth, they use to call the league I played in "the midget league." There are still some communities that still use that phrase.

No one found offense by it then, but as I mentioned it to my wife later she found it offensive.

Now I believe they call it the pee wee league. Or in the GVLL baseball organization they call it "T"ball(5-6), junior minors(6-8), minors(8-11), majors B (9-12), majors A (10-12), Juniors (13-14), etc.

ed_Extinct

I think Half Pints is a better term.

ides_of_march

How about Oompa-Loompas?

Snoopy

I agree with Bernie M-G, the proper nomenclature is at it stands. Sorry but that's the way it is. What are they called in other cultures and languages?

Sure they are vertically challenged, but that doesn't sound right either.

JenChungsBaby

How about runt? Is that OK?

Rfive

How about short f*cks? Thats what I always say...

fuboy

Screw this, you're halflings and that's that.

ides_of_march

The Thought Police in action.

Midget, midget, midget, midget....

Got free speech?

Felix Hoenikker

This topic is double-plus ungood.

Bernie Madoff-Goetz

Dwarf is the proper nomenclature for stumpy-legged, Popeye-armed people with huge foreheads. Midget refers to abnormally small people who are proportioned in the exact same way that "normal" people are.

lilianic

I agree that it's not funny when a word is used to mock a group of people, but I frankly find it ridiculous that that word is being compared to things like the N-word. Apple, meet orange.

Guest

I refuse to give up the right to call someone a mental midget, so all of those little people that have a problem with the word can take a long walk off a short sidewalk.

hotstepper

when will those midgies learn? if you can't go on the big people rides, your opinion does not matter.

p.s. joan "face lift" rivers looks like an alien, so what comes out of her word-hole doesn't matter either.