Nickelodeon Criticized for Stigmatizing Stereotype

You might remember that I created an award called the Stupidity Award for Promoting Prejudice a while back and gave the first to an NBC sports writer who didn’t see anything wrong with a high school dance team in Waunakee, Wisconsin wearing straight jackets with the word PSYCHO WARD printed on them as they performed in a state competition.   

I was tipped off to that school’s insensitive, stigma-promoting  performance by a fellow mental health blogger, Chrisa Hickey, who posts her thoughts at The Mindstorm: Raising a Mentally Ill Child.

Chrisa sent me an email about a new example of stigma in the media. From reading her note, it sounds as if another SAPP award is due.

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Stupidity Award for Promoting Prejudice

I’ve decided to begin giving an award to persons or groups who show that they are prejudice against persons with mental illnesses. I’m calling it the Stupidity Award for Promoting Prejudice or the SAPP.  I’m sad to announce that the first recipient is Rick  Chandler a writer with NBC SPORTS. 

In a column published February 5th on Off the Bench, Chandler encouraged the Waunakee Wisconsin High School dance team to not change its “rather unique routine” when it competes in an upcoming state competition. Chandler writes:

 In it, the team “gets crazy” while wearing uniforms resembling straitjackets and restraints with the words “Psych Ward” on them. The girls, however, have been forced to tone down their routine after complaints from mental health advocates and parents that their act mocks the mentally ill. Political correctness gone mad? You be the judge….

Not that they should be apologizing in the first place. Exactly who is crazy here? If the girls feel in retrospect that their routine is insensitive and wrong, they should admit it and dump it. If they don’t feel that way, they should keep it unchanged and go full-speed ahead with the madness. Teaching our children to back down under pressure is not cool…Look, until we get a complaint from Giants’ reliever Brian Wilson, I say that his dance routine is good to go as is.    

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