A lecturer at the University of East London believes it should be a hate crime to refer to someone as a “nerd” or “geek.”
That’s right, psychotherapist Dr. Sonja Falck told the show “Good Morning Britain” that insulting someone with those words — along with “brainiac” and “egghead” — should have “legal consequences,” according to the New York Post.
On the show, Falck faced off against mathematician and teacher Bobby Seagull, who calls himself a “proud geek.” Seagull said many think the words are actually a badge of honor.
“While the term geek and nerd has [sic] historically been seen as being negative, people have now embraced the term and seen it as positive,” he said.
Indeed, who hasn’t referred to him/herself as some sort of “nerd” or “geek” at some point in life, which is typically associated with a person’s interests?
But Falck says high-IQ individuals are “a target for being bullied quite viciously.”
“I think people find it startling because very high IQ people are a minority group in society who are very much ignored, they’re not understood and largely neglected,” Falck said. “It is the case that very high IQ people very often are bullied at school, for example.”
Falck emphasized that “neurodiversity” — or the differences in people’s brains — “is an aspect of individual difference, which really ought to be recognized by society.”
“If you look at those legislations that relate to hate crimes, hate crime is simply about somebody being targeted in a negative way for who they are,” she said. “And a person with a very high IQ who comes across in a different way often is targeted in that way. So I just think [it’s] an individual difference that should be respected.”
Commenters on the “Good Morning Britain” Twitter page largely shot down Falck’s argument.
Indeed, one Twitterer wrote “Let’s make every insult a hate crime. Better build a hundred prisons more. Stupidity is dangerous.”
But mass incarceration is racist and inhuman, progressives and academics say. So, of course, let’s throw people in the clink for “bad” words!!
MORE: Professor sparks culture war by saying feminism attacks ‘nerds’
MORE: Everything progressivism touches, it ruins. Now it’s the geeks’ turn
IMAGE: MacQ / Flickr.com
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