“Diss” is a slang term, a verb meaning to show disrespect to someone.
One day I was waiting (interminably) in an uncomfortably hard reception room chair at the doctor’s office, flipping through the previous day’s newspaper and reading sad news reports of hate crimes directed at people with disabilities. Of course, the news didn’t call them “Hate Crimes”; they were simply short fillers in the corner of the page where local crimes were reported, just ordinary, everyday, unremarkable crimes that happen in a big metropolitan area.
It occurred to me that an awful lot of dreadful words come from the D section of the dictionary. Like the news omitting the term “hate crime”, we don’t even see these words used very often either, because the attitudes that create the malfeasance are not examined.
Even thought it’s about The Letter D, this is not a happy little alphabet book for children, not even Children with Disabilities.
- Damn or Demonise someone as being “possessed”
- Decline to discuss why something is a problem
- Decry and condemn advocacy efforts as “mere whining” or asking for “special treatment” or “extra favors”
- Deepen the Difficulty level beyond merely being “challenging”
- Defame and insult advocates who work for social justice
- Defer actions until “resources are better” but never do anything
- Deflate ambitions of young people, recently-disabled people, and anyone trying to change jobs or retrain for new careers
- Demote or transfer employees to Dead-end jobs
- Denigrate parents who seek accommodations or services from schools
- Deny or quit service previously given because the recipient has been re-identified as one of the undeserving out-group
- Deny what really happened in workplace discrimination
- De-personalise those on life-support as mere “vegetables”
- Deprecate equal-access laws as undo hardship on businesses
- Depreciate the value of slower workers’ earnings (well below minimum hourly wages) because they are paid for piece-work
- Derail important conversations to unimportant side matters
- Destroy or vandalize homes or vans-cars-motorcycles-bikes simply because one is seen as outcast or unable to fight back
- Devalue creative works because they are not “normal”
- Diminish and belittle one’s dreams
- Discard residents’ possessions because they “will never need or miss them”
- Discharge from the hospital and then Drop off and abandon still critically-ill people at homeless shelters, despite the fact that they are even less-able to defend or care for themselves
- Discredit a person’s knowledge, training or skills
- Dishonor veterans by failing to provide adequate medical, counselling, residential, educational or occupational services
- Dismiss someone’s concerns as trivial because “nobody else has a problem with that”
- Disown children or other relatives because they are deemed unworthy of being proper family members
- Disparage and dismiss one’s rank or position
- Displace existing residents because “more important” people need the space
- Dispose of someone’s collection of favorite objects or hobby materials because it is “not valuable” to others
- Disregard protests of innocence, because obviously someone is bullied or abused because they “asked for it”
- Disrespect spouses or partners
- Divest any involvement and wash hands of the problem
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