Open letter to Trever Noah about the word "spaz."

Dear Trevor Noah,

I’m sure I’m probably not alone in telling you that your show is a balm for me, a respite from a despairing world and a healing draught of laughter in the face of things that hurt too much.

I’ve got two kids who I adopted from traumatizing orphanages in the Czech Republic. They were kids the authorities told me “no one would adopt” because they are from a despised, non-white ethnic group—the Roma.

We spent the first ten years of their lives living there in the Czech Republic. 2008, the year before my daughter was born, was the first year when Romani children were allowed to go to standard Czech schools. By the time she went to first grade, I didn’t need a lawyer or a police escort to get her into school, but it was nip and tuck there for a while.

My son’s preschool attempted to expel him when he developed a minor allergic skin rash, because he was non-white and their assumption was that he was diseased and contagious. They would have succeeded too, if his pediatrician hadn’t been progressive and feisty. That was in 2015.

I tell you this, because you need to know that I’ve seen a few things. I’m a white American, but I’m not exactly your typical white American. I’ve had “the talk” with my kids, ages eleven and thirteen, about police and brown people. I learned how to do it by reading Black authors, listening to you and talking to my Nigerian friend in Prague, who was distressed when I said we were moving back to the US to escape the rampant racism and the beatings my son was enduring at school.

“You’re going THERE to escape racism?”

I grew up in the US—in a particularly backward and monotone part of it, in fact. I have few illusions about things here. I told her that she was absolutely right. That we probably wouldn’t be going, if my children were Black. But they aren’t Black. They’re Romani, and the realities on the ground are such, that it’s safer here for them than there. She agreed that that was the best a parent could do.

Image of a dark-haired man drawing a picture of a female figurine with his toes.

Before I had kids, I lived and travelled in more than 35 countries, including several months in Zimbabwe near your homeland. I spent ten years working as a journalist, primarily exposing the quiet but lethal racism against Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. That’s my history, which I think may give you some perspective on what I need to say to you.

I am also pretty anti-celebrity. I’ve never really cared about a celebrity who was alive before, since the last one I liked at all was Bob Marley and I was five when he died. I know famous people have the same feelings and foibles the rest of us do. And so, it isn’t so much that you fell as a giant for me when you dismissed the concerns of people with disabilities. It is that I felt like I was betrayed by a friend.

That’s silly, I know. You don’t know me, but I don’t watch any TV, except for you. I listen to audio books or listen to international news. I watch Netflix on a tablet occasionally. But TV? Nope, except you when I exercise every morning, there’s nothing on there I care to see. And as I said, your ability to laugh in the face of the worst depredations of our world is really and truly medicine.

And I know that it is always only a matter of time before anyone, even the best friend, has a different opinion. That’s not the point. I have disagreed with you several times. No sweat. I don’t even entirely remember what the fine points were. This is different, because it strikes at the core of who you are. It is something that betrays all the work of bridging divides and empowering the disempowered and fostering empathy that you’ve done.

Yup, it’s about Lizzo. Now, I don’t know LIzzo very well. My daughter listens to her. I think I recall her listening to a song with the word “spaz” in it at one point. I noticed and mentioned it to her, explained that it’s a derogatory word that we don’t use in our house, because it is used as an insult against people with disabilities. We had the whole discussion about how it means something quite different in this music. I didn’t know for sure but guessed, even at that point, that its meaning might be significantly different in African American culture than it is for most of the country.

I wasn’t that mad. I didn’t forbid my daughter to listen to that music. It’s far from the only “bad word” I don’t want my kids repeating at school that they encounter in popular music. And no, just talking to my daughter about it, didn’t fix it. My daughter is developmentally disabled, essentially due to the horrific conditions Romani children endure in the Czech Republic. She has talents but she was injured by that system and part of that injury is neurological damage that interferes with her ability to understand abstract concepts, remember conversations or connect cause and effect.

So, I talk about these things with her, but she may well repeat the word “spaz” anyway. She’ll certainly hear it used as an insult against disabled children at school, maybe even against herself, though she works very hard to blend in and pass for average.

And that’s the thing, Trevor. I’m not mad at Lizzo. What she did was something that happens. Yes, I understand the argument that she was a bit dismissive about apologizing and changing the song with “spaz” in the lyrics, but as you said, she changed it. That is such a big step in the right direction, it’s worth recognizing.

People with disabilities have largely been left out of the “woke” wave to shield under-privileged groups from microaggressions. So many people would have completely ignored criticism over “spaz” or any other word insulting people with disabilities. You sound like you would have. Lizzo didn’t ignore us, and I’m not too picky beyond that.

If I was someone close enough to her to have a conversation, I might have said, “Please, stop on that a moment. Take a moment to empathize. It isn’t just about avoiding being publicly criticized. It really does hurt people, just like some words would hurt you.” But that’’s it. The basic thing was, she did what was needed. She apologized and changed the song.

Here are two other bits about my background, Trevor. I am a linguist by education, so when I say I’m looking at this not just from experience but also from a language development standpoint, there’s that. I am also blind—that is legally blind. I see about 5 percent of what you do. It’s not noting but it’s pretty minimal. I’ve been that way since I was born. Yup, I’m the same person who worked as an international journalist and hung out in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe as a lone white girl. I was also blind while I did that.

Here are some facts, you need to know about the word “spaz.”

1. I was called “spaz” as an insult every day for over a decade as a child, in the United States. It isn’t only a derogatory term in the UK and Australia, as you insisted repeatedly on television. It was and still is used as a vulgar insult in this country. You claimed it isn’t and was never used that way in the US. That was factually wrong and I hope you’ll retract it publicly.

2. I have noticed the linguistic migration of the word “spaz'“ over the past couple of decades. As I’m sure you’ve read, it started as “spastic,” relating to a type of muscle convulsion or cramp suffered by people with some disabilities, but it has been used to insult all people with disabilities, including blind people.

3. When Donald Trump made that motion with his arm at the reporter who was disabled, that was the motion that usually accompanies the word “spaz.” That gesture also refers to a “spastic” muscle contraction. People with spastic disabilities sometimes move their arms that way involuntarily. Donald Trump is obviously in the United States—not the UK or Australia. And that was not very long ago. Donald, as you’ve pointed out, doesn’t have a great memory and wouldn’t have remembered if this word was only used as an insult decades earlier or in another country. The fact that he used it is pretty good proof that it is a conventional American insult.

4. About fifteen years ago, I first heard people start to refer to “spaz” as just meaning “crazy” and overly emotional. It had migrated from just disabilities, to mental illness, and like the word “crazy” to behavior that is considered a bit too much. It then migrated further in some communities to mean something less negative as acceptance of “wild” behavior became more widespread.

5. But it is still used as an insult, NOT just in other countries. Here and now. And despite having a migrated and coopted meaning, I am sure you are aware that many other insulting epithets have undergone similar linguistic migration and we don’t excuse them. It is hard to imagine that with your American staff you weren't;t told the truth. There’s a word for knowingly obfuscating the truth and insisting that our lived experience is not real—gaslighting.

6. As an example, please try asking Siri (or Google) the definition of the word “Jip.” I believe you’re well-educated enough to know the connotations of that word and would never use it. But Siri says the origins of that word are “unknown.” While even Siri—and certainly a dictionary—would have told Lizzo the connotations of “spaz” had she checked, an uneducated person could not be blamed too much for using the word “Jip,” since looking it up isn’t very helpful. Yet that word is abhorrent and rightly shunned in woke circles. It is a racial epithet aimed directly at my children. But it’s used here in rural Oregon. I used it as a kid, until I learned better. Gip = Gyp = Gypsy = stereotypes about Roma being thieves. Words migrate linguistically, but that does not mean we give them a pass when they are still currently used as insults and derogatory epithets.

Here are some things, I am betting are true about you, Trevor:

1. I cannot imagine that under any other circumstances, you would deem it acceptable to use a word that is still used as an insult against a vulnerable group, if that group was a race, ethnic group, culture or LGBT+ group.

2. I feel very sure you have been told by people with disabilities whether in online comments or hopefully in person, that “spaz” is still used as an insult, including in the US. I wonder if you were told that before you went on the air dismissing us as people with valid concerns or only after.

3. I feel pretty confident that I’ve heard you say that it should be up to the given vulnerable group to say when a derogatory term used against them is “fair game” again. But you aren’t giving people with disabilities that agency.

4. You decided to state on your show and at great length with repetition, that Lizzo never did anything wrong. You criticized and condemned those members of the disability community who asked for an apology and a change to Lizzo’s song. That using the word “spaz” was legitimate in her circumstances because you believe “spaz” is only derogatory in the UK and Australia.

5. You have a diverse crew. I guarantee some of your staff know very well that that your statement is blatantly untrue. Either they told you that and you ignored them, or they are so afraid of crossing you, that you have got much worse problems than marginalizing people with disabilities.

Trevor, here’s the thing. Lizzo goofed. But it was understandable. We don’t check every word we use for its connotations in the next neighborhood over. It’s possible that in her subculture, “spaz” really hasn’t been used as an insult in her generation. She was told, and she fixed it.

Some people apparently weren’t happy with her quick and unreflective turnaround, feeling that she was only doing it to avoid criticism. That’s what I saw you get upset about. I’ve noticed that you often seem to feel protective toward the African American community. Nobody’s perfect and every time the Black community in the US makes a mistake, they get just as little leeway as a Black teenage male committing the usual sins that white teenagers regularly get away with. I get it.

But you went a step further and a step too far. You insisted at length that the facts are not the facts. You gaslighted us, telling us that what we know is reality isn’t reality. And you did it because the group you were dismissing is the one group you have never included in your work of bridging divides. I wonder if it is only that you have little experience with people with disabilities.

I have always loved your work because of all the good things in it. I have vaguely noticed that you never include anything about people with disabilities, but I didn’t realize, until now that this is a real blind spot for you. (No, that’s not a problematic term for me. It isn’t used as an derogatory term against blind people.)

Frankly, it isn’t just you. The woke movement is often dismissive of one particular group they should naturally be allied with, and that is people with disabilities. Sometimes we’re included as an afterthought but often we’re left out entirely, as we’ve been left out of your work in bridging divides and making healing out of humor.

Maybe for you that’s partly because people shy away from making fun of anything to do with disabilities. I guarantee I could introduce you to some people who can get you rolling on the ground laughing about disability issues. We are sometimes a bit too much, but I’m sure some of our self-styled “gimp humor” could be made accessible to the rest of the world.

Trevor, you said people often get mad at a celebrity who does something that hurts them and that’s it. They’re done. That’s cancel culture. That’s not my way. I mean, maybe if I heard someone I respected and admired had bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. I guess, I’d probably actually boycott them immediately. But this isn’t like that.

I notoriously can’t hold a grudge. But I haven’t been able to watch your show for the past month. I thought I’d just get over it, but it hurts. When I see you going on without any concern for the hurt this caused and when I saw that it is virtually impossible to send you a letter you will actually get, I can’t listen to your voice without hearing that jeering, derogatory insult against me and my kids.

But I don’t want to give up on you. You’re one of the best we have and I think you can see past this prejudice and accept people with disabilities as part of the communities. you fight for. I’m hoping that enough people will tell you that your dismissal and gaslighting of us hurt and that you’ll listen. Because while I know you’re human, so you can have prejudices and blind spots like the rest of us, I think you—like me—have seen a lot in your life. And that kind of experience gives us the ability to stretch and grow past those prejudices.

So, I still hope that some day I’ll see you retract the untruths about the word “spaz” and affirm that people with disabilities are valid, that insults against us are not okay, that musicians can and should be aware of that in their language, and that Lizzo did the right thing after being justifiably criticized.

But because I do believe in your talent for healing divides, I also hope against hope that you’ll be one of the first to break through the lockout of people with disabilities from the woke movement. I think you’ve got it in you, and when you can laugh at the social systems that cause the vast majority of difficulty that people with disabilities face (the actual physical or neurological problems are minor by comparison), you’ll discover a whole new area of healing humor.

Your voice is strong right now, very strong across this country and especially in progressive communities. I believe that if you are introspective and real and honest enough to look back at that thing with LIzzo and admit you were wrong and that your words hurt people, it would matter a great deal. It could be the moment that turns the tide and makes the woke movement fully inclusive.

Gaslighting the whole world

A friend asked if it’s possible that Putin really doesn’t know what he’s doing in Ukraine and how badly things are going for his troops. He has the internet. He and his advisors have always been world-savvy. How can he just not care that everyone sees his crimes?

Well, now. That’s quite an interesting question.

I know Russia fairly well. I can predict how Putin’s restrictions will play out. Russia is still a country with inadequate access to media and information for most people. It’s also a country with a lot of tradition around the symbol of a strong leader/national father figure.

So, in short, at home he can put it over on a lot of people. Not all of them anymore, hence the brave members of the Russian intellectual and professional classes who have protested once and then been silenced. I root for them, but unless enough of Putin’s closest friends feel the same way, little is likely to change his thinking.

But beyond knowing Russia, I know his "type" all too well.

Putin has a double, you see. Not a physical double in this case, but a psychological double… in my life.

This is a person who is highly intelligent, immensely arrogant, physically self-controlled, consumed with inner anger and contempt for others as well as utterly convinced of his own righteousness. Both Putin and his psychological double in my life have at times claimed their crusade is about spiritual and moral purity. They also both show signs of a kind of hyper-masculine fragility.

Both regularly accuse others of the actions they have either just committed or are about to commit. Both insist that any casualties of their actions are the fault of those they are attacking. Both appear to be immune to all attempts at diplomacy or discussion.

I am sure I’m not the only one with a Putin double handy, but mine has been copying Putin in real time. This is a family member who has been waging a decade-long campaign to tear me down as a parent, much as Putin has nursed his personal grudge against Ukraine for years. First, when my kids were babies, it was always, “She can’t possibly be safe with kids when she’s visually impaired.”

Photo of a room reduced to rubble. Through the wreckage of a smashed television set, we see a gas mask amid other debris. -Image via Pixabay

Sometimes it was stated openly to discredit me in front of others. Other times it was a quiet jibe for my ears only, but in hopes that I would react and bring down the criticism of others for tainting a family get-together with drama.

It would have been irritating enough if this person’s opinion were just an opinion. As it was, it meant that my kids and I were more isolated from the rest of the family because unlike other parents, I was “never to be left alone with anyone else’s kid.”

Need I say it? But ok, nope, I didn’t have close calls in the safety arena. I fished an infant nephew out of a swimming pool before anyone else could react. I prevented a number of possible accidents involving babies and batteries, which I heard clattering in just that particular way that only batteries clatter. My kids were all-in-all physically safer than their cousins and even when I wasn’t allowed to babysit, I still managed to be handy in a few crises.

Then, when that outright falsehood wasn’t as easy to pull over on the rest of the family, the campaign switched to my “overly rigid” parenting methods. As you might already know, my kids were both adopted from Eastern European orphanages and had trauma and health issues as baggage. I went at parenting much the way I go about most things—with research first, exacting planning and then enthusiastic implementation.

I usually had one or two “attachment parenting” books under my arms in the early years and when doctors said, “Routine is so very important to children who have experienced attachment trauma.” I didn’t just blow it off. I first made a plan for meals and bedtimes and stuck to it. I also noticed the chaos that happened when I occasionally didn’t.

The long and the short of it was that both of my kids needed a lot of structure, routine and cushion to be emotionally regulated and healthy. So, there were a lot of family arguments when I insisted I needed to leave an event in time for my kids to be only one hour late for bedtime rather than four hours late, as other parents found acceptable. Or when I insisted that massive doughnuts at 5:30 pm are not a good idea, since I was giving them dinner at 6 no matter how inconvenient it might be.

And yeah, I insisted they not have sweets right before real food. I didn’t just mouth it. I meant it.

This Putin double was always criticizing and rallying others to blame me and my parenting choices for any difficulties.

Well, once my kids got older and my daughter was diagnosed with severe ADHD and a neuro-developmental disability as well as attachment trauma, there was extra fodder for the cannons. Suddenly, the Putin double went from someone who quoted studies to a science denier on child development.

“There is no dis-ability. Arie is pathologizing her kids. There is trauma behind these kids’ terrible behaviors to be sure. Trauma she created through bad parenting.” That is a lot more concise than the lengthy, berating, yelling lectures this Putin double regularly delivered, but it uses all the key words and phrases.

When asked what exactly caused this “trauma” or what was the “bad parenting,” I’m told it is things like “using the wrong tone” or “not setting enough limits” or “making an assumption.” Because the internet is full of a blame and shame culture, it’s dangerous to repeat this sludge, but I trust that even just reading about my parenting journey has given my readers some context for this.

Yeah, I’ve had my parenting moments. Who hasn’t? I guarantee you that no one parenting kids with attachment trauma and FASD can claim to have never used a harsh tone they regretted. When a neuro-diverse kid has an “executive functioning disability” as in this case, consequences and behavior modification methods don’t work the way they do with other kids.

A lot of consequences still happen anyway, but getting mad at the child because the standard methods don’t work on them isn’t really helpful. But there is no one I’ve ever met who can truly manage to never get mad when an otherwise reasonably healthy twelve-year-old colors on freshly painted walls again or throws a two-hour fit about brushing their teeth for the tenth night running.

But I digress… The heart of this post is about Putin and the kind of thinking that allows someone like my difficult family member to take things to open war “and devil take the civilian casualties.”

I guess the civilians in this case are the kids.

Putin spent the winter sending tanks crawling across Russian grasslands toward the Ukrainian border. His double spent the winter criticizing my tone of voice or yelling at me over conversations he misheard from the other room, since I’ve relocated back to his neck of the woods. Both were warned. Both claimed innocent intent.

“Just training exercises. We have a right to develop our defenses,” said Putin.

“I have a right to an opinion. I’m just giving valuable parenting advice,” his double said.

My eleven-year-old son who was adopted from an Eastern European orphanage had a hard time getting attached to our family when he was little. Hearing this constant criticism of his primary parent really confused him. He started repeating the same words, yelling at me, insisting he didn't have to follow any rules or do his homework because I am “bad at parenting.” Kids that age don’t generally use the word “parenting,” but they do repeat what they hear.

Then in February, Putin sent his troops storming into a sovereign country, a nation that had long thought of the Russians as their friends and called them “brothers.” They started bombing schools, hospitals and residential buildings as well as “legitimate” military targets, if such a term can be applied to an unprovoked war.

The Putin double near me started lecturing my easily manipulated neuro-diverse kids behind my back about how my parenting is “rediculous” when he took them and cousins on “fun” outings. He encouraged them to disregard any instructions I gave. He spoke of me and to me with contempt and hate. He yelled and demeaned me in front of the kids because I asked my son to look through a pile of cast off socks to pick out his.

The criticism, shouting and covert attacks on my children’s relationship with me was very much like bombardment. And while it didn’t kill, it wreaked havoc on my children’s psyches.

The world said “no” to Putin and demanded that he cease hostilities and stop wantonly killing civilians. Putin obfuscated, denied, twisted facts and blamed the victims of his aggression. He said the civilians were “human shields” because they had not left the war zone quickly enough. Then he closed humanitarian corridors for fleeing refugees, trapping them so that they could not escape. And when some did, his troops shot and bombed them.

Meanwhile, my family united to demand that Putin’s double stop the harassment. And the double obfuscated, denied, twisted facts and blamed the victims of his aggression. I supposedly wasn’t sensitive enough when my son said he didn’t want to sort socks. My kids’ have learning disabilities because I must not have used the right “behavior modification methods.” He had to step in because his conscience demanded he let “the truth” be known. If I said anything, he shouted over me, never allowing a word or phrase to be heard through the barrage.

And the children saw that a loud voice and a large, male body is what wins. They saw their mother shamed, treated with contempt and shouted down for no particular reason. And they learned from that. They learned what a mother is worth in this patriarchal world. They didn’t die, but they lost something immensely valuable as they repeated his words and screamed, “I hate you! I want a real mother! You’re disabled! You’re a bad parent!” for days after each family gathering with the Putin double.

As the weeks dragged on Putin accused Ukrainian forces of using chemical weapons. By now, many world leaders were savvy to his mind games and hazmat forces went on high alert. With no evidence that his accusations were anything but wind, another reason for those accusations was apparent. He was covering for and confusing the discussion about his own chemical attacks. And evidence of the use of white phosphorous by Russian troops has already emerged.

At the same time, Putin’s double fell in love with the word “abusive,” screaming the accusation at me over and over again. Allowing no word about actual events in edgewise. To confuse the discussion and to cover for his own abuse, the easiest angle is to accuse others of the actions he himself has committed.

Why do I belabor this point of comparing these two men?

Partly, it’s simply because they took their actions at the same time, and that made the comparison striking. I, like many who thought they knew Russia, was taken in for much of the winter by the insistence that while the criticism from Putin’s double was irritating and insulting, it was basically harmless, just an abhorrent and insulting opinion. Then, I got a rude awakening when my son started screaming hate at me, throwing objects and even pummeling me with his fists. We’ve already had to call the police twice to help him calm down and keep everyone safe, including him.

But more than that, with these two situations side by side in my life I can see them both more clearly. Putin’s actions are not just those of a war criminal. That is plenty bad, certainly. But it is important to understand that he is also gaslighting the whole world, engaging in a campaign of psychological warfare.

At the same time, every abuser who employs the tactics of gaslighting and psychological abuse is as dangerous to the people in their life as Putin is to the people fleeing his bombs. More than ever before, I have come to understand the pleas of organizations helping victims of domestic violence, asking that we take psychological abuse as seriously as physical abuse.

My family and I waited too long to act decisively. We are acting now. You need not fear for my children’s safety or call up an intervention on their behalf. But I see now that I didn’t act when I should have. As a result, my children suffered a retraumatization of the early terror they lived through when they were tiny infants in a faceless orphanage system.

I let an untenable situation go on too long, partly because I was distracted by volunteering to organize evacuations of refugees from Ukraine. I didn’t realize that while I was off putting out blazes, my own house was on fire.

I hope people hear me on this one. Please take psychological abuse seriously. If you are experiencing a barrage of verbal attacks, gaslighting, manipulation, twisting of facts, a campaign of denigration and contempt, these are classic signs. It can be very hard to take action when the relationship is close and there is often a cost of setting firm boundaries. We often love those who engage in this abuse and our children do as well.

If you see someone else under this kind of onslaught, I hope you will remember not only that but also how easily victims are blamed and issues are obfuscated by psychological abuse. There is often a sketchy narrative in which “both sides” are apparently guilty of misdeeds, but in reality, the misdeeds of one side far outweigh those of the other.

Putin alleged discrimination against the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine and western support for right-wing groups to justify this war. There is some legitimacy to these claims. Still, while those may be concerns that need to be addressed, they are not war crimes that slaughter thousands upon thousands of people.

Putin’s double also accused me of raising my voice or being overly persistent in a rule with my kids. And for a time, my family was taken in by this and insisted that this was a conflict between two people who had both made mistakes. I even admitted that I had raised my voice and that it wasn’t good.

But finally, my family came to realize that the times I succumbed to frustration or exhaustion were a tiny fraction of my parenting, which has been almost entirely calm in the face of much difficulty, and even my worst parenting moments are not the kind of actions that create the type of internal trauma my children were acting out.

It is not easy to set limits on Putin’s double. For now, he has free rein at the extended family home and while he’s been asked to leave by the legal owners, no one is willing to force the issue in a way that could be traumatic for any of the kids, including his. For now, my kids may miss some family gatherings in order to be kept safe. We will have to find more things to do in our little basement apartment on weekends and we’ll miss the beauty of this spring in the mountains until Putin’s double either leaves or shows signs of working through his issues.

I only wish it was this easy to put limits on Putin, and despite the ordeal I’ve been through, I’m so grateful his double doesn’t have nuclear weapons.