Jones taken to task for use of offensive term
When Jon Jones referred to current UFC champion Daniel Cormier as a “mental midget” Verne Troyer was offended.
There a long history of society discarding language that is offensive. We went from the unprintable, to colored, to negro, to black, and now to black and African American.
There are some individuals who label this evolving language “PC” and find it vaguely oppressive. There are some individuals that think white people are widely discriminated against. If these same individuals were black, they would be shooting up the streets in revolution.
In sum, language does matter, and avoiding demeaning terms for an entire group is a reasonable responsibility, for anyone that doesn’t want to be an asshat.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones inadvertently found himself on the wrong side of changing social conventions. When Jones referred to current UFC champion Daniel Cormier as a “mental midget” Verne Troyer was offended.
Troyer, 47, is an American actor, stunt actor, and comedian, best known for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers comedy franchise. At 2′ 8″ Troyer is one of the shortest men in the world.
“It’s not a proper term,” explained Troyer.
“It’s just people that aren’t very bright, aren’t conscious of other people. They’re just naive and I would say stupid.”
“I think he shouldn’t say it. Apologize? Yeah, I guess. But you just shouldn’t say it, nobody should.”
“I hope he loses.”
For the record, terms such as dwarf, little person, LP, and person of short stature are all acceptable, but most people would rather be referred to by their name than by a label.