Empower Wisconsin | Dec. 26, 2019
Attention all nerds and geeks: You are the latest victims of hate crimes.
That’s the intellectual assessment of Dr. Sonja Falck, lecturer at the University of East London.
Falck recently told “Good Morning Britain” that calling someone a “nerd” or a “geek” — even “egghead” or “brainiac” — is tantamount to a hate crime, according to a story in the New York Post.
“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,” the lecturer 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.”
A self-described “proud geek,” mathematician and teacher Bobby Seagull, joined Falck on the show. He told the egghead to take a chill pill. While the terms had previously been seen as a negative, he said, many have embraced the descriptor as positive.
After all, there’s an entire galaxy of Star Wars geeks watching the latest instalment of the multi-billion-dollar movie franchise right now.
