Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, July 13, 2008
Downtown’s Krazy Daze name makes light of mental illness
It’s time to dump the demeaning name of Downtown La Crosse’s annual sidewalk sale.
The event, which will be held from Thursday through the weekend, is called Krazy Daze, despite attempts by members of the Mental Health Coalition of the Greater La Crosse Area to convince downtown merchants to change it.
Downtown La Crosse ought to do the decent thing and give up on a name that demeans people with mental health issues.
It’s bad enough that most health insurance doesn’t come close to providing for all the treatment needs for mental illness. Or that there still is a stigma about mental illness, even though one in five families is affected by a serious mental illness, and one in eight teenagers is living with depression.
La Crosse isn’t the only community to use such a name. Winona has a similar event its merchants call Crazy Days. That community had changed the name to “Huck Finn Days,” but recently changed it back.
Earlier this year, members of the Mental Health Coalition of the Greater La Crosse Area, heard that the downtown Promotions Committee was willing to give up on the Krazy Daze name.
Margaret Larson, coordinator of the Mental Health Coalition of the Greater
La Crosse Area, sent Downtown Mainstreet Inc. a letter congratulating it for changing the name — prematurely, it turned out. There was a suggestion made to downtown merchants — and even a motion made at a downtown committee meeting — but the majority of merchants apparently still believe that Krazy Daze is a good name worth keeping.
Unfortunately, for someone who has a history of mental illness, the name is demeaning — and it hurts.
In her letter to DMI, Larson outlined why it’s so important to change the name of this traditional downtown shopping event.
“You may hear from some that this change is not needed,” she wrote in January, “that it is merely political correctness gone awry. However, for people living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder, words which make light of the difficulties these illnesses bring are hurtful and stigmatizing.”
But Larson is not the only person to ask the downtown powers-that-be to change the name.
Cary Heyer, who is active in civic affairs, including membership on the DMI board, sent a letter to the DMI Promotions Committee.
Speaking only for himself, Heyer wrote: “Consider the primary meanings of the word ‘crazy,’ defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as ‘full of cracks or flaws, unsound, crooked, askew ...’
“Imagine the public relations nightmare you’d face if one vocal citizens advocate or organization decided to use this opportunity to raise awareness of the sensitivity toward using insensitive words like ‘crazy’ to describe the mentally ill or, worse yet, a sidewalk sale What if the media decided to make a story out of this? Who would be willing to face the microphone and defend this?”
That should be reason enough to stop using a promotion name that makes light of mental illness.
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