Special Olympics Ad

This Special Olympics ad highlights the emotional charge that the “r-word” carries (www.r-word.org). The campaign to eliminate the use of the word retarded rides on the coattails of Obama’s highly publicized derogatory comment about the Special Olympics.

I’m not trying to be morally superior. Today I was at Castro Street getting dinner with a friend, when I made a comment about how “retarded” I was. I quickly realized my mistake, apologized, and replaced it with how “stupid” I was. Everyone is prone to it, it’s been so much a taken for granted part of our casual lexicon, but the point is that once we become aware of our choice of words, we can eliminate and replace harmful words in our vocabulary.

I didn’t realize that language could be so powerful. Like many, I thought that words were just meaningless, and that there could not possibly exist the hyperbolic attitude so vilified by disability advocates. However, while reading the forum I stumbled upon a very insensitive comment on the r-word website that exemplifies the exact kind of attitude that they want to combat. I would like to excerpt a bit here:

..those who fight so hard to have people stop saying [retard] is, well, … retarded..Don’t you think we could use our time and resoucres to attack a larger issue in this country. I mean what about the economy? you talk about intolerance, we just voted in a black president for christ’s sake, what planet are you from to say we need more tolerance for people who are “mentally challenged, or metally reatarded”, use your time and resources to counquer something more productive instead of fighting something that doesn’t exist, you freakin retards… (read the whole thing here)

I’m sorry cptwinks, but your comment exactly brings sympathy for the cause you berate so much for its “vacuity” and “insignificance”. I wasn’t fully a supporter of the r-word campaign until I read your comment, because now I realize what kind of bigotry and insensitivity pervades our society. The first thing I did was to look up the denotation of “retard”:

retard verb |riˈtärd| [ trans. ]
delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment : his progress was retarded by his limp.
noun |ˈrēˌtärd| |ˈritɑrd| |rəˈtɑrd| |riˈtɑrd| |ˈriːtɑːd| offensive
a mentally handicapped person (often used as a general term of abuse).

Even my apple dictionary is more sensitive than cptwinks. For a moment, let’s grant the dictionary definition and examine what we usually mean when we say “retarded”.

He’s so retarded: We don’t actually mean that he is mentally handicapped; when’s the last time you heard someone comment about a student with learning disabilities, “This is my student Peter, he’s so retarded”.  What we mean is that he is as stupid as someone who is mentally handicapped, and we mean that in the most derogatory sense. The implication is that the only characteristic of mentally handicapped individuals is their stupidity, and we mean that in the most derogatory sense.

I had a neighbor who was born with Down syndrome. He was one of the sweetest guys I ever met. When the phrase, “He’s so retarded” will come to mean “He’s so sweet” is when I will agree with cptwinks in affirming that the word “retarded” is inconsequential.

We do not accept the use of the phrase, “that’s so gay”, so why do we tolerate “retarded”? We respect the feelings of gay people, but not the feelings of the mentally handicapped. What’s even worse is that, our use of the word “gay” is usually deliberate; we are aware of our offensiveness and deploy our labels strategically. When we say “retarded”, we don’t even realize the impact we have. That the mentally handicapped are not even a group of people whom we consider to be worth insulting speaks volumes towards showing how much we actually do care about their feelings. To not even be a recognized group that we include in our sphere of decency; that’s the biggest blow of all.

Finally, although this might be a bit of a tangent, I want to address another false assumption in cptwinks’ comment. To claim that because we elected a black president means that we’ve somehow managed to rid the entire country of prejudice (not even just racial prejudice) is just ridiculous. I’m sure that if Obama knew that him winning the election meant forfeiting the fight against prejudice and declaring it won, he would have given up the presidency. To rubber stamp all battles against intolerance and insensitivity as useless because of one victory is completely counter to the entire progressive ideal. Instead of facilitating progress, victories insert a huge road block. To me, this is just an excuse for laziness and a justification for tolerance of our intolerance.

If you care about this issue, there are a few ways you can help:

1. Start catching yourself whenever you say “retarded”, and do it out loud so your friends hear you too.
2. Start correcting your friends whenever you hear them say it. They might find you annoying at first, but they will soon start to catch themselves.
3. check out www.r-word.org and sign up for their community if you’re interested!

4/2/3 After writing my opinions, I’m a little less upset about the contents of my last post. I am however, still deadly tired.