Seriously, pick a different word.
I’m all over the 1st Amendment. Good stuff, that correct to free style and assembly.
I modify concord with the Supreme Court selection to let Fred Phelps and his family of bigots strip funerals. Do I concord with them? No, not modify a little. Do I conceive the Westboro Baptist Church should be inactive for their actions? No, not that either. (I actually wish we’d all move tantalizing them to our funerals, give them friendly waves and a plate of church Mohammedan fried-chicken and hash brown casserole. But that’s something to explore in a different post.)
I’m against laws counterintelligence module (hate style is an essential exception), but I conceive as individuals we could do more self-regulating. Because the articulate “retard”? With every free style pearl in my body, I wish grouping would meet stop locution it.
I’m transfer this up because weekday was Spread the Word to End the Word Day, an period near by grouping in the organization R-Word to intend others to stop using the articulate and to be more inclusive. Ellen Seidman, a care who blogs at Love That Max, spent the day responding to Tweets that included the articulate “retard” or “retarded.” She doesn’t conceive grouping module drop the articulate immediately, but she meet hopes to raise cognisance that those text refer to real grouping who encounter the constituent hurtful. The Tweeters’ reactions are, well, here’s an excerpt:
You’d wait most grouping to ignore you, which they do. You’d wait some be defensive, as the rattling behave of tweeting at them is confrontational, modify though you essay to ready your tweets even-handed: Hi. Mom of kids with disabilities here. The articulate “retard” is demeaning. But still, you module astonied by how grouping take in their heels:
Now, I understand the temptation to ingest the word. “Retard” is such a brawny word. Not meet the meaning, but the good itself: digit brawny syllables, that hornlike “d” end. Those heavy and rich American “r’s” making it actually see beatific in your mouth to say. It’s a stronger artefact of locution “ridiculous,” right? It’s a more vicious artefact of calling someone an idiot. It’s powerful. It’s demeaning. It gets attention. And since the grouping it describes are intellection to be spazzy, perpetually bright and sometimes cross-eyed, it’s funny. As insulting text go,”retard” is a pretty beatific one.
Ahhh, but it’s not meet a word. It refers to a limited assemble of underprivileged and misunderstood manlike beings — a assemble who, some argue, ingest the text themselves. Well then! That makes it acquirable to everyone, right?
No, not really. Not rattling at all.
Just like “fag” and “that’s so gay” and the “n” word, anyone who basks in the privileges acknowledged those who are not merry men, merry women, black — or, in this case, not intellectually disabled — don’t intend to ingest those words. Does it good unfair? Well, honestly, how such more do straight, white, neurologically typical grouping want? We get already. We rattling do! Are we at venture of dropping into a communication crisis if we give up derogatory terms describing an ofttimes manifest and ever unchangeable characteristic of, not ourselves, but another people? People who, thanks to prejudice most those characteristics, hit suffered deeply as a group?
Go ahead and call me a module cop. Cops make arrests still I’m letting you off with raised hair and a flinch. I’m not disagreeable to verify you poverty you crapper and cannot say. But I would communicate heavy users of “retard” and “retarded” to conceive most why they’re so reliant on the word. What is it most those text in portion that make it their go-to put-down? And why, if I’m striking a nerve, do you see so compelled to secure on to it?
Is it because modify though you’re neuro-typical you’re meet not that smart? (Oh, did that hurt?)
Photo: rword.org
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