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It’s a beautiful summer night. My friend and I are walking back from a celebratory dinner, when without warning, her flip-flop comes undone. “That’s okay! We’re almost home,” she exclaims, putting the ill-fated flip-flop back on her foot. A few awkward steps later, it happens: “I’m walking like a reta*d!”
I flinch, immediately taken aback at the choice of words. Unfortunately, this is neither the first nor the last time.
Words matter…
We all know this from having been on the receiving end of an insult or a biting comment, whether intentional or otherwise. We also know that some insults cross the line. Many of us have personally experienced that sinking feeling in our stomachs when someone boils down your entire being into one derogatory term intended to completely dehumanize you: nig*er, fag*ot … reta*d.
Your first reaction at this grouping may be to protest and say that the first two terms are a lot more heinous than the third. I have heard many people defend the use of this term with dismissive remarks:
“Retarded is just an expression- it isn’t meant to offend anybody!”
“Mental retardation is a clinical term.”
“What about brake retarders? Are you going to tell me that’s offensive as well?”
Our reticence to remove this word from our vocabulary stems from a lack of understanding and empathy for persons with disabilities. Most of us do not regularly interact with people with disabilities, especially those with intellectual disabilities.
For you, it may just be an expression.
For others living with a disability, it is explicit dehumanization, emblematic of the political, economic, and social barriers deliberately structured to relegate people with disabilities to the sidelines.
We often forget that when we use an expression, we are referring to actual human beings. This holds true whether you are calling a remark “ret*rded” or commenting on your gait as you hobble down the street.
The next time a flip flop breaks, let us all take a minute to think through what it is we actually want to express before dehumanizing an entire group of people to communicate our frustration.
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Thanks for this article. I wholeheartedly agree that the word “retard” as a description of anyone — whether it is used casually in reference to yourself or as an epithet spoken abusively about another — ought to be retired from everyone’s vocabulary. I’ll add that my experience among people with intellectual disabilities has shown me that they are often more honest, kinder, and harder working than their “smart” colleagues. Just consider, for a moment, how a GREAT MANY of the world’s problems are being caused needlessly by clever people who keep scamming to achieve an advantage. That’s what I find… Read more »
Well, the conservatives have been demonizing their opponents by calling them libtards considering the fact that too many of them are retards which they deserve to be called when you hear all their arguments and statements that don’t contain any kind of logical, rational thought let alone common sense.