I Hate Overuse of "Retarded" on CS!

[Saydrah]

See, now, what YOU are doing is simply revealing that you think politically correct speech is always harmful, which negates any argument based on the merits or harm of this particular word; you'd disagree no matter WHAT word I targeted.

I DO think decontextualization is possible. I don't think the words "lame" and "dumb" make much sense as insults, because they mean other things to me; however, I think they ARE decontextualized in a way "retarded" is not.

I also explained in another post how I feel about typing other terms out. It squicks me, I don't like it, but I do so in a few places in this thread for effect. Elsewhere on the internet, or in discussions that are not about language and word privilege, I don't do so. This discussion IS about language and word privilege, which warrants the occasional use of a word that might be shocking. Why that particular minority? Because, to be perfectly honest, I've been a beneficiary of a substantial amount of white, middle class privilege all my life, and I simply don't KNOW the less common hate terms used for other racial minorities. I actually have no idea what words you're hiding behind those asterisks. They probably wouldn't make sense in context if I did.

That's not to say I don't know or associate with anyone who isn't white; I've just lived in a very white area my entire life, and I haven't witnessed much blatant racism against any ethnicity. I happen to know the hate terms used to degrade black people, because it's impossible not to. It's not impossible not to know the words used against Chicano, Pacific Islander, or various other non-white ethnicities with a less public (though no less damaging) history of oppression.

I did not tacitly endorse the replacement of retarded with that list of words. I don't like the use of several words on that list. I made clear that I do NOT agree with the use of the word retarded as a replacement for those words. That doesn't mean that I agree with the use of those words, and framing it as "replacement of retarded" indicates you feel that retarded is the appropriate word being replaced. If I felt retarded was an appropriate word, I wouldn't have made this thread.

I expressly endorsed the use of a thesaurus and the expansion of one's vocabulary. I later expressed my preference of catchall term, which is "sucky," or "stupid," which I DO feel is adequately decontextualized.

It's not about politically correct. It's about what I personally feel shows both a lack of vocabulary and a disrespect for people who were abused as a result of diagnosis using that word. Politically correct is the phrase people use to excuse themselves from showing respect for others. "I don't say that, I don't do politically correct." I don't give a crap if you like political correctness. I give a crap if you use THIS particular word, for THESE particular reasons.

Yes, you have a right to free speech, defend to the death your right to say it, blah, blah, blah. But I'm damn well going to exercise MY right to free speech to call you on your use of a term that, in my book, amounts to hate speech.

[Seshat]

I DO think decontextualization is possible. I don't think the words "lame" and "dumb" make much sense as insults, because they mean other things to me; however, I think they ARE decontextualized in a way "retarded" is not.

I'm lame.

And I do mean lame in the disabled sense of the word. If I were a horse, I'd either be out to pasture in honourable retirement, or the vet would have prepared an overdose of anaesthetic for me long ago.

[Saydrah]

Sometimes I think the lame horses have the system all figured out. When I worked in horse rescue, we had lots of permanently lame horses with us for their retirement. Happiest critters I ever did see. In fact, I'm pretty sure at least one was faking- thousands of dollars the rescue really couldn't afford but supporters who loved him raised anyway of tests later, there was absolutely no reason he was lame. Nor that his lameness shifted from foot to foot, was arbitrarily better some days and worse others, and had caused no changes in musculature. He got MRIs, x-rays, acupuncture, a chiropractor, pain killers, corrective shoeing, and everything under the sun, and to my knowledge he is still munching grass in the pasture, limping on a different leg every day, and giggling over his shoulder at the confused humans. On paper, he's 100% sound- he has cleaner x-rays than my jumper.

I also knew one horse who would go lame whenever you took her out on trail rides. Then she was sound as soon as you turned around and headed for the barn. Smart horse!

No point whatsoever to this tangent, you just reminded me of some funny stories.

[Gawdzillers]

How is "niggardly" racist?
It just sounds similar to "nigger". They have no connection.

[Saydrah]

Hmm, you're right! I looked it up and the two aren't related; however, I had thought they were due to remembering seeing in the newspaper a controversy that included calls for the resignation of a public figure who used that word.

Here, I found a link that talks about said controversy, to prove I'm not crazy: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nig1.htm

There's even a whole wiki page on controversies about the word:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controv...22niggardly%22

[BroomJockey]

See, now, what YOU are doing is simply revealing that you think politically correct speech is always harmful, which negates any argument based on the merits or harm of this particular word; you'd disagree no matter WHAT word I targeted.

I'm going to have to double check to be certain, but I do believe in the course of this thread you've commited EVERY rhetorical fallacy listed in my textbook. And you still haven't addressed a single one of my points.

No, I wouldn't disagree no matter WHAT word you targeted. I might disagree. I admit, I'm against the hardline Politically Correct speech that makes it a thought-crime to use any insult with so much as a tangential connection to a minority group, or a historically disadvantaged group, or a historically persecuted group. I'm not against changing from "Chairman" to "Chair" or "Mailman" to "mailcarrier." I do think it asinine to refer to a deaf person as "hearing deficient." That clouds the issue. But my views on policitally correct speech are off topic.

I do think there are better words out there than retarded, but I've just been trying to find out the core of your argument. And from what I can tell, it is "I hate this word, and I want you all to stop because I say so, and by the way, anyone who uses this word is a doody-head." You barely qualify as making an argument using pathos, and you've not touched on ethos or logos.

Since you obviously have no response that doesn't violate the rules of a good debate, I'm finished with this thread, and will go back to my supremely rare visits of Fratching. Good luck.

[Saydrah]

Ah, yes the accusation of fallacy: The last refuge of someone acting intelligent on the internet who doesn't have a leg to stand on. I know, I use it myself frequently.

If you were really concerned with the rules of debate, you wouldn't have used ad hominem in every single post in this thread. You're also constructing a straw man argument with your false concern for my adherence to the laws of rhetoric (which was never a prerequisite for posting in this thread, making your sudden concern for said rules fallacious and distracting). You're also constructing a slippery slope argument by escalating my single argument about a single word into an argument about the nature of politically correct speech, and implying that if we stop using this single offensive word we will all be required to call deaf people "hearing deficient," a term I've actually never heard. The preferred nomenclature is deaf, for those who are completely unable to hear, or hard of hearing for those who are hearing-impaired but are able to hear to some extent.

So, before you set yourself up as some sort of bastion of forensics study, you might want to leave the fallacies out of your own posts, eh?

Since you've tried so hard to find the core of my argument, I'll spell it out for you:

The use of this word, this one word, bothers me. It has nothing to do with "politically correct." It has everything to do with the fact that there are people living today who were sterilized against their will, prevented from having relationships, institutionalized, had medical experiments performed on them, were raped, abused, and generally treated as less than human, because their label of this one word made it okay. I don't think it's right to redefine the word as meaning "stupid," at least not yet. It shows absolute disrespect for the people who were abused with this word as justification, and it misses the opportunity to educate the younger generation about the horrific abuse that went on in our own country, and in some places still does.

[Seshat]

I think that one paragraph is all Broomjockey wanted, Saydrah. In fact, I think that next time you feel the need to discuss the use or misuse of the word, you should probably cut and paste that paragraph. It's a very succinct and clear summary of your argument.

[BroomJockey]

*sigh* I knew I should have left well enough alone.

Approximately one in seven people has a disability. Many of those are cognitive/developmental/learning disabilities.

Biased sample.

Having a disability that affects the mind does not make someone stupid. In fact, many such disabilities hide true intelligence. When children with Autism are given IQ tests that assign high value to verbal skills and other skills generally not the top of the list when Autism is involved, they score lower than neurotypical children; however, when the IQ test is modified so as to measure the same capabilities without requiring the verbalization or eye contact the standard IQ test does, the average score of a child with Autism is HIGHER than the average for neurotypical children.

Fallacy of Composition

It was not so long ago that it was at least marginally socially acceptable to call someone, "Niggardly," if he was cheap. Would any of us dream of doing that now? Of course not! What a horrifically racist term! What about saying, "I had a customer who was being a real Jew last night- he counted out his change down to the last penny before he would leave." Is that acceptable? OF COURSE NOT!

So why on Earth is it that I still see at least one thread a day where someone described a customer who acts stupidly as, "retarded?"

Strawman

The thing is, the "no big deal" label gets slapped on THIS offensive term. It's decontextualized. It means stupid now, not having a cognitive/learning/developmental disability. Sure, that's all well and good, but does it still sound as inoffensive if you switch minorities?

"I admit to using the word 'gay' to refer to stupidity or general silliness. I don't use it to mean homosexual."

Okay, we hear that one all the time- it upsets me, because the use of "gay" to mean "bad" stopped my best friend from coming out for a long time. But it's pretty common, not the most offensive thing in the world, right?

How about:

"I admit to using the word 'nigger' to mean stupid or silly. I don't use it to mean Black."

I cringe just typing that word- that's how much it's drilled into our heads that we aren't supposed to say it. It's even word-filtered out of many forums, so I'm not sure until I post this if it'll even show up.

More strawman

How many Americans are part of the minority that term describes?

Approximately 13%.

How many Americans have one or more disabilities?

Approximately 14.2%.

I mean, if you use both those other words casually, I can't exactly accuse you of hypocrisy- but if you don't call stupid people n-words and stupid things gay, then why is it okay to say something that's been used to label, degrade, and justify violence against this particular minority, but not others?

Biased sample again, begging the question, appeal to emotion, yadda yadda yadda.

Thing is, John Citizen probably DOES have friends and relatives with developmental delays or other disabilities that affect the mind.

They're probably just not telling him because he's always using "retarded," to refer to stupidity, so they don't feel comfortable sharing that information with him.

Appeal to authority, emotion, pity.

Something that shocked me the other day was a friend of mine saying, "It's okay to say _______ (insert derogatory term here) as long as none of them are around to hear it." Really? So only people who are part of a particular oppressed group are allowed to get upset about using a derogatory term?

It shows an absolute lack of intelligence and originality to use terms like "retarded" and "gay" to describe stupidity, when there are so many other more interesting words in the English language- ones that were made up TO describe stupidity, not words that describe a group of people negatively.

begging the question, ad hominems of a couple flavours, etc.

I could go on, but it's mostly more of the same. As I said. The core of your argument boils down to "I want people to stop using this word because I said they should. It offends me, and I'm offended on behalf of other people." You claim you want to convince people over to your side, but when I asked you to clarify your argument, and work on strengthening it, you ignore and continue ad hominems and throwing up strawmen. You didn't prove that this word is any more harmful in use than it is to use "lame" or "dumb" or any other word people have co-opted from the medical community to use as an insult. You didn't prove that this is an actual issue besides in your own mind. As I said, you play heavily on the pathos, trying to equate this word with racial slurs or worse. The closest you can come to an ethical argument was "If this hurts even one person to use, but no one to stop, then we shouldn't use it." Except you haven't proven that it does hurt anyone. You also come closest to a logical appeal with your last post.

As for the "slippery slope" argument you accuse me of, that's an example that happened last week on CS. A poster used "hearing deficient" when they meant deaf. Hardly seems slippery slope. It isn't a strawman to point out that you're refusing to engage my argument on any point raised (which you still haven't done apart from accusing me of ad hominems), and as for the ad hominems, I wasn't aware distilling your argument to find clarity, and drawing analogies was ad hominem.

But if you're not bound by the rules of a debate, then I cast the gloves off myself for a parting shot. I think you need to learn to get a thicker skin, and not be offended on other people's behalf if they haven't asked you to. You don't bother with educating people, and instead shout at the top of your lungs that we are evil for using a word, equating it with racial slurs without ever saying why. You impune the intelligence of a great number of the members of the board by saying they're in desperate need of a thesaurus, and say that the word hasn't been de-contextualized, but then say that the "retarded" are too afraid to say anything. For those using it, it has no context caused by lack of education on the topic, and you, and those in your camp, are apparently unwilling to go and re-contextualize it for them. You're like a parent screaming at a child for saying "Fuck" when the child is 2 years old. The kid doesn't know better, but you never took the time to TEACH them better. You inflate statistics to assist your cause, you draw parallels that are unproven. Here in Alberta, there were eugenics programs for a startlingly long period of time before the acts were repealed, so I *know* the treatment those classified as "retarded" went through, and you STILL can't convince me to drop the word from my lexicon. Your primary motivational argument seems to be that people are still alive that had that label applied to them, which means that your problem will be solved simply by the passage of time. Eventually, they will grow old and die, and those labelled as such will be beyond the range of this "hateful word." Does that mean it will be okay to say it then, in your mind? Except you put paid to that with your anecdote about your friend, and his use of slurs while no one of that minority was around.

Unless you can come up with some way of proving this to be a matter more serious than merely existing in your own mind, you're going to be sorely disappointed by the continued refrain of "That's retarded" to be applied to people, situations, and objects that have no mental disabilities.

However, just to give you a wee bit of hope, I think you've got the start of a good argument in that last post. More about how mentally disabled people are treated, less with the equating with slurs, and a little bit more coherence and fewer tangents, and you might be able to start convincing people. The whole reason I brought up rhetoric in the first place is it is an excellent way to format your opinion in such a way as to be persuasive. Remember, those who ignore a shout will often strain to hear a whisper. Stop ranting and start educating. And use statistics that are actually applicable. Your "1 in 7" does not apply as it includes people with physical issues as well, but you don't talk about people with physical disabilities at all. A reasoning being is going to realize this and your argument is weakened overall. I honestly and seriously suggest you go back and re-read my posts, and try to counter the points, as it will strengthen your argument. You've got potential, use it.

And now I'm done for real.

[Saydrah]

Again, why are you arguing on the basis of the rules of rhetoric when I've already said, yes, my posts contain logical fallacies, as does most daily interpersonal communication, and as do your own posts? When I talk to a friend at the coffee shop and get off on a tangent, I'm not stopping to think, "Is this a biased sample?" I'm talking to my friends, and expressing an opinion.

You seem to be under the impression that I have no formal debate training. You couldn't be more wrong. I competed in forensics and also in "We the People," which is basically debate without a partner; the construction of an argument being the sole criterion for judging. I have taken various courses in debate. In addition, I've twice been a campaign manager for a congressional candidate, which involved preparing the candidate for debate, among other things. As a lifelong politically active person, undertaking my first adventure as a campaign volunteer at age six, the rules of logic and debate are far from unfamiliar to me. Debate skills are key to many political campaigns, and, conversely, sometimes poor debate skills become an asset (examine George W. Bush's past debate skills- excellent- versus fumbles debating opponents in 2000 and 2004). In fact, debate and logic have been central themes to my life to the extent that my parents once punished me as a child by making me write an essay on the logical fallacies in the excuse I gave for having been out at a neighbor's hosue while grounded!

As I said in a previous post, I'm aware my arguments contain some fallacies. I am not constructing an argument for debate in this setting. I am speaking as I would in an informal gathering of friends. It is rarely worthwhile to construct a formal argument for debate on an internet forum, unless I'm on one of the many available that DO bind participants to the rules of debate, give points, and declare winners. I occasionally participate in these types of forums, and have an excellent record. However, when attempting to organize debate threads with formal rules on non-debate specific forums, I have never once attracted interest from more than one or two people. It is more worth the while to spend my time on a non-debate specific forum making an argument that I would make to a friend or neighbor than one I would make in a formal debate setting, because the time taken removing all fallacies from one's interpersonal communication is only well-spent if one's opponents are bound by the same rules.

Given that even in your posts where you imply you WERE posting according to the rules of debate you have been unable to stay away from ad hominem and strawman arguments, among others, there would have been no point whatsoever in communicating in a formal manner as I would were I being scored on my argument. If even an opponent attempting to follow the rules of forensics does not avoid fallacious arguments, it would be foolish to expect arguments constructed formally from others in the thread who are posting without the benefit of debate experience.

If you would like to start a more formal debate thread on Fratching, please, be my guest; I can suggest other places on the internet with rules that could be adapted for our purposes. I would be willing to participate, and perhaps a few others would be interested in dusting off formal debate skills, or in judging and scoring.

[Seshat]

Again, why are you arguing on the basis of the rules of rhetoric when I've already said, yes, my posts contain logical fallacies, as does most daily interpersonal communication, and as do your own posts? When I talk to a friend at the coffee shop and get off on a tangent, I'm not stopping to think, "Is this a biased sample?" I'm talking to my friends, and expressing an opinion.

I don't know if you want my interpretation of Broomjockey's point, but here it is anyway.

I think Broomjockey isn't asking you to make a formal argument or a formal debate. He simply feels that there are too many fallacies in your informal argument for him to be persuaded. Respecting your intelligence, he suggests you address those fallacies and provide a more logically sound, but still informal, argument for your point.

He presumes you have a reason for your offense at the common use of word 'retard', and is inviting you to persuade him. He's just not going to be persuaded by posts with too many logical fallacies and too few sound arguments. Or perhaps he himself agrees with the point, and is trying to help you construct a more persuasive argument for Norm Neurotypical.

That's my interpretation, anyway. I may well be wrong.

Edit to add: in case it's not clear, my own opinion is not in this post, but in previous posts in the thread. Especially the one on page 1 of the thread.

[Ree]

For the record, Saydrah, I detest the use of the word 'retarded" to mean anything other than its original intent. Even in that context, I prefer other words, as it's only a small step from using "retarded" to refer to mentally impaired, and calling that person a "retard".

I have teens in my home, and that is one 'slang' word I will not allow.

I am not going to get into the statistics and figures and any other dramatic and drawn out arguments that have been put forth, both pro and con.
The fact is, stuff like that just bores me, and I'm really not well read enough to come across in such a scholarly manner as others who have put forth their arguments.

Isn't it enough that you have pointed out that people get hurt by the misuse of the word?
Why should you have to put forward any instances of situations where you have personally known people to be hurt?
Why is it necessary for you to back up your disgust of the word?

You find it offensive and you have simply asked people to think twice about using it.
That's not a bad thing.

Why is it so wrong to want people to think about ordinary terms they use everyday, and consider how these words impact on others, even if we find them innocent.

I am really not interested in a 100% politically correct society, but a little compassion and empathy can go a very long way, and are necessary at times.

I have very personal reasons for hatred of that word, and I will not go into it here. My reasons are probably not that different from anyone else who cringes at the use of the word, though.

I have been quietly watching the progress of this thread, and I just felt I owed it to you to let you know you're not alone in your wish for the world to remove that word from ordinary use.

[Lace Neil Singer]

If you really want a parallell, the word "spastic" was used a lot back when I was a kid in the same way that "retard" is used now. In ten years time, there might well be another word being used.

I stand by what I said before, that throwing a fit just gives that word more power than it had before as a word to cause offence, where as ignoring its use takes that power away. IE, with Broomjockey's example of the toddler saying fuck; if the parent screams at them, they might decide to use it again, cuz it got them attention. If the parent just ignores it, then there's no incentive to do so.

There are loads of words that I personally hate; however, I don't see the point of giving myself a stroke trying to stop people using them. I hate the phrase "personality disorder" for example, as it seems to be a catch all used by lazy psychiatrists to label problem people who might be autistic for example, or for criminals to use to try and get out of punishment due to a convienent mental illness sticker.

[Saydrah]

The man who invented the term "weblog" which became "blog" was recently interviewed by Wired Magazine. One of his tips was something along the lines of "No matter what you want to say, someone else has already said it better. Find that and link to them."

So, in that spirit, a speech made by a high school student, posted on Disaboom this morning by a teacher who will be reading it to her own class today:

Link: http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/lieslm...20/retard.aspx

I want to tell you a quick story before I start. I was walking through hallways, not minding my own business, listening to the conversations around me. As I passed the front door on my way to my English classroom, I heard the dialogue between two friends nearby. For reasons of privacy, I would rather not give away their race or gender.



So the one girl leans to the other, pointing to the back of a young man washing the glass panes of the front door, and says, “Oh my gaw! I think it is so cute that our school brings in the black kids from around the district to wash our windows!” The other girl looked up, widened her slanted Asian eyes and called to the window washer, easily loud enough for him to hear, “Hey, Negro! You missed a spot!” The young man did not turn around. The first girl smiled a bland smile that all white girls - hell, all white people - have and walked on. A group of Mexicans stood by and laughed that high pitch laugh that all of them have.



So now it’s your turn. What do you think the black window washer did? What would you do in that situation? Do you think he turned and calmly explained the fallacies of racism and showed the girls the error of their way? That’s the one thing that makes racism, or any discrimination, less powerful in my mind. No matter how biased or bigoted a comment or action may be, the guy can turn around and explain why racism is wrong and, if worst comes to worst, punch ‘em in the face.



Discrimination against those who can defend themselves, obviously, cannot survive. What would be far worse is if we discriminated against those who cannot defend themselves. What then, could be worse than racism?



Look around you and thank God that we don’t live in a world that discriminates and despises those who cannot defend themselves. Thank God that every one of us in this room, in this school, hates racism and sexism and by that logic discrimination in general. Thank God that every one in this institution is dedicated to the ideal of mutual respect and love for our fellow human beings. Then pinch yourself for living in a dream. Then pinch the hypocrites sitting next to you. Then pinch the hypocrite that is you.



Pinch yourself once for each time you have looked at one of your fellow human beings with a mental handicap and laughed. Pinch yourself for each and every time you denounced discrimination only to turn and hate those around you without the ability to defend themselves, the only ones around you without the ability to defend themselves. Pinch yourself for each time you have called someone else a “retard.”



If you have been wondering about my opening story, I’ll tell you that it didn’t happen, not as I described it. Can you guess what I changed? No, it wasn’t the focused hate on one person, and no it wasn’t the slanted Asian eyes or cookie cutter features white people have or that shrill Hispanic hyena laugh (yeah, it hurts when people make assumptions about your person and use them against you doesn’t it?).

The girl didn’t say “hey Negro.” There was no black person.



It was a mentally handicapped boy washing the windows. It was “Hey retard” I removed the word retard. I removed the word that destroys the dignity of our most innocent. I removed the single most hateful word in the entire English language.



I don’t understand why we use the word; I don’t think I ever will.



In such an era of political correctness, why is it that retard is still ok? Why do we allow it? Why don’t we stop using the word? Maybe students can’t handle stopping - I hope that offends you students, it was meant to - but I don’t think the adults, here can either.



Students, look at your teacher, look at every member of this faculty. I am willing to bet that every one of them would throw a fit if they heard the word faggot or *** - hell the word Negro - used in their classroom. But how many of them would raise a finger against the word retard? How many of them have? Teachers, feel free to raise your hand or call attention to yourself through some other means if you have.



That’s what I thought. Clearly, this obviously isn’t a problem contained within our age group.



So why am I doing this? Why do I risk being misunderstood and resented by this school’s student body and staff? Because I know how much you can learn from people, all people, even - no, not even, especially - the mentally handicapped.



I know this because every morning I wake up and I come downstairs and I sit across from my sister, quietly eating her Cheerio’s. And as I sit down she sets her spoon down on the table and she looks at me, her strawberry blonde hair hanging over her freckled face almost completely hides the question mark shaped scar above her ear from her brain surgery two Christmases ago.



She looks at me and she smiles. She has a beautiful smile; it lights up her face. Her two front teeth are faintly stained from the years of intense epilepsy medication but I don’t notice that anymore. I lean over to her and say, “Good morning, Olivia.” She stares at me for a moment and says quickly, “Good morning, Soeren,” and goes back to her Cheerio’s.



I sit there for a minute, thinking about what to say. “What are you going to do at school today, Olivia?” She looks up again. “Gonna see Mista Bee!” she replies loudly, hugging herself slightly and looking up. Mr. B. is her gym teacher and perhaps her favorite man outside of our family on the entire planet and Olivia is thoroughly convinced that she will be having gym class every day of the week. I like to view it as wishful thinking.



She finishes her Cheerio’s and grabs her favorite blue backpack and waits for her bus driver, Miss Debbie, who, like clockwork, arrives at our house at exactly 7 o’clock each morning. She gives me a quick hug goodbye and runs excitedly to the bus, ecstatic for another day of school.



And I watch the bus disappear around the turn and I can’t help but remember the jokes. The short bus. The “retard rocket.” No matter what she does, no matter how much she loves those around her, she will always be the butt of some immature kid’s joke. She will always be the butt of some mature kid’s joke. She will always be the butt of some “adult’s” joke.



By no fault of her own, she will spend her entire life being stared at and judged. Despite the fact that she will never hate, never judge, never make fun of, never hurt, she will never be accepted. That’s why I’m doing this. I’m doing this because I don’t think you understand how much you hurt others when you hate. And maybe you don’t realize that you hate. But that’s what it is; your pre-emptive dismissal of them, your dehumanization of them, your mockery of them, it’s nothing but another form of hate.



It’s more hateful than racism, more hateful than sexism, more hateful than anything. I’m doing this so that each and every one of you, student or teacher, thinks before the next time you use the word “retard,” before the next time you shrug off someone else’s use of the word “retard”. Think of the people you hurt, both the mentally handicapped and those who love them.



If you have to, think of my sister. Think about how she can find more happiness in the blowing of a bubble and watching it float away than most of us will in our entire lives. Think about how she will always love everyone unconditionally. Think about how she will never hate. Then think about which one of you is “retarded.”



Maybe this has become more of an issue today because society is changing, slowly, to be sure, but changing nonetheless. The mentally handicapped aren’t being locked in their family’s basement anymore.



The mentally handicapped aren’t rotting like criminals in institutions. Our fellow human beings are walking among us, attending school with us, entering the work force with us, asking for nothing but acceptance, giving nothing but love. As we become more accepting and less hateful, more and more handicapped individuals will finally be able to participate in the society that has shunned them for so long. You will see more of them working in places you go, at Dominicks, at Jewel, at Wal-Mart. Someday, I hope more than anything, one of these people that you see will be my sister.



I want to leave you with one last thought. I didn’t ask to have a mentally handicapped sister. She didn’t choose to be mentally handicapped. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I have learned infinitely more from her simple words and love than I have from any classroom of “higher education.” I only hope that, one day, each of you will open your hearts enough to experience true unconditional love, because that is all any of them want to give. I hope that, someday, someone will love you as much as Olivia loves me. I hope that, someday, you will love somebody as much as I love her. I love you, Olivia.



Soeren Palumbo

[ArenaBoy]

Threads like these make me wish that people would read dictionaries more. Mainly because I think we need a better grasp of a word's origins. Or just bring back Latin.

Retard comes from

ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from French retarder, from Latin retardare, from re- ‘back’ + tardus ‘slow.’

Yep, nothing relating to a mental handicap. No siree. Wasn't it not too long ago that we were referring to those with mental handicaps as "special"? Point is that the English language changes. Example being "shell-shock" to what we now refer to as "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder". Same goes for queer and gay, queer was meant to be strange or unusual while gay meant happy though those meanings changed.

Funny old language English.