I Hate Overuse of "Retarded" on CS!

[claidhmore]

I read this thread, and this is what popped into my head:

From Something Happens

It just sounded to me like the OP had more issues with the repeated use of "retarded" as a slang term, which is something that can be fixed with some of them thar learnins. I guess I try to not take offense when no offense is meant.

[BlaqueKatt]

Definition from the american heritage dictionary:

Retarded-

To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede.

To be delayed.

A slowing down or hindering of progress; a delay.

those are the ONLY three definitions-I generally do not go by "common usage"-but dictionary definitions.

NOTHING about mental disability in there anywhere-from this dictionary definition-"standing in this line is retarted"(slowing down progress) is proper usage

wonders what to call fire-retardant so as not to be offensive......

[Seshat]

Sorry, BlaqueKat, but I looked up 'retarded' specifically, and got the following in the first online multi-dictionary I tried:


Dictionary.com:

–adjective
1. characterized by retardation: a retarded child.
–noun
2. (used with a plural verb) mentally retarded persons collectively (usually prec. by the): new schools for the retarded.

—Synonyms backward, disabled, handicapped.

American Heritage Dictionary:

retard: (As per BlaqueKatt's post)

retarded:

1. Often Offensive Affected with mental retardation.
2. Occurring or developing later than desired or expected; delayed.

WordNet:

adjective
1. relatively slow in mental or emotional or physical development; "providing a secure and sometimes happy life for the retarded" [ant: precocious]

noun
1. people collectively who are mentally retarded; "he started a school for the retarded" [syn: mentally retarded]

[Rapscallion]

the word retarded is offensive to people who are mentally disabled.

Says who?

Who is it that defines what offends other people? Who defines what is acceptable?

I'd like to meet these people so I can explain to them that they're always going to lose. People - especially youngsters - are arseholes. If they see a term being used to describe someone who has an affliction etc, they're going to use it to hurt someone they know and want to get a rise from. The more people tell them it's not nice to use it, the more they use it because they don't want to be nice.

Humans - when you perfect them, you can tell them what's acceptable. Until then, leave me out of it.

Rapscallion

[RecoveringKinkoid]

It hasn't for white people, but apparently there's nothing wrong with black people saying it. They've decontextualized it for themselves.

There's everything wrong with using that word. Decent people do not use it. Decent white people, nor decent black people use it.

Only ignorant people use it.

As for "retarded", well, the OP might be fighting a losing battle...but it's a battle that should be fought, regardless. By decent people.

Using it casually, the way people do, is hurtful to a great many people. So does using "gay" to denote "bad." It may not be said in malice, but I would argue that it IS indeed said in ignorance.

[the_std]

By decent people.

This word, used over and over again in your post, is interesting. I consider myself a decent person and am not going to fight against using the word retarded because I, like a great many others, do not see it as meaning anything derogatory against mentally disabled people. I very rarely hear it used in that context and, when I do, it's by the kind of person who will use any word to piss other people off. It has become a slang word that can be used interchangeably with "dumb" and "stupid" and I do not feel any less of a decent person for using it in that fashion. It feels as though you are trying to shame people by saying that they are not decent if they do not fight for this cause. Appeal to emotion?

Then again, I am young (early twenties) and have never heard the "it's derogatory" line from anyone in my general age bracket. Could that have something to do with it as well?

[Boozy]

Most people under the age of 25 or so (in my experience) don't recall a time when "retarded" was used to describe the mentally challenged, either as an official diagnostic term or as a derogatory one. Like I said in my original post, the word has become completely removed from its linguistic origins in my area. So much so that I don't believe it is widely believed to be offensive, when used by young people to describe something they don't like.

I freely admit that other geographic areas may differ from mine.

[BroomJockey]

I freely admit that other geographic areas may differ from mine.

Same around here.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I guess I come from a generation that DOES remember when "retarded" was openly used to describe kids with handicaps. I also remember those same kids, some who were profoundly handicapped, just dumped into general population public school.

I saw some stuff that makes me cringe to this day. Maybe younger people don't have the association of insensitivity or outright cruelty that I do, so I admit that the word is probably far more emotionally charged with malice for me than it might be for people in their 20s. I'm in my 40s.

Fair enough.

[Lace Neil Singer]

When I was a kid, the word "spastic" was used as "retard" is now; to refer to someone who was stupid or acting stupidly. No-one saw anything wrong with the word; there was even a charity called "The Spastics Society".

[Ree]

As I said, I find the word "retarded" used to describe something annoying or ridiculous to be offensive.

You can split hairs all you want to justify the use, you will never convince me otherwise, just as we who do take offense to the word will never convince you otherwise. Nobody likes to be told that something they have been saying without thinking or without intended malice is really not a very nice phrase or word to use because it stirs up unpleasant feelings in some who hear it.

The bottom line is, people don't like to be told what they can say or think.

Why use the word, really? It's just as easy to use any of the other words for which the "R" word is being substituted.

I was at a workshop this summer where the use of the "R" word was discussed and I was given the link to a video with Soren Palumbo delivering the speech which Saydrah posted.
It's actually quite thought provoking if you watch it through to the end.
It certainly had an influence on some of the teens who attended the workshop, judging by the conversations and the results stemming from the group activities. Some of them vowed to make an effort to find other words to use and other ways of expressing their thoughts.

[BroomJockey]

Why use the word, really? It's just as easy to use any of the other words for which the "R" word is being substituted.

Because literally every single one of them was originally used to describe either a physically or mentally disadvantaged group.

Idiot: people with low IQs and learning disabilities. It was an official term, similar to how retard was.

Dumb: someone physically incapable of speech.

Stupid: Like idiot, but not an official diagnostic term.

And so on and so forth.

There are NO WORDS available that have not been used in the way you're saying make retard unacceptable. So, if you're saying to use those, despite the exact same connotations being attached, what's the difference? The fact that it was longer ago? Does that mean we have to wait until your generation dies to use retard like idiot is now?

Language evolves. Usually faster than people die off. "Mouse" doesn't bring visions of small furry rodents to people's minds very often any more. So on and so forth. Again. I know I won't convince you, as you've already pointed out in your post, but I figure I should make my position clear now so the next time I use retard, I won't need to bother justifying it.

[Ree]

Because literally every single one of them was originally used to describe either a physically or mentally disadvantaged group.

Has the word "ridculous" been an actual clinical label previously attributed to a certain group of people with mental or physical defects?

That seems a pretty good substitute that expresses the same thought with only 1 extra syllable.

While "stupid" is a word that has been used to describe people of limited intelligence, I don't believe it was an actual clinical label given to a mentally or physically challenged group of people.

Instead of calling someone a "retard" when they do something absurd, call them a twit. Less syllables, and, as far as I know, that wasn't an actual clinical label previously attributed to a certain group of people with mental or physical defects.

Instead of saying, "What a retard," why not, "What a bonehead."
Same number of syllables, and, again, I don't believe it was an actual clinical label given to a mentally or physically challenged group of people.

The word, in its current usage, is derogatory and negative.
While people argue that the mentally challenged are no longer called "retarded" the fact is that they once were labeled with that term. I have to wonder how the word came to be used in its current form, then, if not taken from that usage and adapted to mean something that is absurd, ridiculous, annoying, or any other meaning currently attached to it.

The fact is, people began using it in that derogatory way while it was still in acceptable use as a label for the mentally challenged. That was why the "politically correct" began asking for a new term to label the mentally challenged. "Retarded" had taken on a negative meaning because of its use outside of the original intent.

[guywithashovel]

A few years ago, I worked at a camp for disabled kids and adults. During our training period, they went over a list of terms that we were encouraged to use and others that we were discouraged from using. Here are a few examples.

1. Instead of saying someone was "retarded," we were encouraged to say that the person "lives with mental retardation."

2. Rather than say that someone was "confined to a wheelchair," we were encouraged to say that the person "used a wheelchair to get around."

3. If a camper had to wear a diaper, we were encouraged to call it an "undergarment" instead of a diaper (especially with the adults).

4. If a camper needed to wear a bib while eating, we were encouraged to call it a "clothing cover" instead of a bib.

The camp referred to these as "terms with dignity." To some extent, using terms that sound better or sound less negative is good. However, extremists on both sides blow it completely out of proportion. On one hand, you have PC extremists who pick apart everyone's language and act like anyone who calls a mentally challenged person "retarded" or a black person a "Negro" is a KKK member. Then, you have the other side that goes out of their way to be insulting to anyone who isn't a white, middle-class, American male. The concept of a middle ground is lost on these people.

[violetyoshi]

Try to imagine growing up in a world, where you are told almost everything you do is wrong. Then try to imagine, being taught that your natural behaviors, are sick and need to be fixed. Try to imagine that then people say, [I]you[I] are wrong and should be fixed.

No matter how much you try to convince others, that little is wrong with you except for a few differences from what have been deemed "normal" and proper people, nobody will hear you.

You are always hearing about how the "normal" people are right and you are wrong, despite several things that "normal" people get involved with that are negative, that people who are neurodiverse tend not to:

1. drinking, drugs, promiscuousness

2. Becoming involved with the wrong people

3. Learning to harm others with language, and having it be excused as a social behavior, rather than seen as a sign of tendency towards emotional abusiveness in general.

4. Lack of compassion and understanding for those who are different than them, regarding those people with fear instead of understanding.

When a "normal" person has a problem, they are supported, when a neurodiverse person has a problem, they're infantilized and regarded as one regards a child. Their adult issues and concerns, are demeaned and ignored, in favor of a "normal" person's desire to see them as different from them, so they can feel better about themselves.

If you were to take inventory of all the behaviors "normal" children, and adults are able to get by with, you'd notice that "normal" people are far from perfect, they could even say given that they happen to be the majority, this is why they're allowed behaviors that would otherwise be seen as pathological in a person who is deemed neurodiverse.

When someone says the word retard, they are saying "I'm so happy I'm not you!" "I'm so happy I'm not neurodiverse!" "I'm glad I have the freedoms I have to make mistakes, without it being seen as a result of being feeble minded!" Nobody would say those statements to someone neurodiverse, or would say them out loud in public, yet that is what they are saying when they use the word retard. They are bragging how just by being born with what is deemed the proper brain type to have, that they're able to get by with anti-social behaviors.

A person who is neurodiverse may be told not to stim, which is moving arms or fingers around, in most cases as a way to ward off anxiety. Where it's seen as "normal" to harm your body by drinking alcohol or doing drugs to avoid the same anxiety.

I don't see why people suggest stimming is somehow worse, than killing yourself with drinking or drugs. Stimming doesn't harm anyone, people who stim, are able to drive if they choose so. Stimming doesn't cause their mind to slow down, and it doesn't lead to accidents which kill others. Drinking does, and continues to do so.

Am I saying then that neurodiverse people are better than "normal" people, no, everyone is capable of good or evil. What I am saying is that people with neurodiversity, tend to be more compassionate towards others. Perhaps this comes from the seemingly endless adversity they are made to face throughout their lives, while simultaneously being told to make friends with the people who emotionally abuse them.

What I am saying, is that most neurodiverse people I've run into, would never go out of their way to harm someone. Many people who are "normal" seem to give it no thought. Should it have to take someone spending a lifetime of being seen as other, in order to be able to see how words hurt someone? Is it so much to ask, for people to understand that language does have power, and that it's more than reasonable for a person to be offended by defending the word retarded as it was used in the past as a techinical term. Should we justify the N-word as well, by saying well they used it in the past?

I've never understood the tendency for "normal" people to use language as a weapon, to hold power over someone, and make someone feel less like a person. I've never had a desire to hurt others, and this has been deemed as a lack of social understanding.

Just because the majority does it, doesn't make it right. There are many aspects of "normal" behavior, that can be seen as a sign of leaning towards agressive or abusive behavior, it's glossed over because the majority of people do it. It's easier to try and change the few who are different, and convince them that such pathological behavior is normal, and they are the ones who are wrong in how they think. Instead of telling the majority, the fact is that in many cases they behave completely immoral when it comes to the feelings of others, making a game of how many people they can upset.

So really then who's the one who's retarded, the person who is neurodiverse or different, or the person who is cruel enough to go out of their way to use a word they know will harm someone. I'm leaning towards the latter.