I suppose that until you know a person whose development has, by literal definition, been retarded, for example, by a chromosomal anomaly or by brain damage, the term retarded may not seem like an offensive word to use casually in conversation.
“It was a retarded movie.” or “Oops, that was retarded of me.”
But for those of us who know individuals with disabilities, the word retarded is offensive. I haven’t made it my personal crusade to eliminate the R-word from mainstream vocabulary but I follow a few blogs that recently posted about what happens when you ask people to stop using the R-word. It’s quite shocking actually. Take a look:
http://www.lovethatmax.com/2011/03/if-you-ask-people-to-not-use-word.html
http://www.lovethatmax.com/2011/03/if-you-tick-off-lot-of-people-by-asking.html
http://birdonthestreet.com/2011/03/just-stop-it/
Today Love that Max posted this video of a Public Service Announcement that will be shown on the season finale if Glee and also aired by TNT, CNN, MTV and Fox.
Since I’ve let other moms do the dirty work for me in regards to this sensitive issue, I am hoping to make a small contribution to this worthwhile campaign by posting this video on my blog as well. Hopefully people will get the message.
Spread the word.
3 comments:
I personally never use that word (my mom taught me manners), and would never allow my children to. Sometimes people rail against what they call 'political correctness'. I think that talking about people in an appropriate manner is a very worthy goal.
Thanks Heather. I caught myself saying that word recently to describe a situation and was rather shocked that it came out of my mouth. In my mind the use of the word is lazy, coarse and just plain ignorant. I appreciate the reminder.
I was just having a conversation about this with my sister, Erin. We both agree that it's a hurtful and unnecessary word. Thanks for the links. And the "photo wrecker" comment? That made me cry. There's a special place in hell for people who come up with phrases like that.
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