I recently clicked this link posted by a friend on Facebook. If you follow it you'll be taken to a page where someone attempts to educate you on the negative consequences of using the word "retard" A clever flow chart is given, where all options point to the same conclusion, being "use a different word." This indicates that eliminating the word entirely from our vocabulary is the only acceptable option to end the horrific negative consequences of this word in our society, mirroring the views of campaigns such as "spread the word to end the word".
Attempting to further convince you, the author shares a letter from John Franklin Stephens, a Special Olympics athlete who has Downs Syndrome. The letter is touching and humbling. It hits close to home for me for reasons I don't care to detail on this blog. I want to start off by stating that my opinions aren't an attempt to belittle John's voice. He is, and it's certainly well deserved, a hero to me and many others.
He writes the letter to a Ms. Ann Coulter, who apparently isn't well versed in the new political correctness policy of using the word "retard" as an insult, as evident by her tweets on Twitter. He writes, "you aren't dumb, and you aren't shallow, so why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult"
You can read the rest of Johns letter here and another equally powerful article written by him here. I highly recommend them both. They are very inspiring and offer a great perspective. The interesting thing about his letter written to Ms. Coulter though was he didn't chastise Ms Coulter for using the word "retard" He called her to update her education for using it incorrectly. He did so with love, and an invitation for change which was most impressive of all. John is a great advocate for change. How we go about that change can be confusing at times and it's not as black and white as some would have you think. Something needs to change. I'm not sure elimination of an entire word is the correct way to change it.
My problem with this "spread the word to end the word" movement is that at it's root it is critically flawed. A good idea when only considering intentions, but unfortunately a poor one when when thought about with a degree of logic.
The "R-word," as it's termed now, didn't originally start as a negative or insulting word. In fact it didn't even need to describe people at all. Retardation was the act or result of delay. It could describe a number of things, growth of any kind. A harvest could be retarded by a frost, or plans could be retarded by unexpected obligations. When used in medical terms Mental Retardation (now termed Intellectual Disability) was characterized by below average intelligence or mental ability. As I stated it wasn't an insult, but rather a condition. Society negatizes (yes I know that's not a real word yet) these words.
The problem with the idea of "finding a different word" is that often the "different word" is equally as insulting to another group or more often than not the same group.
Take the words moron, imbecile, and idiot for example. Most people would agree, these are better, more sophisticated, choices than the term "retard" when describing someone who is acting foolishly, but in reality their original definitions would indicate they are just as offensive, if not more, to the same community we are trying to protect.
Idiot was originally defined as a person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use. Imbecile was a medical category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability (also, no longer in use.), and Moron was a term once used in psychology to denote mild intellectual disability, since it's rise to popularity in slang it has been discarded in the psychology dialogue.
So you see what happens is there has to be a term for such people, not to insult them, but to describe them. That's not bad. It's what language does, describes our thoughts, and intentions; and conveys them to others providing valuable information. There are many categories and classifications of people. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am Caucasian. I have brown hair. I have anemia. These give you information about me, when given in the correct manner.
What happens next is the words get turned to slang to insult people. I credit this to society's inclination to rip others down, but for now I digress, I'll get to that later. The terms fall out of fashion because we want to be politically correct. No one wants to be perceived as an ignorant bigot, so it becomes a word no one dares to use, even in it's correct context. Because it's socially unacceptable in all shapes and forms a new term is made to describe such a condition and finally the process starts all over again with this new term.
It's a cycle. Eliminating words from our vocabulary wont break this cycle, it will only start it over again. The movement we should be joining is educating ourselves and helping to educate others. Education is almost always the best solution to any problem. We should use words we know the definition, and history of in their correct contexts. When we do this we will think twice about using words in ways that might insult people, because doing so would be an insult to our own education and intelligence. We wont want to call someone a "retard" who isn't actually one or as an insult, because frankly using that word in that way would make us look foolish for using it incorrectly.
I'll admit it's a daunting task. One that no one, myself included, is perfect at. There is so much about our language that we don't bother to learn, but just because it's difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it.
We use a living language which by definition means we can change it. It is constantly changing to accommodate our needs and desires. We give power to these words. We can take that negative power away. I find it perfectly acceptable to use words as pertaining to their actual definition. If you are talking about someone with actual mental deficiency and are trying to describe what they are clinically to another person by all means use the word, "retard." That's what it means!
The truth is, it's only a "bad word" if we let it become that. We shouldn't allow others to negatize the word. We should kindly correct them. When our children call a friend who bugs them "retarded," we should correct them by saying, "No, they aren't sweetheart. A retarded person is someone with an intellectual or developmental challenge. It's not an insult. You are upset with your friend, but it's not good to attempt to insult people even when you are really frustrated with them."
Parents and teachers have so much power to end the insulting and ignorant dialogue our culture seems to embrace. We can teach our children, and possibly eliminate the universal human mindset that knocking others down will somehow build us up. That human flaw is the worst of all, because it's absolutely wrong and untrue. Insulting others will never make us look better or smarter. Education will do that.
Retard is an insulting term today. Sure we can stop using it and perhaps spare a few feelings now, but that proves the negatizers right, and in the end they'll use that validation to negatize another word and hurt a lot more feelings later. Correction via education is always a better solution.
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