The R Word Movement Needs to Die Already!

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This exactly. The objection to "banning" its use is a straw man argument.

The thing that frustrates me is the way people seem so attached to using the word. I understand the instinct to react negatively when someone tells me how to, or how not to, speak. Who are they to tell me what I can or can't say? But when I take a step back and actually think about the context that I'm using the word in, 99.9% of the time it's not even appropriate for the situation. It's just a lazy use of the language, much like when people use the word gay as a substitute to mean anything bad or negative.

People say, "it just means slow" or "it's just an older term for intellectual disability", but we're not actually using it to mean slow or intellectually disabled. We're using it to say we didn't like the plot of a movie, or comment on how spastic one of our friends is acting, or our disagreement with a political policy. And even when we do use it to mean slow or intellectually disabled, it's still a less appropriate word than just saying "slow" or "intellectually disabled".

So if the vast majority of the time it's not a good choice of word for the situation, then my use of it just comes down to habit or laziness. And I have to honestly ask myself if that's really so important to me that it's worth the offense and hurt that using the word causes.

I think if we protested over the use of a word that will only give people power over us and reinforce usage of the word.

I think that the progress the homosexual community has made in the last few years fighting the use of gay as a blanket derogatory term serves as a strong counter-example to that line of thinking.

Yup. That is the problem. It gets used as a slang to mean "something I really dislike or that is bad". Is it any wonder that people who have the term in their medical records get angry that it gets used as a synonym for horrible?

Sometimes people don't even know what the word is. They just hear it as a slang and don't know the original meaning of it. You would think everyone knows about mental retardation but no they don't. I would assume this ignorance is only in the young. I only knew the word because I grew up being called it and I may have heard the word anyway even if I wasn't called it because I remember watching What's Eating Gilbert Grape and I saw Arnie and asked my mom what was wrong with him and she said "he's ret*d" and my 5th grade teacher said the same about his son when I asked why is he sort of in 6th grade and what does it mean and also the time a girl in my school who had Down's syndrome took my coat and wouldn't give it back to me and I was too afraid to pull it out of her hands fearing being seen as the bad girl and I came home and told my mom about her stealing my coat and she said "She is a little ret*d so she didn't know, go to her house and ask for it back from her parents." So sometimes the the word is used as a slang out of ignorance. With a new word for it some areas use, people may not have ever heard the word for the disability like I didn't know what stupid originally meant or dumb or moron or imbecile or idiot. But no one connects these words to the intellectual impaired people but still do with the R word so I can assume maybe twenty years down the road, ret*d will be safe to use because people won't be connecting it to the disability anymore. I wonder how long it took for people to stop connecting moron, imbecile, and idiot to intellectual impaired people before they became okay words to use without offending anyone.

If you use the word ret*d you're not being "civilized". Some NEED to be shielded and shouldn't have to put up with such a derogatory word just because someone hasn't got imagination enough to use a replacement word. If you REALLY believe that you should be able to say it feel free to put your money where your mouth is and use the n-word around black people. See how that goes down for ya.

Last edited by riley on 08 Sep 2014, 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

I despise the "R" word a lot, I was called it a lot throughout my time in school and while playing online games, so I hate it. I equate it to a racial slur or an ethnic slur. I've tried to ask one company in particular to add it to their banned words list in a game and they refused to.

Well I'm NT with autistic kids, but the word "ret*d" really annoys me (I notice some people are saying it's just NTs who don't like it, so I'm an example of that). I also don't like using the word "gay" to mean stupid/something I don't like. I work with a woman who uses both on a regular basis and it's just annoying. Can't you think of a more descriptive word than "OH EM GEE THAT'S SO ret*d/GAY" when your computer is updating something? Jeez. And yes, she IS indicating that my kids (who would most likely both test under 70 on an IQ test, thus technically "ret*d") are stupid and useless. So that's an added turn-off. I've never said anything to her though- it's her prerogative how she speaks.

I agree with you here, but it's not just the slur we are getting it's the treatment as well.

For example when you apply for a job an employer is not allowed to discriminate on ethnicity or race, but is allowed to refuse someone for being autistic when the autistic person is perfectly capable of doing the job. You see it in more facets of society where discrimination or humiliation of autistic people is seen as socially acceptable ( i.e. bullying is seen as completely fine by most ).