Special Olympians[/caption]Carol Forsloff---Recently in a tabloid online citizen site a writer referenced the word “retard” as an adjective to describe an individual reader who had simply questioned some of the information presented in the article. Does this word have discriminatory features and what do people with disabilities feel about the use of the word, which some people use as a synonym for stupid?
Most of the organizations representing individuals with disabilities, including parent groups, request that people not use the word “retard” as it is often used as an epithet as some individuals use the word “nigger”, even when not referencing specifically an African American, because the word itself has cultural connotations that are negative.
An article in the New York Times addresses this issue by letting readers know there are “words gone wrong.” One of the people used to address feelings about the word “retard” is a man with Down Syndrome who serves as a special ambassador for the Special Olympics. He tells us:
“The hardest thing about having an intellectual disability is the loneliness,” he once wrote in The Denver Post. “We are aware when all the rest of you stop and just look at us. We are aware when you look at us and just say, ‘unh huh,’ and then move on, talking to each other. You mean no harm, but you have no idea how alone we feel even when we are with you.”
“So, what’s wrong with ‘retard’?,” he asked. “I can only tell you what it means to me and people like me when we hear it. It means that the rest of you are excluding us from your group. We are something that is not like you and something that none of you would ever want to be. We are something outside the ‘in’ group. We are someone that is not your kind.”
A Special Olympics representative wrote to Ann Coulter about her tweet using the word “retard” to describe President Obama in advocating the election of Mitt Romney, Obama’s political rival in the Presidential election of 2012, pointing out the negativity of the word but also underlining the fact that people with mental retardation can be vital, contributing people. So to use the word derisively is inappropriate.
Another advocacy group called Change.org presented a petition asking Coulter to end her use of the word “retard,” as she had responded “screw them” when others had demanded she not continue with it. The petition asks for a public apology for constantly using the R-Word and ends by saying, “I want to help raise awareness that using the word retard(ed) is disrespectful, dehumanizing, and very hurtful.”
Those folks who use words like “retard” as epithets to describe someone who disagrees with his/her opinion and who advocates the right to continue to do it, and is supported by a publication, demonstrates problems that continue outside the mainstream press with Coulter and also with those citizen journalists for whom the ethics of journalism and the knowledge about the concerns of people with disabilities are either not known or not considered of value.