Discrimination most hurtful in teenage years

Carol Forsloff - "These are the years when social identity is arguably more salient among teenagers who are struggling with defining who they are.  Adding on a 'layer' of discrimination is not an easy thing for them to deal with."

Andrew J. Fuligni, a professor of Psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human behavior at UCLA said this following a research study on discrimination and its impact on adolescent self-esteem and learning.

Researchers say it's difficult enough to be a teenager in today's world.  Add discrimination to it, and the problems worsen.

In this study, researchers found that adolescents from Asian and Latin American countries suffer more discrimination than peers from European backgrounds and that this impacts negatively how they feel about themselves and how they fare in academic learning.

The findings appeared in the  online edition of the Journal of Research on Adolescence in late 2010.

The research found that teens who suffered more discrimination also reported more physical and emotional symptoms.  It also affected students' grade point average. 

"Discrimination significantly predicted lower GPAs, higher levels of depression, higher levels of distress, lower self-esteem and more physical complaints," Fuligni said. "So the bottom line? Discrimination is harmful."

African American teens have been found most affected by discrimination.  Most maintain they have been victims of it.

Homosexual teens, despite the movement towards acceptance of gay life, continue to feel discriminated against.  In fact the suicide rate is higher in this age group because of feelings of discrimination by peers.

Teen life is difficult enough.  Discrimination adds to the difficulty, which is why experts remind parents to teach their children values so they don't bully one another with words or behaviors, as the result can be harmful in later years for those they hurt.

Parents, persons with disabilities demand end to use of "R" word

[caption id="attachment_20025" align="alignleft" width="300"] 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.