The pledge states: “I pledge and support the elimination of the derogatory use of the r-word from everyday speech and promote the acceptance and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.”
I just read the Seattle Timed editorial below and found out about this campaign. I did a search of the r-word on RSU/JC and got hits in 339 threads.
Their site is here: http://www.r-word.org/ . Looks like it’s time to buy another t-shirt.
I’m with ya. And their day of awareness happens to be on my birthday!
If anyone thinks this is being too PC, I’ll try to help educate you.
I had a thread locked for no apparent reason the last time I tried to “spread the word to end the word”.
I’d be careful if I were you.
Here’s the deal, banning the “R” word will ultimately accomplish nothing but invent a new curse word for you to hear your children say. We as a society will always invent ever more exciting and creative ways to insult and degrade each other. It isn’t meant as an insult to those who are in fact mentally handicapped, but to the so-called normal people as an insult to THEIR intelligence. So to sum it up, whatever you call the mentally impaired members of this world, you will also invent yet another insult. I do not have a problem with the campaign to ban the word, but I do believe it is a useless effort.
This thread has down syndrome.
Does anybody want to slap Bob?
Also wouldn’t mind adding a positive spin on this:
I pledge to help and support people with such lacking vocabularies …
That kind of thing.
It already is a curse word. Curse words are not “banned,” they are just words that don’t have a place in polite conversation. And that get bleeped out on reality shows I guess.
You’re missing the point. It’s not the ones saying it that are being hurt. It doesn’t matter what someone means, what matters it the effect it’s having on those offended. Here’s a test to see if said people are being over-sensitive. Does the word in question refer to something about themselves that they cannot change? If it does, that qualifies it as offensive.
Every minority group seems to go through this re-naming every several years. For the “differently abled,” it’s gone through a progression: crippled –> handicapped –> disabled –> “differently abled.” All these terms logically refer to the same subject. They differ only in emotional connotations within a particular culture. Regardless of what the term is changed to, the negative social experience that members of the minority group experience isn’t changed by the re-naming. Consequently, the new term eventually becomes associated with that negative social experience of discrimination and prejudice, eventually prompting another name change. Calling something by a different name doesn’t change its nature - discrimination doesn’t change when you slap a new name on it. A duck is a duck, even if you call it a cat.
We need to change (end) the discrimination and prejudice in our culture, not keep changing the name we call it by. Repainting an old house won’t stop if from rotting and crumbling from the inside. A president calling a war a “military action” doesn’t mean he doesn’t need Congress’ consent to wage war - war is war, regardless of what euphemism you use to whitewash the issue.
Name-changing, I think, actually damages the anti-discrimination movement. It gives the illusion of progress, when all it actually does is temporarily displace the discrimination. All the new names will eventually become offensive once the associated discrimination catches up with them.
Calling it the “r-word” is an attempt at creating a social taboo, similarly with the “n-word.” Curiously, members of the minority group, at least in this case, are exempt from the social taboo and are “allowed” to refer to themselves with the “n-word.” All this does is further divide people into groups - those to whom the taboo applies, and those who it doesn’t.
All the sensitivity and exclusivity around naming leads to absurd cases such as this.
Please do.
I use the r-word almost every day, but in Italian. It’s printed all over my sheet music! There’re a lot of ritards in music. Interestingly, even though the Italian word is pronounced almost the same as the English (slightly more emphasis on the a, rather than the i, but the Italian i is pronounced like the Engligh e as in “tree”), my professors and teachers pronounce the ‘i’ as in “written,” producing “writ-ard.” Due to its negative connotation in the US, the word is mis-pronounced because of its similarity to the “r-word.”
I’m not saying that I’ll call people retards in polite conversation just out of stubbornness, I’m just trying to call attention to the fact that whether you call someone a “retard” or “intellectually disabled,” they’re still going to be targets of discrimination. Re-naming doesn’t change that. Discrimination is the problem, and is thus what needs to change, not names.
These discussions seem to get kind of off track quickly. The first line of the initial post reads:
It is important to note the use of the word derogatory in this line. This pledge is not asking for the elimination of the everyday use of the words “retard” or “retarded” or to rename a segment of society.
The problem is that, increasingly, there isn’t a non-derogatory use. Can the “n-word” have an everyday, non-derogatory use? Can I just say “this math test is retarded,” without it being derogatory? Even when there is a non-derogatory use, such as in Italian musical language, that word gets changed because “retard” is perceived as derogatory.
It’s re-naming a segment of society in that it is now not-ok to refer to the intellectually disabled as retards. Regardless of how I intend to use the word, it’s perceived as offensive. Every use is derogatory, or is at least perceived as such, which, as John Foss has stated, “what matters [is] the effect it’s having on those offended.”
The pledge asserts that we should no longer use the term “retard,” and instead suggests “intellectually disabled.” How is that not re-naming?
I just don’t see the force in your claim that re-naming isn’t occurring. If I’m just missing it, please explain.
What immediately comes to mind is automobile ignition timing which can be “advanced” or “retarded” and is commonly referred to in this manner. One can “advance” or “retard” one’s timing. Any use of the words “retard” or “retarded” in their common everyday use to mean “to place behind” or “to slow down” are perfectly acceptable. It would be crazy to ban the use of the words themselves, just the derogatory use as Steve quotes in his opening line.
As for the word, “nigger,” I can’t say whether or not it ever had a use other than derogatory. I would agree that it has no known non-derogatory meaning today.
Ah, thanks for the non-derogatory examples. I couldn’t think of any at the time. A friend also suggested that, in physics, one can speak of an object in motion being “retarded,” or slowed down, or other similar such uses.
So, “retard” can refer to various types of motion in mechanical and physical objects. It also can, derogatorily, name a person with an intellectual disability.
I still see no force in your claim that re-naming isn’t happening. Was your previous response intended to be illuminating? I may have missed something, I still don’t see.
If there was ever a benign or non-derogatory use of the word “retarded” in reference to intellectually handicapped people then you are correct that this is a move to re-name a segment of society. I can’t recall that ever being the case. Even 50 years ago when I was a kid, intellectually handicapped people were not openly or publicly referred to as “retarded” by anyone unless it was meant as a slur. If I am wrong about this, and it’s scope is only within my sheltered upbringing, then I agree with you that this name changing will be neither permanent nor appeasing.
I am detecting a chink in some of your arguments.
I think I finally see the force in your (Harper’s) claim. I think my error was based on some misconceptions of my own. I’ll elaborate, but need to do some research and thinking before I can come to a stable, coherent conclusion.
If there are any more criticisms of my argument, please let fly.
I keep asking myself, “Who would support this dumb crap?” When the answer is right in front of me. Retards! That’s who, and not just the kind that make funny noises and drool on themselves but the kind that think people should be hyper-sensitive of WORDS! It simply is not free speech if I can’t use the n-word, r-word, f-word, and any other word I want to freely. I’ll admit, each of these words has a time and place, and any of them being spoken publicly by someone in the presidential cabinet is definitely inappropriate. But campaigning to make everyone aware that we should not use certain words is retarded.
I think you’re right in terms of the words wearing off. But the social experience is changed. Explanation below.
Not at all. By calling attention to use of the word in question, it also calls attention to the problem. In this case, it’s giving some thought to people who are intellectually disabled (or developmentally disabled, or whatever other labeling someone chooses to use). Calling attention to the fact that this is a person, not a joke. Increasing understanding of the situations of other of people; people who’s lives may be very different from yours though not by their choosing.
So by the process of the attempt to re-label, we also provide education about the people suffering from the label.
A joke word some people in the human services industry sometimes called the people they work with was “dislabeled.” This is a play on “disabled” and “labeled”. The point being, labels on groups of people are often unnecessary, or are used poorly. How about just people?
Not in my house. You also won’t likely find that exemption coming from anyone who played a part in the Civil Rights movement.
If you’re using it in context, there’s nothing wrong with that. Some people may need it explained to them. I’m sure the root word is Latin, and is the same in English.
True. But this is more about awareness than anything else, I think. Better awareness, or education, leads to more understanding and less discrimination.
Actually it never was. As far as I know, the word “retarded”, like the words “idiot” and “moron” that came before, were developed by doctors of one sort or another to refer to people with developmental delays. Taking the “ed” off the end was never a polite term for anything. I think the same is true for the n-word. It was only ever meant to be demeaning, and to refer to someone as something less than “human”.
There’s a wide gap between free speech and not being a dick.
How else are you going to know? When you were younger, if you said “f*ck” at the dinner table, somebody nearby probably “made you aware” not to use that word either. Possibly without using any words of their own at all! So a group of people wants to know they don’t like a certain word; one that I used to use a lot too. Not based on a whim, but because it’s a word that used to be applied to people like them by doctors, and they find it demeaning. Wouldn’t you?
Very true, but the character I play on these forums loves being a dick, so expect me to use the r-word frequently until this thing subsides. Fuck has always been viewed as blatantly derogatory term, however, retard evolved from a medical definition into a derogatory term used to describe stupid behavior because retarded people often act in a foolish manner. I don’t fault them for being born the way they were, but that is just the way things are. Being offended by something is a personal choice. Suck it up and find something better to complain about!
Does this mean that “douchetard”, my current favourite road-rage expletive and describer of sponsored riders, is now off the menu as well?
Does it share the same root as “niggardly”?
I’m back!
Oh GILD, how i’ve missed you…