Why is retarded not politically correct

I do catch myself say it from time to time, but I think it is when I hear it. I just revert to old bad habits.

Every time. But from time to time, I catch myself repeating it. You just have to WANT to change. My family finds the term offense, because it is generally used in a negative connotation — even if the person using it does not intentionally mean to insult someone personally.

Many have used it in the past without realizing it is discriminatory, but when most people have a child or other family member with a intellectual disability, it hits home and we realize how hurtful it is to the individual and their family and friends. It is insulting and falls into the same category as racial slurs — we may have grown up not realizing how very inappropriate and hurtful they were to use, but as a society most of us have come to understand how unacceptable they are in a civilized world.

I urge folks to think a little more about the effect before they throw the word around carelessly. As parents we need to set a better example for our children, including putting a stop to bullying in our schools and communities. No child deserves to be bullied. And, keep up the good work Noah. I have written before regarding my sons disability which includes skeletal problems,retardation, several deformities which he was born with but had surgeries to correct them or make less noticable.

He does the flapping with his arms and is non-verbal. I took him out to a restaraunt once when he was maybe 4 or 5 yrs. That was such a blow to my mom and aunt and myself.

Just then i realized how ignorant or uneducated people are regarding disabilities. All i could do was pray for that couple that God would show them the light. It was hurtful to say the least. Since then, when my son is with me,and people stare or point I just smile.

My sons name is AJ and he is 25 now:. I was so glad to read this post on your blog. I am a recent college graduate so no children in my life yet. The reason I so passionately follow your blog is because of my huge involvement in Best Buddies International while I was in college including being on the student board. I am always inspired by your stories. God bless! Thankfully, my mom taught me not to use that word when I was a kid.

She told me that it was a derogatory term. I hate the r word. I was non verbal until age 4, and semi non verbal until almost age 6, and predicted originally that I would probably never speak, and then that I would probably never exceed the mental capacity of a 10 to 11 year old. Words in general, need to be used more carefully. Words have meaning and can be used to hurt or love, to build up, or tear down, to build bridges, or burn them.

This is a moving article. Like you, I have uttered those cruel words. Though at the time I never thought of them as hate words. I was a kid and of course I never said it in front o my mom. From the time I was 21 till earlier this year i am 40 now I had the honor and privilege to work with the mentally and physically disabled. From babies to way into adulthood.

My language and my focused changed. I hate the R word. On outing with my participants I would get so angry at the stares people would give. But in the end I would realize you change others by example.

So by laughing with my participants, talking to the, showing the world. Noah is a lucky little guy to have you in his corner. May God continue to bless you and your family. Thanks so much for posting this! Since beginning volunteer work with disabled children and starting my studies as an occupational therapist, I picked up on just how often I used the word and made a conscious effort to stop. I admit that it was harder than I thought it would be- it seems to have somehow been ingrained into our societies everyday vocabulary and needs to be stopped.

Also, thanks so much for starting up this website- I only just stumbled across it, doing some research for a study on DS. No, simply because I never use it about people except spammers and negative trolls. So sue me. I thought you would like to know that the R word is used on p. As this book is used as a textbook in studies for sociology, economics, and business degrees the book has a wide audience. You might like to contact the author and the publisher about the insult and harm caused by using the offensive word.

Could someone help? Any suggestions welcome. I have a family member whose sister is handicapped and it seems everyone says the R word at some point, so they started using a made up word in its place…redumbtious.

You never know, you may actually mess up and say it in front of a special person and hurt their feelings without meaning to. Thank you for trying to inform people of using derogatory speech.

I have spent my life with people with disabilities. My sisters were born retarded. Then we started saying, our sisters have retardation.

Always remember it is the person first not the label. Do not use any speech in a derogatory way. Remember the word we say is hateful was used to obtain government funds, education, employment, housing, recreation. Always be repectful and grateful to God for what you have and who you are. Rick, you might want to do something on people first language next. Any grown person who acts like an adult should know not to use the word anyway. She locked me in the toilet cubicle and sat me on the loo she was in there with me.

I actually pooped. Amy was really mean. She may have not been taught correctly. My son has as friend with narcissistic personality syndrome. He is not retarded. He understands his diagnosis. And he understands narcissist is only really ever used in a derogatory way.

The problem is, when I call someone retarded. I fucking mean it. I mean their actions were so stupid, even though they are normally mentally abled, that they acted in a way I would expect a retarded person to act. I mean not offense to the mentally disabled. I am no insulting them for being who they are, which they can not help.

I am insulting someone for being an incredibly stupid version of themselves. If we were to replace retarded with another word? Soon people would know this word meant retarded… and people would call for its use to be stopped. It happened with cretin, moron, dummy etc. Oh yeh of the family of people with a mental disability. We feel for you, your lack of never again to have a normal life, for all the challenges you will face. But you are buthurt out of some idea that you think by using the word retarded as its now commonly used that somehow we are disrespecting or disregarding the worth of the life of your so afflicted family member and thats just not true.

I have no reason to mourn my future. Having a child with down syndrome is nothing but a blessing the thing I will mourn is my children having to grow up in a world with people like you. A blessing? What a silly thing to say. Your child has down syndrome because of bad luck. When it was first developing there was a mix up in its chromosomes and that was that.

Is no blessing, there was no intervention by a higher power to give you a genetically damaged child… what… as a blessing, a reward for something? If you wish to talk to your imaginary friend? Go for it. If it gets your through the day then fine. I am sure your days are busy enough as they are and you need every moment for yourself. I find your passive aggressive reference of praying for me as if you are better than me because you believe in a magic sky fairy, deeply offensive. Please educate yourself on the movement to stop this nonsensical behavior.

Plenty of sources. Actually yes I would feel blessed if I had 2 more children with Down syndrome I could have and still feel blessed. I get plenty of time for myself. My child requires no more attention and has no more needs then my child without syndrome. They require the same care it just takes my son a little longer to learn…so what? He learns everything you and I do and is capable of doing the same things. It just takes him longer. It sounds like you have a high functioning child with DS?

Lucky for you. What if you your next two required multiple spinal fusions, other operations and insulin injections? What if they had super low intelligence that could never talk, and barely walk? Maybe he can learn what you can. I cant comment on your intelligence. I love my children too and had I one with DS? I would love him or her too. But I would not consider myself or them lucky, or blessed. It would just be what it was. Tell me. If you suffered a catastrophic head injury in a car accident, which also effected your site, hearing, reduced your likely lifespan by 20 years, damaged your spin and disfigured you so people could see you were mentally disabled etc etc.

Would you consider this lucky? You could of course… it might well be lucky you are not dead. And if you feel so lucky having a mentally disabled child, why would you care if people used the word retarded?

How can it matter, its YOU who are lucky after all, not them? From what I can see your contribution to this conversation is nothing more than calling people names. Nothing of intelligence, no considered thoughts. Excuse me, everybody is entitled to their own beliefs! If jaci says she will pray for you she says it in all seriousness. If you wish to despise others for their beliefs then do it elsewhere thankyou.

Hi, this is a wonderful article and I understand where everyone is coming from. But there is no reason for it to be an offensive term. It is a legitimate word with no offensive meaning. It is slow brain development. Think of other words. They all come from words that used to be normal and appropriate but due to misuse are now inappropriate.

Please understand that the actual meaning of this word is professional. Not derogatory. When someone uses that word as a derogatory term, instead of being insulted, you should think of their ignorance and educate them on what the word really means.

The word retarded was used in diagnosis when she was diagnosed. There is also the Association of Retarded Citizens which offers many programs for them. I think that it is all in the way the word is used that makes the difference. It is still used to describe the people affected by this condition. I do not use the word to describe her except in medical terms. She is retarded in her mental abilities but not in her love for people. Let me ask you something. How many of you are vegetarians or more preferably vegans?

I bet none of you, maybe But I call really stupid people this way, people that have no disability and have full control of what they do, and what they are. Bad people, people who just ruin life of the others. I know what retardation is.

Wanna ban that word too? Cos you can insult someone with that? Or do you wanna do nice things for them? Call them nice names? Fake humanity is what is killing us.

Bad people should be punished. If I swear sometimes, so what? And comparing the N word to R word is just ridiculous. If we don't have guidelines educating people about what is ok, people will continue to use these offensive words.

Sorry, but this is not going to work. Because, as one writer already pointed out, she doesn't consider herself disabled. Disability will offend some people, handicapped will offend others, retarded will offend one group, etc.

You cannot please everyone, and it is for sure you ARE going to offend someone. I agree with your campain of stopping the use of the R word. I, too, am also active in it. My partner and I are passing out green bracelets that say "Stop using the R word". Keep up the good work. Well done on getting your college degree!! I'm sorry you're made to feel less intelligent than others.

Don't give up, and prove to others that people with disabilities can be just as successful as anyone else. I am disabled because of a head injury I am not retarded, I just have severe memory problems and physical pain because my body and nervous system shut down while in a coma for 5 months.

I got a college degree afterwards,2 year took 4. I still am made to feel less intelligent than others, It hurts!!! Thanks for pointing that out Amalthea. It's really important to realise that people with disabilities are not all the same they are often referred to as "the disabled" as though they are one group but they have individual preferences and choices that we need to respect.

Thanks for your input, Nick. I find that when I talk to people about appropriate language to use, I am often accused of being too politically correct, over-sensitive, etc.

Thank you for your comment. Well, one interesting thing with this Hub is that it shows how important it is to be able to communicate accurately. This is vital and something that is probably in danger now as people read less and become less and less articulate. A thought provoking Blog which I thought was going to be horribly 'politically correct' - and yet it is really about linguistic precision. How can anyone have a problem with that? I appreciate the sentiment, but some of the assertions you make are not quite as general as you may think.

For example, just like the Deaf community, many of us with autism spectrum diagnoses prefer "autistic". I don't like being refereed to as a "person with autism" any more than I'd like being called a "person with femaleness". Person-first language is generally a good pattern to default to when you're not sure what language the person you're describing prefers, but the truly respectful thing to do is to call people what THEY want to be called, whether that's the "correct" thing or not.

Those are all really valid points! As a person with a mental health diagnosis, I never considered myself to have a disability, but the more I think about it, maybe I do! I guess it's good to have guidelines, but at the same time be aware of individual needs as well where possible. And of course, there's the whole argument that the word "disability" shouldn't be used at all, that people should be called "differently-abled. I'll be the first to say that politically correct language can be a pain in the butt BUT it really is valuable.

Our language helps define the way we think about things and people. Redefining our terminology forces us to redefine the people that we describe with the terminology. I sometimes wonder When will people realize how precious our Downs community is, and how much they have to teach the rest of us about loving kindness,. OMG that's so annoying. People will speak about other people as they see fit, and that is that. We are all judged on how we communicate, no laws are necessary for this age old ritual.

Please Share shares. So here we go. And the weariness easily switches to wariness. Like, nervousness about saying something offensive. Identify-first is: deaf person, blind person, disabled person. Then you get the really fun stuff: Archaic Words! What if you forget? What if you never knew? Oh, you monster.

Mr Tard Monday 26th of July Kerr Avon Friday 23rd of April Anonymous Wednesday 16th of June Guest Saturday 16th of January Just look how very retarded Jesus was, and still is today. Red Tuesday 18th of August