Stop the R Word

My son is developmentally disabled.

Every time I hear the word “retard” or see it, or hear someone flippantly refer to something they dislike as “retarded” I wince inside because it stabs me. I have some younger relatives who use it as a default insult word, and I guess this is my passive-aggressive way to ask them to stop.

Stop saying retard.

Stop saying “ur so retarded!” in Facebook comments.

Eliminate the word as an insult from your vocabulary.

Please.

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Stop using the r-word.

11 thoughts on “Stop the R Word

  1. This makes me so angry, too. My nieces (who have a sister with Down syndrome) say this, and it makes me want to abandon my gentle disciple beliefs and smack them both.

  2. i agree. a blog i read and love recently used it so blatantly for a laugh that i can’t read it anymore.

  3. I am developmentally disabled and I’ve been called the r word too and I agree it needs to stop, I mean we’re people too!!!

  4. right on, The N (teen channel) runs an awesome commercial (I think it was produced by the canadian version of the ad council) explaining why using “gay” as an insult is wrong and I think someone really needs to do something similar for retard(ed).

    I myself used to be guilty of doing it, and wasn’t really aware of it until I worked in a group home with disabled adults, some of which were mentally retarded, and it really isn’t a great descriptor/replacement for stupid, because some of the mentally retarded people I worked with said some of the smartest, insightful things ever and seemed more intelligent then “normal” people I knew.

  5. I think that instead we should stop using the word “retarded” to refer to mentally challenged people. Then when using it as an insult it won’t be connected to that meaning.

    Ironically the word “retarded” was originally used as a euphemism and people advocated that people use that word instead of words like “idiot”, “moron”, or “imbecile”, which back then actually had clinical definitions. Nobody considers these three words offensive anymore because nobody uses them to mean someone is mentally challenged.

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