Robby stomped up the purple painted metal stairs up to the top of the playground, his skinny little arms flailing as he ran. When he reached the top of the slide, he sat down and waited; the excitement was tickling him and the anticipation was building. He shot his arms out and shoved off, flying in a whirlwind of giggles down the slide. At the end of the slide, he slid a little too far and fell right off the end. He thumped lightly into the tan sand. He giggled again with delight, his high pitched child’s voice tinkling. Robby looked over to the yellow park bench a few feet away and noticed a young woman playing with a cell phone. Excited to introduce himself the way his mother had taught him, he ran over, his arms still flopping. When Robby reached the woman, he opened his mouth in a wide grin and exclaimed loudly and proudly;
“HI! My name is Robby! I four years old!” The woman looked up from her phone and took in Robby’s squeaky lisp and affected speech, remembered his arms flapping as he ran. Her eyes grazed over him once more before she looked back down at her phone, muttering “retard.”
When the average high school student walks down the hallway and sees someone trip, they constantly hear the word “retarded” or “retard” used as a derogatory. When they themselves spill their Gatorade on their backpack, they state “Geeze, I’m such a frickin’ retard!” What they do not realize is that they what they are saying is not appropriate and does mean what they think it means. This term is callous and uneducated and thousands of people are hurt by its usage every day.
This word used to be a medical term; “Mentally Retarded” meant that the person had intellectual disabilities. This was simply used as a medical term, not meant to be offensive. As time went on, however, the word and it’s meaning were twisted and warped until “Mentally Retarded” was coined as the slang term “Retard”, used to describe the stupidity and ignorance of humanity. The phrase was later changed because it became inaccurate; just because someone has a mental disability, it doesn’t mean they are uneducated or unintelligent. Luckily, there are several organizations already encouraging people to educate others about the R-word and its harm.
The common misconception in society is that the word “retard” just means stupid. But, when people use the word, the message they convey is that the subject of the word is just as stupid as someone with intellectual disabilities. Which is, as stated above, untrue; people with intellectual disabilities are not unintelligent. From the R-word website, www.rword.org, that helps spread the use of the more appropriate term “Intellectually disabled, there are several quotes that explain the subject, including one from Stanford, CA; “ [When people say the r-word] What we mean is that he is as stupid as someone who is mentally handicapped, and we mean that in the most derogatory sense. The implication is that the only characteristic of mentally handicapped individuals is their stupidity.” – Crystal
The word hurts the deepest when it is used to insult someone with intellectual disabilities, Also connected to R-word.org, the Special Olympics, a sports group for the intellectually disabled, helps make the lives of many disabled people a more fun and tolerant experience. But some of them still have emotional scars from when The R-word was used to insult them personally, instead of inadvertently. Joseph Franklin Stephens, a Special Olympian from Virginia, Stated the following about his own experience on Rword.org:
“It hurts and scares me when I am the only person with intellectual disabilities on the bus and young people start making “retard” jokes or references. Please put yourself on that bus and fill the bus with people who are different from you. Imagine that they start making jokes using a term that describes you. It hurts and it is scary.”
A word that can bring out such pain and fright in another person simply should not be allowed. The R-word is simply damaging, painful, hateful, and brutal whenever it is uttered. Even if the word is not directed specifically at an intellectually disabled person, it still makes perverse comparisons that is, in itself, and act of cruelty. Join the movement, educated your friends and acquaintances about the harms this word cause. Join at www.rword.org or just simply teach others the true meaning of the most despicable insult one can ever utter.
Sources: www.rword.org
