[nabs-l] Using the word retard

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Marc,

Well said, and I agree. And it's not about eliminating a word, but it's
about eliminating negative conotations currently associated with a word.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 5
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:52:27 -0800
From: Marc Workman <mworkman.lists at gmail.com>
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
	<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Using the word retard
Message-ID: <A69229BF-0E55-4DB7-9BFB-0DF84517CBE3 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Carly wrote,
       I often imagine people of so called minorities, being the ones
who decide how it is that they would like to be referred.

This, I think, is meant to imply that people who have traditionally been
labelled "retarded" prefer to be referred to in this way.  I'm really
not sure this is true.  If there is evidence of this, I'd be interested.
I do know that there were some pretty widespread protests against the
use of the word "retarded" in the movie Tropic Thunder.  A quick Google
search will provide a lot of news coverage on this.  My understanding is
that, though not everyone agreed with the criticisms, there was a pretty
broad-based coalition of groups representing intellectually disabled
people that came together to protest the film.

I'm all for reclaiming words, and I much prefer blind and disabled to
terms like sight impaired and differently-abled.  But some labels are
outdated and based on very negative attitudes and need to be retired.
I'm not handicapped, I'm not crippled, I'm not a person with special
needs, the last of these being the one I dislike the most.  It's one
thing for gay people to reclaim the label "queer", but that doesn't mean
that, if one person is fine with being called a "fag", this is suddenly
an acceptable word, and we shouldn't discourage it's use.

So what I'm wondering is if the label "retard" is like the word "queer"
or "blind", if there is an actual effort to reclaim it and change what
it means, or if it's closer to the word "fag" in my example above, a
word that perhaps you and a few others are happy to identify with, but
one that the vast majority of people who are sattled with that label
reject.  The evidence I have points to the latter, but I'm prepared to
revise my opinion based on new evidence.

In either case, Bridgit's right to point out that most of the time that
"retarded" is used, e.g., that movie was retarded, my computer is being
retarded, the word is not meant to refer to slowed down or unusual
cognitive capacities.  I would hope that, at the very least, we can
agree that kids calling each other, along with everything else under the
sun, retarded is inappropriate and should be discouraged.

Regards,

Marc