There’s a web campaign I noticed today that is trying to end using the word “retard” as a pejorative.
Several of my friends shared it because today (March 5th) is their awareness day. I am not here to somehow defend the use of the word or to crap all over the people organizing the campaign, though. I am here to share an embarrassing story of mine as a show of support for this. While I generally don’t mind insulting someone for things like their religion, personal habits, annoying Facebook activities, and a myriad of other criteria they all pretty much have a single thing in common:
You can choose to do or not do any of those things.
Granted, some people have addictions or mental illnesses, and I understand that. But most people choose (consciously or otherwise) to continually use hashtags or pick their noses in public. Someone who falls under the category that the word “retard” used to cover did not ask to be born like that. You’ll probably find that a lot of the things I get super up-in-arms about boil down to that or, at least, are nuanced enough to be in the same vein. Note that I said, “used to cover,” there – that’s because it’s a word that shouldn’t be used to corral all kinds of disabilities together.
My story is this:
After moving to Long Beach, California earlier in my life I started to get more exposure to gay people. While I considered myself a supporter of gay rights I never involved myself in any way and I used to call things “gay” all of the time. “Oh, that shirt is so gay,” and etc. Within some time, my friends started to tell me that while they appreciated me arguing for them with people on the internet and such, that my continual use of the word in a pejorative way was confusing. Initially, I responded in the way that most social Conservatives respond to that sort of thing – “Why are you being so sensitive?” “It’s just a word,” “I hate politically correct language,” “I’ve got all these gay friends so I can’t be a homophobe.”
Of course, in time, I realized how undeveloped and puerile those points of view are. I developed a simple way to weed it out of my vocabulary. Whenever I called something “gay” I would also say, “as in bad.” (To this day, if I slip and call something gay, you’ll hear me add it.) That probably sounds counterproductive but what it did was put it at the forefront of my mind. “This traffic is so gay… as in bad.” “What did that guy do? Wow, that was gay… as in bad.” and so on. It did not take very long for me to realize how stupid and mean I sounded.
It’s tough for me to specifically point out what people are using “retarded” for and to help develop ways to stop people from using it negatively. However, the picture I attached to this story is an example of what I mean. Campaigns like the one I mentioned are great starts and are making good progress. Calling people out for it also works if you’re thick-skinned enough to deal with the kind of dolt who would call something retarded.
If you’re someone who is mature enough to realize you shouldn’t be calling things retarded, or labeling someone some sort of “-tard” yet don’t have the self-control or vocabulary to weed it out, try to find something like I did. When you use it derogatorily like that, you’re implying that there’s something “bad” about having a developmental disorder.
Come to think of it, maybe replacing “retarded” with some of my criteria above or something may be worthwhile. “What are you doing? You’re acting like such a Catholic right now.” “Dude, stop saying that, you sound hashtaggy.” “You just went full nose-picker. Never go full nose-picker.”