Sticks & Stones ...
On the word retard ...
I would not have thought this would be the first commentary I would add to this section of the site. It has just been unavoidable lately ...
My daughter really wanted to go see “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory”... she loves Willy Wonka .. Then I get an e-mail pointing out the quote by the character Mike “Even a retard could figure that out” ... It would be nice if the folks at Warner Brothers wouldn’t take it upon themselves to teach my daughter that her brother is inferior to the rest of us.
This issue had already returned to my consciousness as of late after I was pointed to an episode of VH1’s surreal life where to quote the VH1 site ... Janice crosses the line over and over again, revealing her wild child side to the rest of the cast and the Sunshine Strikers prove to be formidable opponents. (i.e. calling a spec. ed. bowling team “retards” over and over again on VH1...) .. Followed by the fact that after I was ranting about Chocolate Factory issue it was pointed out to me that the Black Eyed Peas single “Let’s Get Started” on the album is actually “Let’s Get Retarded” .. great lyric to look up if you want to see some deep poetry. ...
After dealing with all this I was pretty steamed so I just started googling some things .. try google with just the word “retard” ... etc. My discovery was like unlike other insults that link to a minority group “retard” as a derogatory is pretty much a commonly accepted part of our language.
What it shows is that we as a culture haven’t grown enough to stop demeaning & dehumanizing people ... unless that group carry’s the political clout to make us stop.
If you google something like “retard politically correct” ... you will see all sorts of arguments for why dehumanizing others is acceptable and anybody who thinks it is not is a Fascist or Communist (the irony of this is not lost on me) ... one of the main arguments being “well they are retarded” .. or “retard is an accepted medical term” or “they don’t care” or “they wouldn’t understand” ..
You might say that I am too close .. get a thicker skin etc. I hope that the following argument can help show why at times voluntarily changing our language is not negative political correctness but a positive choice. A choice that we have the humility to realize that we are not qualified to judge which humans are more important than others.
• When somebody calls someone a “retard” as a derogatory insult ..
they are using the word to mean ... “you are like somebody who has Downe’s Syndrome, Severe Autism etc. (any number of conditions that would cause a low measurable IQ)”
• In that case it follows that being somebody (to take my example) with Downe’s Syndrome, or Severe autism is inferior. .. a condition to be metaphorically applied onto others when you want to insult them.
• Human beings have a long history of viewing other human beings as inferior in some way. It builds our fragile egos to be able to point at somebody we are better than.
• As one would expect being regarded as inferior has been extreme problem for people dealing with Autism, Downe’s syndrome etc... One can point to extreme examples like Nazi Germany .. but I find even in my everyday existence I constantly find people who view Andrew as inferior .. This does not only apply to people who deal with Andrew negatively .. I have dealt with plenty of people who have attempted to help Andrew who have viewed him more like a pet (for a lack of a better comparison) than a person ... I met far more of these people when Andrew was younger (autistic kids are easier to deal with as cute cuddly little kids) ...
Even members of my own extended family when push comes to shove have viewed Andrew’s welfare as less important than my other children.
• One of the most important lessons Andrew has taught me has been to really point out “who are we to judge” .. yet we do .. we judge the relative importance of one person over another all the time ... Of the large number of people who will agree that we have a societal obligation to help people dealing with the immense struggle of severe autism, etc. How many of those people, even, regard the people they are willing to help as equals? Andrew in many ways is much better person than I will ever be .. he has taught me so much about the importance of life, the understanding of joy and sorrow .. and many more priceless things .. he has shaped who I am (in a positive way) more than any person I know ..
• Every time professionals have picked words to classify people with a low measurable intelligence society picks up those words to use as insults ... imbecile, idiot, mongoloid, retard .. etc. One unintended good consequence of current nomenclature is that as our terms grow and grow they are getting too long to use in casual conversation ... I don’t think “developmentally disabled” will roll off the tongue the same way ...
• The word is just a symptom. I have no desire to tread on peoples free speech. I have a desire for my son to be regarded as a human being - not some sort of inferior sub human who I should be thankful that society tolerates at all. People are free to say what they want but when they say things that expose a perception of my son as inferior they should expect that I will defend that my son is just as valuable a person as they will ever be.
John
