DEAR AMY: My family is not sure what to say to people who routinely use the word “retard” or “retarded” to mean someone or something is stupid. The term is offensive and ignorant, especially to those who have family members, friends or other people they care about with Down syndrome.
My children frequently come across other children using this term and, worse, it’s often the parents who are teaching them this through their own misuse of the word. At times my children will tell their friends that we don’t say that in our home and that we prefer that they don’t either. But how do we handle it when we hear it come from the mouths of adults?
We have a family member with Down syndrome who happens to be the greatest blessing and is by no means “stupid.” If people think in terms of replacing “retarded” with any other term such as those based on ethnicity, sex, body size, race, etc., they may view using the term differently. — Stumped for what to say in Illinois
DEAR STUMPED: I have noticed an uptick in the use of this word lately — which is thrown about, usually jokingly — and which I agree is insensitive and offensive. I trace some of this back to a “Saturday Night Live” skit that seemed to put this word back in play after a period of dormancy.
You don’t have to have a family member with Down syndrome to ban the use of this offensive word in your home, and you shouldn’t have to explain the context when telling people that you find this word objectionable.
I like what your children say when other kids use this word, and think you could take a cue from them when dealing with adults. You can say, “I really object to the use of that word and I wish you wouldn’t say it in front of me.”
N.C. Autistic Boy, Mom Kicked Off American Eagle Plane
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,371601,00.html
A 2 1/2-year-old autistic North Carolina boy and his mother were kicked off an American Eagle flight taxiing to a Raleigh-Durham Airport Monday after the crew deemed the child “uncontrollable,” WTVD reported.
“If they just would have been a little more understanding I think that none of this would have been a problem,” the boy’s mother, Janice Farrell, told the station, adding that the flight attendant made things worse.
“She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, ‘This has to stay tight.’ And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him.”
Farrell said she was doing everything to keep her son calm, but after one of the pilots came back to the cabin and gave her and her son, Jarrett, a stern warning, the situation got worst.
“The pilot made an announcement that there was a woman and her child on the plane and the child is uncontrollable,” as he was turning the plane around, Farrell said.
A representative for American Airlines, the parent company of American Eagle, apologized to Farrell when she called, but a spokesman for the company told WTVD a different story.
He said Farrell was not “complying with FAA regulations” and “this was the right decision,” explaining she wouldn’t put her bag in the overhead compartment.
I love that commercial on TV where the cavemen are offended because we (society) have stereotyped them as stupid, dumb, slow – whatever you want to call it. I laugh every time I see one of the different scenarios they have come up with, especially the one where the caveman is walking on the moving sidewalk at the airport and sees the ad on the wall, turns around to look at it again and just makes a resigned face.
For years (since the 1980s?), we’ve been bombarded with the “PC” way of saying things, and I, like most others, have tried to abide by the ever-changing rules that different groups have come up with for addressing them. For example, as I was growing up, someone of the dark-skinned race was called “colored,” then they wanted to be called Negro, then “black,” even though I’ve never seen any person whose skin was truly black – they’re really many shades of brown.
Now they are called African-Americans, although I doubt that even 1 percent of them have ever been to Africa. I recently found out that my original ancestors are from South Africa, but I have light skin from a set of white (pink?) parents. Should I now call myself an African-American or a pink woman?
I have a beautiful young niece from Korea who was adopted by my sister and her husband when she was just a toddler. She is now 24, and has been taught by her parents to ignore the stares and hateful comments they received when she was smaller because she was a child of Asian descent with very pink parents.
As my niece grew out of the toddler stage, her parents realized that she had some learning disabilities, and it turns out that my beautiful niece is, to use the most common term, mentally retarded. As a young adult, she knows she’s “special” and has limitations in her life that restrict her from doing what other girls her age do – like getting married, driving a car or living alone. She excels at what she can do, and for several years has been very involved in Special Olympics and has a room full of medals and ribbons.
(If you’ve never attended a Special Olympics event, you’ve missed out on the thrill of a lifetime. The participants overcome some of the most insurmountable obstacles to compete, and the pure joy on their faces when they receive their medal or ribbon can’t be touched by anything else I’ve ever seen.)
What breaks my heart, though, is how people use words like “retards” and variations of this word in rude, thoughtless phrases in their daily conversations. I have heard college graduates – not that that makes them any more intelligent, just a little more educated – using the phrase “you’re retarded!” to friends, just as a comeback. I recently heard a friend who was exasperated at a driver in traffic refer to him as a “retard.”
Folks, this kind of language is unacceptable. Whether you do it as a habit or without thinking, it is painful and offensive to … actually, everyone, but especially to a person with learning disabilities.
In the early days of my niece’s “illness,” we referred to it as “M.R.” if it had to be talked about. I’ve heard many terms over the years that different people used to describe someone with mental disabilities, and the one I like best is “intellectual disability.”
My sister works with adults with intellectual disabilities of varying degrees, and I’ve gone to some of their parties and outings. Some were born that way, others had strokes or accidents that incapacitated them. All are humans with feelings, and who express pain, joy, sadness and love.
If you will change just one thing in your speech patterns, I would ask that you never, ever, refer to anyone, under any circumstances, as a “retard” or as “retarded.” That is as offensive as using the “N” word or any other vulgar, politically incorrect word. I thank you for being compassionate enough to do that.
Elouise Plain of Plano works as software support staff and is a Community Voices volunteer columnist. Her e-mail address is .
Alex and Trish Freid, of Lysander, have a message for the world: Stop using the “r”-word – retarded.
And they’re using the Internet to send this message. The couple set up a MySpace page for their 14-month-old son, Nathan, who has Down syndrome. They’re using his page to educate people about how hurtful the r-word can be even when it’s not used as a taunt. And if people agree to stop using it, they can sign up to be one of Nathan’s MySpace “friends.”
So far, 95 people have signed up.
“Nathan, you are the cutest baby ever and my family and I want to abolish the R word too!” wrote Kelseyy, one of Nathan’s new friends.
The Freids, who also have two daughters, acknowledge they used the r-word casually to mean stupid or goofy before they understood firsthand how hurtful it can be. They launched their effort on the social networking site MySpace, figuring they’d have the most influence on younger people.
“Kind of what we’re trying to do is put a face to it,” Trish Freid says.
Alex Freid says he’ll say something if a friend or acquaintance repeatedly uses the word. And he e-mailed Dane Cook, star of “Good Luck Chuck,” after he heard the word used in the movie.
“Morally and ethically, I would hope that you would see how this word could be very hurtful to a group of people who definitely don’t deserve the ridicule,” Freid wrote in the e-mail.
Shari Bottego, president of the 180-member Down Syndrome Association of Central New York, says the problem is the word’s negative connotation.
“The word itself means slow, but it’s always used in a derogatory sense,” she says. “Why go negative?”
Arc of Onondaga started as the Association for Retarded Children when it opened in 1951, but the agency later changed its name to Association for Retarded Citizens and then dropped the acronym altogether about 10 years ago, says Mike Kieloch, marketing and communications specialist.
Kieloch says the agency is committed to using language that puts the person first, before the disability (see box).
“We support language that recognizes them as a person,” he says.
It is really fascinating to follow the links of those who have visited The ‘r’ Word site and who want to make fun of it. It is obvious they have not set down with a person with disabilities and tried to get to know them. From their posts they see people with disabilities as objects rather than people who have feelings and are full of life.
They talk about their right to belittle people with disabilities by using the “r” word and see nothing wrong with that. They do not grasp that this issue is about respect for other human beings. They can not see that making fun of someone by using words that hurt is wrong. After all, its only a joke, right?
They also do not see where this line of thinking is leading them.
The First Rung: Speech — Its fun to talk bad about or make fun of those who are not like us.
The Second Rung: Avoidance — Lets shun them, ignore them. They are not like us and we are better than them. Surely if we ignore them, they do not exist.
The Third Rung: Discrimination — We don’t want them around here. We will make them leave, or at least not live next to us. We will make them live away from us in a place befitting them — like institutions, or group homes away from our community, not in our own backyards.
The Fourth Rung: Physical Attack — Lets taunt them, pick on them and if there is enough of us, hurt them. And if no one is looking or cares…
Reality TV World: I’m assuming you’ve already been made aware of this since you left the house last night, but that comment sparked a strong reaction outside the house. What’s your reaction been to learning of all the viewer complaints, some autism organizations like Autism United calling for the show’s cancellation and United Autism distancing itself from you?
Adam: I didn’t hear much about it. I just got out of the house yesterday. But I heard there was a HUGE response to it. But it’s not my person to do anything like that. For people to even think that I would be talking bad or putting down — I don’t even understand how it got to such a level.
Reality TV World: What would you say to those critical of you for calling children with autism “retards?” Are you apologetic?
Adam: Do I apologize? Yes I apologize! I mean it had to be a Freudian slip because that word’s usually never in my vocabulary — especially with the job I was doing, and ultimate, it did cost me my position.
Reality TV World: Okay, so the comment cost you your position with United Autism?
Adam: I’m not sure about that right now. I don’t know what’s going on with that, but that thought ran through my mind. That’s why I brought the topic up, I don’t know. But just hearing now all this impact that it could have had, obviously you have to question that yourself. But no, I don’t know what my position is right now.
Reality TV World: In light of what you’ve learned since last night, do you still plan to stand by your pledge to donate $100,000 of your $500,000 winnings to United Autism?
Adam: Would I do it right now? Yes. Eventually I would like to sit down with the families in the foundation and see what can go about. It’s a huge tax break, so I have to figure out what I feel. Is it worth it for me to give up the money? Of course I’m going to give some of the money to charity. Of course I’m going to follow through with my word. The matter of what I’m going to do with that money now, I still have to figure those things out.
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“The “R” word will NOT be used in our household as a way of degrading oneself or someone else. We are educating our children now, in hopes that they will educate their friends… so many kids today STILL use this word in the wrong way. Kids who will one day go to school with Kennedy are hearing it right now from their parents. They’re passing down prejudice, whether they mean to or not. This friend in California is showing that it’s ok to make fun of people with Down syndrome… whether he realizes it or not. And it’s NOT ok. It’s just not.”