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THE QUESTION
Ban the R-word?
Advocacy groups for people with intellectual disabilities are campaigning to end use of the word 'retard' or 'retarded.' What do you think of their initiative?
Posted by
Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham on February 16, 2010 10:25 AM
FROM THE PANEL
End discrimination against all God's children
Americans too often worry more about what we call people than how we treat them. The term "retarded" has outlived any usefulness, having turned into an insult, but the more important problem is how we treat differences in mental acuity.
Posted by John Mark Reynolds, on February 19, 2010 3:35 PM
Making sure our speech is politically correct
Wanting to stop people from saying things that can be perceived as offensive is, conceptually speaking, a good and noble idea that helps on some levels, but it also leads to more problems in the end.
Posted by Ramdas Lamb, on February 18, 2010 1:51 PM
The strangeness of political correctness
Whether these children will be called "intellectually challenged" or simply "angels," the meaning will stay, and if there is any emotion connected to the term, that will also stay. Using new words will possibly allow a lot more people to be offended; but otherwise, nobody will derive much good from the change.
Posted by Adin Steinsaltz, on February 18, 2010 11:28 AM
The intent behind the words
Valiant groups protecting the rights of the mentally disabled are right to agitate for the ownership of their appellation. The R-word has pejorative connotations--our society killed the word, and we must let it die. Words matter, but intent matters even more.
Posted by Aseem Shukla, on February 18, 2010 12:16 AM
End the hypocrisy that words don't matter
The hypocrisy of people in the conservative movement jumping on this particular bandwagon about retardation to make political capital, while having ridiculed and damned such efforts in linguistic transformation before, is frankly, intolerable.
Posted by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, on February 17, 2010 9:07 AM
Sticks and stones
I think "mentally retarded" is a good description of a human deficit, but it's become unacceptable through misuse as a pejorative toward those not mentally retarded. I would like to continue using the term, but only if people would refrain from using it on their spouses or anyone else they're mad at. That's what demeans the term.
Posted by Herb Silverman, on February 16, 2010 4:08 PM
Changing words won't change attitudes
We don't need linguistic censorship. We need to combine honest talk about the real challenges and pains presented by mental retardation with the genuine awareness that however severe they may be, they do not tell the full story of another human being.
Posted by Brad Hirschfield, on February 16, 2010 3:18 PM
Mentally disabled, morally gifted
I have a Down Syndrome brother and so am sensitive to the use of the pejorative word "retard" or "retarded." It has been my experience that Down Syndrome people lack one of the most common traits found in "normal" people. And that is guile.
Posted by Cal Thomas, on February 16, 2010 3:11 PM
Our violent vocabularies
There are worse manifestations of violence in language than "retard". Even in sport we talk about the need to develop the "killer instinct," we encourage our team to "destroy" the other and so on.
Posted by Arun Gandhi, on February 16, 2010 3:05 PM
Use insults only to insult
As a writer and a civil libertarian, I'm not crazy about movements to "ban" words; terms that are considered offensive tend to go out of use as soon as they are considered offensive by enough people.
Posted by Susan Jacoby, on February 16, 2010 3:01 PM
What words mean and how they feel
Perhaps those who are "challenged" in various ways in their mental development (Aren't we all in some way?!) may one day join together and claim the word proudly the way groups have taken formerly pejorative words like queer, Methodist, Mormon, Hoosier, and Quaker and worn the sobriquet proudly.
Posted by Max Carter, on February 16, 2010 2:30 PM
Save & Share:
gulerb: Using the R-word not only hurts those with the disability but it hurts the parents who do their best to raise children with self esteem, con...
angelchica251: In my case, its not the word thats offensive, it HOW people USE the word. Because in school, I hear all these people calling eachother "Reta...
edbyronadams:
Retard as a noun is pejorative and should not be used by people with any compassion toward others. Retarded as an adjective seems perfectl...
