Comments on: Ableist Word Profile: Retarded

By: AWV

AWV — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:01:43 +0000

I’m fond of Dan Savage but I thought he was being a jerk in that column.

In terms of calling people retarded as a neutral term for their disability, I want to say it’s a regional thing, but I’m not even sure that’s true. Where I go to school in Ohio, the organizations for developmentally disabled people are usually called Mental Retardation and Developmental Disability. I also met a kid from Boston who said, “My sister is retarded.” In New York they usually say intellectual disability; organizations like the AHRC don’t spell out their acronym anywhere on their website, because it contains a word that they now consider offensive.

I wish it was okay to use the word retarded to describe people who have intellectual disabilities, because then when someone says “Zombieland was retarded” you can just say, “I have friends who are retarded and they’re not anything like Zombieland.” But it’s a pretty harsh word at this point and I understand intellectually disabled people just don’t want to be associated with it anymore.

I don’t like when people us developmental disability as a substitute for ID/MR, because DD covers more ground than ID/MR. I have a developmental disability and I’m not intellectually disabled. In addition to autism, I’m pretty sure cerebral palsy is also considered a developmental disability, so when people say “developmentally disabled” to mean intellectual disability/MR, I feel like they’re erasing people with ASD and CP.

By: siwangmu

siwangmu — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:08:12 +0000

Not sure if this will be helpful to anyone else, but when the internet started infiltrating my brain and I found myself, to my horror, starting to reach for this word in the “That’s ___” sense (like “that plot-twist was completely ____”) I was able to fairly easily switch it out for “ridiculous.” It’s a slangy usage, since sometimes I just think it’s terrible and not particularly funny, but I like it, because “worthy of ridicule” is usually close to what I mean in that situation, anyway.

Bonus: You have an entire syllable to catch yourself and switch!
Effort required: practically none.
Impairment of meaning or expressive ability: none that I can see, unless you really needed to impress people on 4chan for some reason.
Fun to say: totally! “That decision was FREAKING RIDICULOUS.”

Can even be used for people, even more slangily, i.e. “It sounds, from the above comments, like this Dan Savage guy is freaking ridiculous.”

By: Travis

Travis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:24:46 +0000

I, too, have been surprised at the upsurge in popularity of retard/retarded. It was a common insult when I was a kid in the early ’80s, but then I didn’t hear it at all until recently, when all of a sudden everyone online seemed to be using it. I think whoever mentioned ironic usage above is right. I hate hipster irony.

By: Mary

Mary — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:17:20 +0000

On behalf of my daughter who lives with an intellectual disability, I thank you for this. I’ve been an advocate against the use of the word retard and retarded for quite a while. I don’t think I’ve seen it written about as clearly as you have. It goes right to the heart. Now how to get the biggest offenders in Hollywood to hear you (that would be you Bill Maher and Ben Stiller).

By: Tera

Tera — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:20:34 +0000

I second Dan Savage’s perambulating hatboxery. In the column where he gets called out (That’s So Leotarded), his response is dripping with “Those PC police are being totally ridiculous. I’m gonna say what I want and not care who I hurt.”
Tera´s last blog ..Rosemary

By: meloukhia

meloukhia — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:02:05 +0000

Dan Savage is a perambulating hatbox if ever there was one. He started the “leotarded” thing when someone called him out on “retarded” and it’s clearly meant to retain the exact same connotations.

I think nonsense words are one alternative, but so is coming up with colourful insults which don’t incorporate sexism/ableism/etc. These are also easier to understand; if you use a nonsense word, people will ask why, etc etc.

By: abby jean

abby jean — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:00:01 +0000

@lauren – that’s an interesting point. i know dan savage is currently substituting “leotarded” in an effort to stop using the word “retarded” in his column, but i don’t find that a totally meaningful substitution. partially because the word seems similar enough to the word “retarded” that it doesn’t seem like a significant substitution or departure from the original word, but also because if everyone started using the term “blargh” instead of “retarded” but retained the same connotations, “blargh” would be equally offensive. i do though think it would be difficult for an individual without the media access of dan savage to create a new word that would become adopted with all the connotations of “retarded,” so i think your nonsense word substitution sounds like a great technique on an individual level.

of course, this may just be because i don’t much like dan savage.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:48:41 +0000

I was able to cut “retarded” out of my vocabulary by giving myself the alternative “rondo,” which I stole from Natalie Dee. I don’t use that much these days, either, since most people don’t know what it means, but I did it long enough to break the “retarded” habit. Anyone have thoughts on the ramifications of using substitute nonsense words? I can imagine it not helping at all, e.g. if people who don’t understand how “retard” is problematic end up using it to insult people with disabilities.
Lauren´s last blog ..So about that online writing conference…

By: Jha

Jha — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:43:49 +0000

@meloukhia: Ah, I think it just doesn’t communicate well in the first reading then. “Flame-retardant” makes sense because it is designed to, basically, hold down / diminish flames. Where I was going with “intellect-retardant” is a similar vein as “flame-retardant” – i.e., someone saying something so ridiculous, it’s hurting other people’s brains from thinking properly, thus hampering intellect. It wouldn’t be a reflection on the person’s own intelligence, but on what they are doing to other people.

But clearly it just didn’t come through, so it’s vocabulary fail from me. I just wanted something to throw people who use the word “retarded” in an ableist way for a loop.
Jha´s last blog ..Ally Issues: Feeling Useless

By: bzzzzgrrrl

bzzzzgrrrl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:47:33 +0000

@mischiefmanager (and others who talk about generational divides): This is what my cousin describes as “rehabilitation via irony.” I feel like there are a lot of expressions like this (he first mentioned it to me as we discussed “crying like a little girl”). Somebody, usually a comic, uses an old sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist catch phrase like that, in a context where he or she believes it’s universally understood to be sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist, and suddenly it’s an “OK” phrase. Some people use it ironically, but others, not so much, and eventually, the culture is unaware that it was theoretically ironic.

I’m in my late 30s, and grew up understanding that “retarded” as a pejorative was not acceptable; I am shocked at how often I hear it from younger friends, who are often genuinely surprised to hear that I am not OK with their usage.
bzzzzgrrrl´s last blog ..On to more serious matters…