Susan Senator, writing in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section, says there’s nothing wrong with being retarded. What’s wrong, she says, is the use of the word “retard” as an insult, designed to reduce a person to only one trait. Senator would like to help people appreciate the “loveliness and complexity” of people like her son Nat, who has a cognitive impairment. An excerpt:

So I got to thinking some more about the case against the word “retarded,” especially in light of the recent uproar over the movie “Tropic Thunder”. And I really feel that the campaign to stop using the “R” word just does not get at the heart of things. Pure censure is something people feel in their heads, in their shame-reddened faces. But do they feel it in their souls? Can they try to understand that there’s not just one way to be, that God works in mysterious ways, as they say, and that you never know how a person – whether retarded or Rhodes Scholar – might affect you at your core. Understanding that will make a difference..

Maybe, instead of stamping out the “R” word, we could come up with a tag line that gets the offenders to think, for a change. A new slogan, something like: “‘Retarded.’ It’s more than you know.” After all, there is far more power in facing something, naming it, and confidently owning it, than there is by running from it. After all, we are much more than our IQ score.

See also:

Words can hurt — letter by Paula Stanovich to the Los Angeles Times. Stanovich is a professor of special education at Portland State University. (See extended version, which appeared earlier as a comment on this website.)

Making fun of a serious disability — letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Some words hurt — letter to the Salt Lake Tribune

New film raises disability issues — letter to the Charleston Post and Courier

‘Thunder’ just cruel to nation’s disabled — letter to Baltimore Sun

Film shows ‘heartless ridicule’ by using word ‘retard’ – [Warren, NJ] Reporter

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 9:05 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, Tropic Thunder, celebrities, language, movies, public attitudes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.