In a Washington Post profile of Tim Shriver, writer Manuel Roig-Franzia examines the Special Olympics chairman’s campaign to discourage language that makes fun at the expense of people with intellectual disabilities.

Shriver has received apologies from President Obama, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Bill O’Reilly (sort of) for “colloquial jabs about ‘retards’ or quips that equate Special Olympians with ineptitude or remarks that equate “retarded” with stupidity.”

To Shriver, the discussion is more than a mere linguistic fight, writes Roig-Franzia; it’s a welcome opportunity to have a public conversation about what Shriver terms the “humiliation” faced by this population.

The crusade has brought both admiration and derision for Shriver, who will soon be the only member of the Kennedy family serving in a high-profile position in Washington. An excerpt:

… Shriver — who wants to be a catalyst for social change — would like to further expand the mission [of Special Olympics], addressing unemployment (90 percent of people with intellectual disabilities do not work, he says, but half of Special Olympians have jobs) and taking on elite private schools in Washington, such as his alma mater, St. Albans, and Sidwell Friends because they don’t routinely admit students with intellectual disabilities, as many public schools do.

But there are only so many fights to pick at once. In Bethesda, Shriver helps organize “unified” sports contests that place young people with disabilities on the same teams as those who don’t. At the same time, he has sent his own kids to top private schools, such as Maret, that he says are not “inclusive” and guesses he “could be accused of being hypocritical. But this is a 100-front war.”

(Photo from the Washington Post; More photos here.)

From the [UK] Telegraph:

An independent UK media regulator has rejected a request for sanctions against a leading television channel for using the word “retard” in a reality show, saying the comment was covered by European human rights protections of free speech.

The complaint was brought by the mother of two children with disabilities, after Vinnie Jones used the term on Channel 4 to describe Davina McCall, the host of a Big Brother offshoot program.

In explaining its decision, the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) said the term was not directed at anyone with disabilities, and had been used light-heartedly on a reality show whose viewers “expect a certain level of outspoken banter.” Ofcom also said its own research showed that not all viewers find the word “retard” offensive, and “many do not see this as an issue.”

The decision met with criticism from the disability charity Mencap. “As someone with a learning disability, I was disgusted and hurt to hear the word ‘retard’ used on Big Brother,” said Mencap spokesman Lloyd Page. “We will never change people’s attitudes if this sort of thing carries on. I hope Ofcom will realize why we want this to stop.”

Related posts here.

CNN interviews athlete and actress Aimee Mullins, a double amputee who has set world records using prosthetic devices. An excerpt:

[Mullins] believes that people are not born disabled. “It’s society that disables an individual by not investing in enough creativity to allow for someone to show us the quality that makes them rare and valuable and capable.”

The interview links to video of a speech Mullins gave before a medical audience last year in San Diego, in which she underscored the negative connotations of the term “disabled.” In the CNN interview, Mullins was asked about the significance of language in defining possibilities for people with disabilities. Her response:

It’s not so much the word itself. The idea of being politically correct is not the goal here. It’s how we use the word very casually as a label to try to encompass somebody’s value to our community and the worth of their contribution to our community. That’s what we need to get right.

Site advocated using kids with Down syndrome for target practice

From Reuters, New York Time,  Agence France Press:

Italy’s equality minister threatened legal action against the “thousands of idiots” involved in an Italian Facebook group that called for children with Down syndrome to be used for target practice.

The page, which has been shut down in the wake of public outrage, proposed the activity as an “easy and amusing” solution to rid the world of “these foul creatures.” It carried a photo of a baby with Down syndrome, with the word “imbecile” written on its forehead. As of late Sunday, the page had attracted 1,700 members.

“Italy will not tolerate incidents of discrimination of any sort, let alone against the disabled,” Equality Minister Mara Carfagna told Italian television Tuesday. “Those responsible for creating this madness will be prosecuted by the law.”

The outrage over the Facebook site comes as four Google executives are on trial in Milan facing criminal charges of defamation and privacy violations in a case involving videos posted on a Google website. The videos show a boy with autism being bullied by peers. Prosecutors allege that the company should have removed the videos after it was made aware of their content.

Google representatives say a guilty verdict might require the company to review content before allowing it to be posted on YouTube.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg says the word “retarded” may have started out as a clinical term, but it has been twisted into a taunt over the past half century and should be put to rest.

Were developmentally disabled people secure in the mainstream alongside the Irish and accountants, we could happily debate the cultural desirability of mocking them. But given that recognizing their full humanity is a fairly recent development, it seems that we should at least acknowledge that ridicule, though funny in entertainment, is destructive on a personal level.

…In 1953, Dale Evans, wife of cowboy star Roy Rogers, penned a book, Angel Unaware, about their daughter Robin, who was born with Down syndrome. Doctors told her to have Robin institutionalized. Instead Evans, inspired by her deep Christian faith, posed the little girl in family publicity photos. The book sold 400,000 copies in the mid-1950s, and parents who otherwise never let their children out of the house felt comfortable bringing them to Roy Rogers rodeos, because of his wife’s book.

They felt safe there.

I believe that any person with a heart, facing this complex issue, would rather err on the side of those children, would want them, not merely to get out of the house to see a cowboy show, but to also go to school with other kids and work at a job, if they could, still safe and accepted, without their lives being made a hell by would-be wits looking for someone to abuse.

On CNN, talk show host Leslie Marshall says the “Family Guy” controversy has been a “win-win” for both Sarah Palin and Seth MacFarlane, the show’s producer, because it “ups her popularity and the show’s popularity.” Entertainment reporter Tanika Ray says MacFarlane’s goal is to stir up controversy. “He thinks: if Sarah Palin’s responding, he did his job.”

Blogging at the Baltimore Sun, critic David Zurawik says he supports the free speech rights of Bill Maher and Seth MacFarlane, but thinks they are “bullying” people with disabilities.

…there is a larger point to these two remarks this week: I think they are emblematic of how toxic and nasty our public discourse has become.

Reading some of the comments in reaction to my post from people who found the “Family Guy” joke funny, I was struck by just how far we have fallen as a society in our anger and need to feel superior to someone else.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper says Sarah Palin needs to acknowledge that the “Family Guy” episode was satire — unlike Rush Limbaugh’s “retard” reference.

And there’s coverage of Andrea Fay Friedman’s response to Palin at the New York Daily News, USA Today, CBS, Village Voice and elsewhere.

Says she’s advocating on behalf of ’special needs community’

From the New York Daily News, CBS Political Hotsheet blog. Video at Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor.”

During an appearance on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday, Sarah Palin renewed her demand that President Obama replace White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel for calling a group of liberals “F-ing retards.”

Calling herself a champion of the “special needs community,” Palin also attacked the “cruel, cold-hearted” writers of a Fox animated show that lampooned a character with Down syndrome, but defended conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s repeated use of the word “retard” as “satire.”

An excerpt:

“When I gave my vice presidential nomination speech at the GOP convention, I promised the special needs community that they would have a friend and an advocate in the White House,” she said. “And just because John McCain and I did not win, that did not take away my passion for helping those who want to reach out and ask me to do what I can to allow this country, this world to be more welcoming place for all innocent people, all special needs children. I am going to keep pursuing that in our country until we are a more tolerant, compassionate, welcoming place for the innocents.”

Full transcript here.