On a segment of ABC’s “What Would You Do?” that aired Wednesday, customers in a Brooklyn grocery store found themselves trapped in a checkout line behind rude shoppers who berated a bagger with Down syndrome. The customers didn’t know that the clerk and the rude shoppers were all actors. Hidden cameras recorded everyone’s reactions to abusive language that the show described as happening “all too often” in real life.

“You’re absolutely retarded, dude! You have to go faster,” an actress shouted.

While some customers ignored the abuse, others spoke up in defense of the clerk, played by actor Josh Eber. “He’s a person, the same as you and I, with feelings,” said a woman identified as “Karen”, a teacher who has taught children with disabilities. “Everybody deserves an education. Everybody deserves a job, and everybody deserves a chance in this life. And you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Madeleine Will of the National Down Syndrome Society underscored the hurtfulness of insults like the word “retard.” She called on the public to speak up against verbal abuse.

“When we’re silent, our silence condones the language,” she said. “It’s important to say, again and again, this is wrong, this is not fair, this is not how we treat other people.”

From AP/Idaho Statesman:

Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter has signed legislation that removes words like “retarded,” “lunatic” and “idiot” from state laws, saying the words are just as hurtful as racial slurs.

Bill sponsor Sen. Les Bock, D-Boise, said he didn’t realize how pervasive the slang word retarded is until he mentioned the bill in a talk last year about his work as a state lawmaker to junior high students at a charter school in Garden City.

As he began to describe his plans to change code to treat people with disabilities more respectfully, the students interrupted him. “Oh, you mean ‘retard,’ like ‘you’re retarded,’” they responded before giggling, he said. “It was pretty spontaneous. I was surprised.”

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a similar measure last month.

Earlier posts here and here.

See also: Words matter to these Evanston students — Chicago Tribune

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.

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.

In the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ blog, a panel of columnists offer their views on the Special Olympics’ campaign to discourage the use of the ‘R-word.’ [Worthy of note: The editors have headlined this collection 'Ban the R-word?" The choice of words misstates the intent of the campaign, which does not call for a ban.]

Among the commentators represented here (in alphabetical order):

Max Carter, director of Friends Center at Guilford College:

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. Until that day, though, I would think we need to be sensitive to how words take on new meanings in culture and respond sympathetically to those who have the right to be called by names they feel more accurately describe them.

Arun Gandhi, co-founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence:

Through language we are teaching our children the first lessons in violence. No wonder successive generations have grown up subscribing to a “culture of violence” so that even in humor we are violent. This is both alarming and sad. There are some private attempts to correct this, but I think the problem is so extensive and deep-rooted that perhaps we need a “Language Reform Commission” to make our language more polite and inclusive. I think this would be the first major step in making this world less violent and more polite. Reacting to just one word at a time is not going to help anyone.

Brad Hirschfield, rabbi and president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership:

Changing the words we use rarely changes people’s attitudes. If a genuine change in how we treat and value mentally retarded people is what is sought, it will take more than high-handed moralizing about the use of supposedly denigrating language.

The change we need is largely internal, not linguistic.

And also:

• Susan Jacoby, author — Use insults only to insult‘
• Rambdas Lamb, ex-Hindu monk and professor — Making sure our speech is politically correct
• Aseem Shukla, co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation — The intent behind the words
• Herb Silverman, president of Secular Coalition for America — Sticks and stones
• Adin Steinsaltz, founder of the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications — The strangeness of political correctness
• Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, professor at Chicago Theological Seminary — End the hypocrisy that words don’t matter
• Thomas, Cal, columnist — Mentally disabled, morally gifted

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.