Like many other people, I got lost in Facebook reels the other day. A woman had given birth to a child who was deaf, and her husband left her. He said he wouldn’t have married her if she knew that she would give birth to a “retard”.
I’m going to skip the obvious fallacy that deafness is somehow connected to mental capacity. I want to discuss the word “retard”. First of all, my family history makes me hate that word with a passion. So know that while I use this word, I’m using it in the context of history and how it was used in various instances. I believe that it is necessary to understand the history of the word to understand why using it today is rightfully considered a slur. It was first used in the 19th and early 20th century to refer medically to people of low intelligence, since it was common usage to refer to anything slow or delayed as retarded. In many cases, anyone of any disability was considered retarded. As a matter of fact, when I first started education, having a mental disability was coded as a child being “MR”, which stands for “mentally retarded”. As language does, “retarded” evolved from being a medical term to a slur, as people started using it to refer to anyone they considered as mentally slow, even if “mentally slow” meant that they made a simple error and were of average to above average intelligence. In 2010, President Obama signed Rosa’s Law into effect. This eliminated any form of “mental retardation” from federal health or education and labor policy due to its negative connotation.
I know that by yelling about a word being considered a slur, I’m setting myself up for the people who rage against anything “politically correct” and “cancel culture”, and anything else that people think they can say and be jerks about under the guise of “brutal honesty”. I’m going to take the opportunity to explain why using that term means you’re being a complete jerk. I’m hoping that you change your mind about it, but I suppose it’s your choice if you don’t.
I want to start by talking about the people who are frequently labeled retards. I started this with talking about how people with intellectual disabilities were considered retarded historically. However, people have a tendency to consider anyone with a disability as being retarded. This includes people with normal IQs and mental health conditions. People have historically not considered the fact that mental disability does not equate to intellectual disability. I know this one personally. I have mental disabilities, but not intellectual ones. My IQ is perfectly normal and not affected by my anxiety disorders or PTSD. Also, there is still the misconception that anyone with a physical disability must also be retarded. If you don’t believe me, ask any wheelchair user. Almost every single one of us has a story about how these got mixed up. People sometimes think we don’t count. People will move us out of the way without consent to touch our chairs. At a museum, I had someone look me dead in the eye and move to stand between me and the exhibit I was looking at, his butt in my face. Others will ask our companions what we want in a restaurant, instead of us, or speak to us like children. It’s very common.
So now that we’ve established who is in danger of being considered “retarded”, then let’s talk about why it’s a slur. I did a better job of touching on this in my blog titled “The Language of Normalcy”. In general, words that are considered offensive and slurs are words that make it clear that the person is outside the norm. Matter of fact, if you think of slurs, you usually think of racial slurs. What does that mean, when you use slurs?
It usually means you put yourself above them. Somehow, you consider yourself better than them. So what’s the big deal, then?
Historically speaking, what has happened to people considered lower than others? Slavery. Indentured Servitude. Segregation. Genocide. Does the Holocaust sound familiar?
If you think these things don’t happen today, think again. Genocides are occuring this very day. Slavery still exists. I think someone got arrested fairly recently for keeping two African American kids as slaves. I can think of at least four different genocides that have occured in my lifetime, and am friends with a survivor of one of them. I have been to Germany and Buchenwald. These things are not ancient history.
So what does this have to do with the phrase “retarded”?
Do a quick google search. It’ll take you to medical sources (not youtube!!!) where you can read all about a history of medical research on human subjects, usually those deemed “retarded”. Back in the seventies, it was a common misconception that “retarded kids don’t have feelings”. If you read the educational author Torey Hayden, she tells a horrific story about having to take a child to an ER who had to have stitches on his tongue. The doctor did it without anesthesia, since it “was a waste on kids like this” and “they don’t feel anything.” I’m not sure how he explained away the screaming.
The fact is, when you use a slur, you are putting yourself above someone else. The implication is that the other person doesn’t matter. When it becomes accepted that a group of people is ‘above” another group and that they don’t matter, you can justify some pretty nasty stuff. I’m not basing this off of my twisted imagination, either. History itself supports my claim. But if that’s too dramatic for you, let me tell you a story.
The reason that many in my family consider “retarded” as a slur is because of my two uncles. On my mom’s side, her brother was born with multiple significant physical and intellectual disabilities as a result of my grandmother choking during her pregnancy. He passed away fairly young in a home, as my grandparents were unable to care for him themselves, when he choked on his own vomit. On my dad’s side, his brother lived to be in his late sixties. He had a very high fever as a child that caused brain damage. He was able to live on his own, but had the mental capacity of a child. I remember him getting angry one day because at a Jack in the Box, he ordered an American Burger. The cashier kept messing with him, saying they didn’t have American Burgers. He was angry and frustrated, since this child was messing with him, obviously spotting his intellectual disability, thought it was hilarious, and refused to give him his order until he ordered an American Jack. When he died of Covid, they refused to let my cousin who held his medical power of attorney in there since visitors were prohibited. She had to fight for it, as they told her that it didn’t matter, they had a “whole hospital of mentally disabled people.”
Guess he didn’t matter.
In closing, the word “retarded” is a slur because no one person is any better than another, no matter the nature of their disability. You might only be saying it in play, as I see many teenagers do today. However, when this attitude becomes the norm, nasty things have historically happened. We should be showing everyone the very same respect, treating everyone like we would want to be treated ourselves. After all, how close is any disability to any of us? A drunk driver away. Military service. One terrible disease away. One high fever or choking during pregnancy. It’s closer than you would think…and then you or your loved ones could be labeled with the same slur you used with others.
Think about it a second, and remember it.
I’ll close with a beautiful quote I saw on the website arcmorris.org/the-r-word.
“The only r-word that should be used when referring to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is respect.”
Unapologetically Disabled 