I know that you aren’t really thinking about it when you say it.
It’s just another insult that you don’t really consider. You think it doesn’t mean anything—that society should stop seeking to be so politically correct all the time. Suck it up and stop being so sensitive, right?
I don’t know if you would say the same thing when looking in the face of a Down’s syndrome 12-year old—one who has been suffering through middle school as best as she can, but is still finding it impossible to feel accepted with her disability. Say it to the mentally handicapped adult that is happily walking your groceries to the car with a smile on his face, content with the ordinary that you would find too much of a burden. Say it to the toddler with cerebral palsy while he is laughing alongside the rest of his siblings.
You wouldn’t look them in the eyes and call them a “retard” because that would be too insulting. You’re using their identity as a means to hurt someone. By teaching these children, these people that are real and important in the world that we live in, that “retarded” is synonymous with “stupid” or “worthless” or “irrelevant.”
I know that you don’t mean it that way, that you wouldn’t walk up to anyone with a real mental disability and call them these things. But what if someone had decided to use your own name as an insult—an identity that you live within made to be shameful because of factors outside of your control.
These people that you’re so comfortable making jokes about, the people that you hardly consider while you poke fun at their existence, are real people. They have talents. They have morals. They have feelings and families and dreams. Their worth doesn’t lie within your name-calling. They have assets that are going to benefit the world, whether you acknowledge them for them or not.
By calling other people “retarded”, you’re unknowingly taking that right away from them. You’re selling them short: you’re telling them that they cannot amount to anything that doesn’t translate to “dumb.”
If you find the need to use words like “retarded” in order to get your point across, I’m going to guess that you’re lacking originality. You need to know that your words are affecting people’s self-worth, and making their entire existence feel like a mistake.
These people are worth something, and they are worth entirely more than your lame, thoughtless and inaccurate insults.
