What about calling a person who doesn’t know how attachments work a fucking retard?
I don’t think that’s fair. “Contempt and derision” is going too far. If I say to you “quit acting like a child”, does that mean I hold children in contempt? No. I’m just saying that you should know better because you’re an adult. If I say “What are you, blind?” am I deriding the blind? No. Then there’s the simple “C’mon, use your head!” It’s just that some people out there have diminished capabilities. And for the rest of us with normal brain function/sight/age/whatever, being compared to those people makes sense as a pejorative. It’s saying that while those people understandably fail at certain tasks, you have full functionality and have no excuse for failing them. That doesn’t mean there’s “contempt and derision” for those people with actual limited function.
Right. Alas, if I may say something that will get me yelled at: being of severely diminished mental ability is never going to be seen as a good thing, and will always be used hyperbolically to describe more mundane stupidity as well. No matter what those of severely diminished mental ability are called, the term will eventually be used in an insulting manner towards other people. It can’t be helped.
Being blind is tragic, but when a non-blind person does something clumsy, we will all the same yell “What are you, blind?!”. It’s no different with mental retardation or whatever one calls it.
Why do people post these things? You’re participating in the thread. I would assume you’re reading it. Well pardon me for not seeing the sceptor in your hand.
I swear I wrote the above post before seeing Chessic Sense’s which used the exact same “What are you, blind?!” example.
It’s just that we’ve had this conversation before, Chessic, you and I. I think it was about calling things gay or something. When people quote me to tell me I’m wrong, ordinarily I assume they want a response, but in this case we’ve already been down that road. So I’m just saying, yeah, I know that you think I’m full of shit for saying a particular word has a particular connotation whether or not you want it to.
Indistinguishable, do you disagree that there is a difference in that the association of retard with contempt and hatred is a lot stronger than the same association for blindness, though? I’ve never seen people treated particularly viciously for being blind, and that to me is the crux of the whole debate. Retard, from my perspective, has a fairly distinct set of associations that come with it, because it’s very definitely been used as a slur during my lifetime. It’s not the fact that there’s a physical disability, it’s the fact that people with that disability get shit on pretty regularly for having it.
I don’t actually think we are disagreeing. I agree that there is a difference between the two. I am merely pointing out that the parents of the developmentally disabled are reacting to the implication, which happens to support the “contempt and derision” factor - not that any such contempt and derision is actually intended by the people using the term.
An analogy may be a Black person objecting to a person saying that “those computer workers are slaving like a bunch of negros over that program”. It may be quite true that Blacks were, historically, enslaved, and so it is the slavery and not any racist derision that was intended; but it is not tactful.
In my opinion, however, the very term “retard” may well be, like “idiot”, far enough removed from the developmentally challenged as to not actually create any such issues.
Abrasive, but not particularly offensive. The point is that the person *is not *mentally disabled, yet appears *not *to be functioning at the capacity they should have. I think Chessic explained it pretty well:
The term “retard” packs a more contemptuous whallop than the term “blind”. I don’t think there is any point in denying that it is a term of contempt and derision.
I wholeheartedly agree that those using that term do not of necessity intend any contempt and derision aimed at the actually developmentally challenged. Only that some people have such contempt, and the use of the term, assuming it is still linked in people’s minds with actually developmentally challenged folks, supports that narrative.
My point is that, in most people’s minds, the term has moved on; they do not associate it any more with (say) kids with Down’s Syndrome, but rather with that asshole who cut them off in traffic - that “fucking retard”. It has become wholly perjorative and thus, not objectively offensive.
It seems to me that if people walked around on a regular basis pointing and laughing at children and saying “look at the fucking child,” or like tried to trick children into doing ridiculous things so everybody could laugh at them, then telling somebody to stop acting like a child would be a very different thing to say. It’s by virtue of the fact that everybody knows children aren’t a target of contempt that the phrase is as mild as it is. Child is a perfectly neutral word when applied to an actual child.
Whereas (again, seems to me) retard is never applied in the same distant way to a person with a mental impairment. When used to refer to somebody who’s retarded, “retard” is used as a slur every time I’ve ever heard it used. When used to refer to somebody who isn’t retarded, I’m not sure how it gets stripped of that same connotation.
Maybe I just grew up around (and have only in adulthood encountered) especially vicious people when it comes to dealing with mental incapacity; I don’t know.
I think you just need to stop hanging around such fucking assholes.
Well, but I play in fantasy leagues with Dopers and stuff, and there’s not much else going on during the day, so…
I’ll get mod warned if I don’t say that’s a joke, I guess. That’s a joke, son.
“See that person there, he’s retarded.”
"Gee! Didn’t his tarding work the first time? "
Now, I have a story to tell.
At my first summer job there was this Dominican dude, very dark skinned. He had issues with race where he comes from, and he has told our boss stories about how he was called black and put down in his hometown neighborhood. He confessed to my ex-boss that one of the things that made him feel a bit better was that he was at least not ‘black black’, meaning Black American, or of African descent.
My ex boss probably shouldn’t have, but she ran that gossip right back to the rest of us. Right away, we started busting his balls and calling him ‘brother’ all the time in that way that black folks can when they are being extra annoying 'excuse me, brrrrothaaaa" Hahaa! He would get so mad! “I’m not your brother! I’m not even BLACK!!” But, we just kept right on, brotha this, brotha that.
Obviously, that shit was unprofessional. We got called on it, and we were ordered to cut it out, stat.
After that, this dude would still freak out whenever we said ‘brother’, even though we were using it innocently amongst ourselves. “hand me that paper, Shawn? Thanks, brotha”. I mean, that is something we do all the time, anyways! But even months later, he would go bananas when we said it to eachother. Our boss instructed us that we aren’t to say it anymore at all. (although I guess it was cool for them to call me ‘sista’, still). Now, this was very relaxed atmosphere. We were always saying ‘bro’ or ‘buddy’ or ‘asshole’ or whatever. But my boss was very serious about no more ‘brother’.
I think that story speaks to how weird we all can get about words. That word ‘brother’ had morphed and flipped and switched until we were all actin’ nutty. He was offended not only at what the word meant when we hurled it at him with a bad intention…he was now offended by the letters b-r-o-t-h-e-r. Fascinating to me.
It’s this, exactly. We no longer consider “idiot” and similar terms offensive because no one uses them derisively toward people with people with actual disabilities anymore. Now these words just mean “not smart”. “Retarded” is certainly heading in that direction.
I’d only beg to differ with “most”. Unfortunately, I’ve known far too many people - many of whom seemed perfectly lovely otherwise - who did make fun of people with Down’s Syndrome, or autism, or whatever, by calling them “retards”. Fortunately, as Shot From Guns suggests, I don’t have to hang around with those fucking assholes anymore. But that means that, when I hear someone use the word “retard” (in the “not smart” sense), while I don’t get offended by it, it makes me uncomfortable, because now I have to wonder whether this person is actually a jerk or not.
I can believe that it hasn’t moved on yet, not for everyone. I do think in is on the cusp of doing so, though. For some people, depending on region, age, etc. it already has. Anecdotally, a decade ago, I’d have felt exactly like you - that someone using the term may be a jerk; now, in Toronto in 2010, it seems to be over that hump; it is used by lots of people without the slightest self-conciousness, as in “goddam retard cut me off”, by people who would never dream of using the term for Down’s syndrome kids.
Well, you need to tell me the country and the name of a politician that is as stupid as Sarah Palin.
My brother passed away earlier this year, but he was severely retarded (or “severely developmentally delayed” I guess they’re calling it now) and had Dubowitz syndrome. I never had a problem with anyone using the word retarded as an insult to other people and have used it often myself. I don’t understand why someone would be offended by it. It’s not like whenever I heard someone say it I thought they were insulting my brother. Especially because I never thought my brother was stupid, which is how the term would be used (I always assumed the word had two meanings–and why not?). Then again, I’ve never faced intolerance in dealing with the developmentally delayed.
However what used to REALLY annoy me is when I told someone, “My brother is severely retarded.” And they’d laugh, because they thought I was just calling him stupid. So I’d have to tell them, no, he’s REALLY retarded–I mean, the real kind! This was years ago in highschool of course, and it never really occurred to me to use a euphemism.
Shniru brings up a good point, and reminds me of my retarded, younger, half-brother. I have no problem saying that he’s retarded; the fact is, he’s mentally and physically retarded and lives in a state-run institution in Nevada (the result of fetal alcohol syndrome). I wouldn’t ever say that he’s a retard, though. That is pejorative. But I’d easily call the guy that cuts me off a “retard.”
I guess the next time some retard cuts me off in traffic, I’ll have to ask my passenger, “Did you see what that developmentally challenged asshole just did?”
The only power words have is the power we give to them.
It reminds me of the Ceremonial Magickians who will learn a few “magic(k)” words in a foreign language (Greek, Hebrew, etc) and then dramatically intone them (sometimes horribly mispronouncing them) claiming they are words of power. One guy I talked to was all convinced these words had great power. When I asked if they were used in the course of a normal conversation by a native speaker, they still had the same power, the man ardently claimed they did. Ok, so then why does it have more power than the same word in your native language, which you can pronounce properly and are fully cognizant of the full meanings and nuances of? Oh, because they’ve been speaking it longer. :rolleyes:
People need to lighten the fuck up and stop giving other people the power to hurt or upset them by using a simple word. Because really, it isn’t the other person who is hurting you, it is YOU who is making yourself hurt over it.
Humans are a bunch of fucking retards.