ULABY: And it’s not just movies rethinking retard as an easy laugh. A few months ago, popular sex advice columnist Dan Savage renounced his use of the word.
Mr. DAN SAVAGE (Sex Columnist): You know, I just sat down to write the column, and I’d used the word retard in a column recently, and I was sorting through the mail and there was a handful of letters taking me to task. And I thought, all right, I won’t use it anymore. I’ll use a new word. I hope you like this one better.
ULABY: The new word was leotard. As in, you are totally leotarded.
Mr. SAVAGE: It was just me being a jerk, frankly. You know, I’ve heard people now use “the R word” in reference to retard, and it just seems so pansy-assed, if I may use that phrase.
I’m also annoyed when I hear people say “the F word.” I realize that everyone wants to feel equally oppressed these days, but “retard” and “faggot” simply aren’t insults on a par with “nigger,” A.K.A. “the N word.” And I wouldn’t say that I’ve renounced the use of the word retard, NPR, but rather embraced “tard” as a suffix and singled dancers out for abuse.
Thanks Dan for totally undercutting Steve’s attempts at creating community guidelines. I guess we can say faggot now. Is the word “cunt” still out of bounds?
Dan the lypocritical fag. I like the sound of that.
What about when people say “F Word” instead of Fuck? Does that annoy you? Fuck is a pretty intense word!
(sigh)
As someone who’s taken the Merc to task here and there about their use of retard/retarded as an all-encompassing adjective to describe something stupid or dumb, I get tired of trying to make the same argument over and over again, but I guess that’s what it takes.
I agree with Dan, by the way, in that using “the R word” for “retard” is just as ridiculous as saying “the F word” for “faggot.” Louis CK had a piece in his last stand-up DVD about how using “the N word” as a euphemism is actually worse, because everybody knows what it means and your brain automatically cries out “nigger.” You can see the clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqwj–wGEgY
Which is the same thing that happens with “the R word” for me…and I guess “the F word” for Dan. But the rub is that, as the parent of a child with a disability, about the only time I hear any reference is made to a person like my son, it’s because something is called “retarded.” And damn if that doesn’t wear on you after a while.
Dan’s lucky enough in this day and age that there are gay people everywhere — every stripe, every creed, every type of gay person you can imagine; in the media, in the alt weeklies, at the pulpit, in Congress — and so throwing around “faggot” or “queer” (or “pansy-assed” even) doesn’t raise the ire it once may have. Times have changed for the better, the words that once were slurs have been taken back by their own constituency (much like “nigger”), and so the complaints of people offended by “retard/retarded” are easily dismissed, even though their world hasn’t changed. When’s the last time — not counting the Tropic Thunder bullshit — anyone saw a disabled person as anything other than the butt of a joke or an offhanded comment in the mainstream media? I bet no one can name more than one or two instances, if that.
It kills me that my kid is going to grow up in a world that considers him just to be a retard — to diminish his inherent awesomeness — because that’s all the world that thinks retarded=BAD is going to know of him.
And I like this quote from the NPR piece:
“What happens is if you’re lucky, you come to understand that those words describe actual human beings.”
“If you’re lucky…” really hits me, because that’s what I know: anyone who gets to meet my son is going to be lucky indeed. And will hopefully think before they open their mouth to utter “that’s retarded” the next time.
But if you want to throw around the word “retard,” go ahead, but don’t be surprised if you’re taken to task for it.
thank you jonashpdx. very eloquent. i’m too tired to be coherent, but Dan misses the point when he writes “retard” and “faggot” simply aren’t insults on a par with “nigger,” A.K.A. “the N word.”
umm unfortunately it is.
duh.
Nigger is an okay word to use when the person fits the description. Take a look at Kanye for example.
Kanye is a Nigger. We can add adjectives to enhance the meaning.
Kanye is a dumb Nigger. However his performance indicates he is not dumb, meaning a mute. Hence, we get…
Kanye is a stupid Nigger.
It works for me.
The F-word is not on par with the N-word because we never hear the N-word except out of the mouths of black people… in fact a hushed awe comes over the room if a white person mentions (whisper) black people. On the other hand, any epithet against a sexual/gender group is perfectly acceptable. If you’re a student or an employee, you get to hear it on the job. If you attune yourself to hearing the number of instances of these and related words, you’ll be shocked how often you hear them.