That word, of course, is "retard."
It's too bad. This word has really gotten a bad wrap. All it really means, if you look it up in the dictionary, is "slow."
re·tard
[ri-tahrd, for 1–3, 5; ree-tahrd for 4] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede.
verb (used without object)
2.
to be delayed.
And when you think about it, it's not bad to be slow. The trouble is, people starting equating this word in a negative way to people with developmental disabilities. Like it was bad to be slow, bad to be a person with intellectual challenges. So the word "retard" got ugly. People made it that way, directing it at a certain segment of people.
As a English professor, I admit it, I love words. And one thing I teach my students is that words evolve. Have you ever tried to read the original "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," written in 1820? I have given it as an assignment to my students, and they freak out!!
"I can't read this!!" they exposulate.
Well, I tell them, that's not surprising. Simply because no one talks like that anymore. And some words we would never use, because as time has gone on, these words have taken on a new meaning, often a negative one. In "Sleepy Hollow", the narrator talks about someone being "niggardly."
Would you go around calling someone "niggardly?" Probably not. Not of course unless you have been in hybernation for the last few hundred years, I don't have to tell you why. But in 1820, it just wasn't what it is now.
In truth, the word actually means "stingy and miserly."
This word evolved, and got a bad reputation, just like "retard." These words are suffering severe discrimination, just like the people who are called them. What makes these words ugly is the vitriolic, unkind, and ignorant attitudes the person possesses that says the word when addressing a person of color, or a person of intellectual disabilities.
Of course, there are some people that don't mean it as a slight, they just say it kind of as a habit. It's hard to resist. It is a good word. And it's become cool to say it all the time. "Oh, you're such a retard," or "that show is retarded." Now, these comments are not put toward a person with disabilities, they are generally directed toward someone who doesn't have them, or something that has nothing to do with them.
But think about it. Would that same person say, "Oh, you're so niggardly, you won't even lend me a dime," or "He is a niggarly man." Probably not. When you hear it with you 21st century ears, it sounds offensive.
So unless you are saying something like "we must retard the fire," or "his journey is retarded because of traffic," which you wouldn't say, the word retard needs to be retired, just like it's brother niggardly. They deserve the rest, in the dusty pages of Grandma's old "Funk and Wagnel," and our kids, (yes, I mean my kid too) deserve to not be marginalized by this word that people made ugly.
Isn't it amazing how a little word can wound? Can bring so much pain, usually to a person who would not inflict this same pain on another. Who is a pure and unpolluted soul. Those of us without an extra 21st chromosome have a lot to learn from people who do.
I don't know whether Mishayla has ever been called a retard by anyone. She has never said anything to me or her dad about it. But I have to say it wouldn't surprise me, if somewhere along the line, she has been. If this word has crossed her ears, I hope she didn't understand it. Trouble is, she won't always be 12 years old. She will grow up, and understand this word one day.
But God willing, if we all make an effort, she never will. None of our kids will. Let's make it so little babies born with Down Syndrome today, and other intellectual disabilities, never have to hear this word, never have to feel, just because of a misguided use of this word, that they are less than the rest of us.
Really great, Cyndee. Really great.
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