My letter in the 09-15-2014 Linn County Leader: “Retard”~how do I describe this word? Dark. Several years ago this word was used to describe my daughter, twice that I know of. It cut through me like a knife. These words broke my heart and made me nauseated. My daughter has Rett Syndrome. Yes, it is a Neurological disorder that has robbed her of her ability to care for herself and to communicate as you and I do, but she is far from “retarded”. She understands everything being said to her, and she can communicate with you by using her eyes and facial expressions. My mother had a stroke a few years back—today she is a little slower than she once was and doesn’t have the long term memory she once had. Does this make her “retarded”? Absolutely not. What about someone with Autism, Down Syndrome, Asperger’s, Epilepsy. The list goes on and on. Should they be labeled as “retarded”? Absolutely not. This word is thrown around too easy as a descriptive word with no regard to how it may make someone feel. It is a hurtful word. It may not be directed at any one personally, but if you have a family member, friend, etc that could or has been wrongly labeled with this word you would most definitely understand what a nasty word it is. We, society, need to be more sensitive of our language usage not only in regard to handicapped but our normal everyday speech usage. Handicapped, disabled persons are being accepted in our community so much more than many years ago when they were “hidden” and not brought out in public like they are today, which is awesome because they are people too. There are slogans all the time asking to end the “R” word~~the next time you are searching for a word to use in your sentence or to describe someone~~even in joking~~stop and think~~is this word going to hurt someone? Better yet, let’s just remove it from our vocabulary all together. Charlessa Grime
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 14:11:11 +0000
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