*eyeroll*

[conuly]

"Oh, I can call people and things retarded because my sister is retarded and she uses the word all the time! Heeheehee!

Well, bully for you and your sister. It's still not a nice word to be throwing around.

Cue random interlopers:

"Oh, but you don't know she was using the word to insult people! It's mean of you to assume that! Maybe she said her zipper was retarded! That's not insulting, because zippers can't be insulted!"

Fortunately, I was spared the indignity of having to point out how baseless that statement is. Somebody else did, only to get the "dictionary definiton" of retarded - to have been caused to slow down. "So it totally applies to zippers!"

Because people really talk like that, of course. They don't apply perjorative connotations to those words, it's just me and you and our sick sad minds! Yeah!

Sometimes, I could just... just.... I don't know. But it's not pleasant, anyway.

(And yes, TNT is quite hypocritical for allowing dumb but not retarded. Normally I'd ignore it, but now I'm struck with a nagging feeling that I should complain and see if they'll ban the word dumb as well.)

And now comments are frozen. Because calling people out on their offensive and prejudiced language is wrong.

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're right. I was told by the doctors that he may 'test out' of mild mental retardation).

But unfortunately, for the waivers (which is the respite care which now I don't think I need) the term needs to be used. Otherwise you have to wait for a different 'waiver'. (There are three kinds. MR, Brain Injury, or Ill and Handicapped Child -- he would get the third but the waiting list is over a year.)

I had to explain that to the social worker today, too, that he may not be retarded FOREVER. That it is a holding pattern of sorts to get services and that every year we go back to the clinic to fine tune his DX.

I mostly did it to get the point across.

I will say my big concerns aren't his lack of talking (as far as MR issues go) but his problems with the toy that is a block with holes in it, and you put the properly shaped blocks in it. He doesn't seem to get that. He is constantly trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. But he works so HARD at it, you can just about see the wheels turning when he does that particular exercise.