What Happens When We Use The R-Word

The word “retarded” can never, in any form, be used “correctly”. Everyone says it. My best friends, my family, superiors, even families with a special need children. However, that doesn’t make it right. Strongly against the use of the word - stands John McGinley, Special Olympics Ambassador. In his Huffington Post Blog, “What Really Happens When We Use The R-Word,” the firm activist explains why this now commonly used word is always meant as a “euphemistic put-down”, and how it should never be used to define an individual with a disability. Instead, the word should be disposed of, and replaced with an alternative “with greater reliance on love, compassion, and grace.” Words hurt. They do. They always have. And they always will. McGinley frequently
refers back to how wrong it is to degrade one by referring to them as “retarded.” “When employing this specific language, the objective is to separate, and distinguish the “user” from those being “used”. The user, in McGinley’s statement, are those surrounding us everyday. My best friends, my family, my superiors who throw around the R-word as if it’s not a derogatory term. Those being used, are the individuals with special needs.Those who are looked down upon for not being, what society sees as, “normal”. Although not everyone has a strong connection with this word such as myself, or McGinley, many should be able to relate on the stance that many words can be seen as hurtful and derogatory. “Other populations that have been used by users include: blacks, jews, homosexuals, lesbians are just to name a few.” McGinley states this to help cause realization that our words can impact others.
I’ve had multiple encounters where I have asked an individual not to say the R-word.
More often than not, it seems that the stimulated response falls along the same lines, “Well I didn’t mean it that way.” Justin McGinley takes a stab at those ignorant people in his blog when he states that, “When the suffix “-tard” is added onto any adjective or noun, the resulting conjunction is intended to render a word that will connote an inferior, idiotic or dumber-than-dirt, juxtaposed quantity.” By supplying his two sense, McGinley takes away any excuse of “not meaning to say it in a certain way”. He explains how most people use the word within a sentence, example gratia, saying a party is “retarded”. “When a party is said to be “retarded”, that party is understood to be insane, stupid, or just plain ridiculous.” Ergo, no matter the usage within a sentence, the word is seen as hurtful, and damaging to one's ego.
Not only has McGinley provided strong evidence against why the word should be demolished, he has also advocated for the Spread The Word to End the Word Campaign. This campaign raises awareness of the hurtfulness of the R-Word, and allows one to make an online pledge to never let the word cross their mind again, and to correct those when using it. This powerful campaign has been a complete success, already having 576,588 pledges for the surrender of the R-word. It allows the special needs community to unite as one, and for and for all banish the use of the
R-word.