It’s in the press again. I search to find out the context of the word. I see debates all over the web, people bemoaning the ‘politically correct’ and the ‘word police’ and making ridiculous claims about having to ban the concept of a ‘fire retardant’. Last I looked there’s never been a protest about products that protect from fire. Last I looked there’s only ever been protests about the use of a word that demeans a group of people.

No matter what the fearless defenders of freedom of speech say, there is a huge difference between a word to describe something that slows fire and someone who learns differently. There’s a huge difference between a thing and a person – but, no, maybe not. After reading their diatribes regarding their freedom to spit out hurtful words, they may, really, not see people with disabilities as fully human with a human heart capable human hurt.

Read the rest of the story:
http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2010/08/people-who-are.html?spref=fb 

On Live with Regis and Kelly Thursday, the Switch star, 41, was discussing dressing up as Barbra Streisand for the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar when she let the word slip.

“You’re playing dress up!” Regis told her. She replied, “Yes, I play dress up! I do it for a living, like a retard!”

Peter Berns, CEO of The Arc (a nonprofit advocate for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities), tells UsMagazine.com it was “extraordinarily offensive and inappropriate.”

“Frankly, someone in her position ought to know better,” he tells Us. “She is using language that is offensive to a large segment of the population in this country. We estimate that there are probably in excess of 5 million people in the country with intellectual disabilities, and when you think about all of them, their family members and friends, you’re talking about tens of millions of people who find the use of that term to be really offensive. Every time folks hear that word, it kind of reminds them of all the discrimination and oppression they’ve experienced in their lives. Even if it wasn’t intended to insult them, that is the effect of it.”

Full story: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebritynews/news/jennifer-aniston-blasted-for-using-the-word-retard-1970241

In this Internet age, the word “retard” gets thrown around in an increasingly casual fashion. You’ll find it in Hollywood comedies, in television sit-coms, in the language of disc jockeys who see themselves as “edgy.” For many teens, it has become a regular expression of contempt, a way of labeling peers who seem culturally clueless.

For her part, Christine Paronis views the word as an emotional machete….

http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2010/08/post_71.html

by Haddayr Copley-Woods
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/07/23/woods/

As the physically disabled parent of a developmentally disabled child, I am deeply grateful today.

Things used to be different for people like us: such as for Barb, a girl I knew growing up. She was bright, ambitious and she also had a form of autism. Her parents had to fight to keep her in regular education classes — sometimes unsuccessfully. After the senior class elected her president, the faculty advisor resigned. The advisor said she wouldn’t work with a girl she called a “retard.” For Barb, the emotional and educational impact was devastating.

And in the ’70s and ’80s, all of this was perfectly legal.

Today, my autistic son has enthusiastic, educated teachers. He has mandated supports in his regular-ed classroom. He feels valued at school. No one has ever called him a “retard.”

All this because of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA outlawed discrimination against disabled people in employment, transportation, and education. It mandated reasonable accommodations.

And in 20 years, it has made a tremendous difference. We now have ramps, elevators, education plans, and wheel-chair-accessible crosswalks. Restaurants can’t ban our assistance dogs.

While the impact of the ADA has been profound, there is still a lot to do. Employers are still reluctant to hire disabled people. Studies have found disabled adults are two to three times more likely to live in poverty than adults without disabilities. And we’re still fighting for the Community Choice Act, which would help keep disabled people from being institutionalized.

But I have faith we’ll win those battles. Here’s why: the ADA didn’t give disabled people equal rights under the law. Disabled people took those rights. And gimps are hardcore.

I get choked up every time I roll my wheelchair onto a bus lift. I think about the protests in the ’80s. People blocking the road: Glorious, bold, furious people with palsy, paralysis, atrophied muscles, missing limbs. I think about them throwing themselves out of their wheelchairs onto hard, filthy city streets to block traffic. Shouting. Chanting. And yes, by golly, drooling, shrieking, and groaning as they were arrested.

It is thanks to those protestors in Denver and Cleveland, to sit-ins in Washington and San Francisco — thanks to decades of tireless activism in L.A., Chicago, and Boston — that we now have the ADA.

So, while we still have work to do, today I just want to say thanks to you wonderful, loud, fierce cripples. Thank you for your anger. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for what you’ve done for me and for my son. For all of us.

And if anyone sees me blinking hard on the bus lift some morning, don’t mistake my tears for pain: I cry because I’m so grateful and proud to be in such brilliant company.

Louis C.K. was on The Daily Show last night to promote his new FX show, Louie. In addition to making Jon Stewart laugh much harder than he did the studio audience, he explained that there are three words he can’t say on FX, two of which got bleeped out, and one of which is “retarded.” This puzzled both C.K. and Stewart, and it puzzles us as well — we know FX did not always have a ban on the word, as evidenced by the October 2007 episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “Sweet Dee Is Dating a Retarded Person,” which, you can see for yourself, was not operating under any linguistic strictures. Perhaps this very episode inspired a letter-writing campaign that forced FX to institute a new policy? Or perhaps, as Jon Stewart implies, unlike The Daily Show, FX really doesn’t want Sarah Palin to hate it.

Government agencies have been renaming themselves to drop the words “mentally retarded” from offices that serve people with special needs.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_686865.html

Name Change at Agency to Remove ‘Retardation’

By JANE GOTTLIEB
Published: June 7, 2010

ALBANY — For the second time in a year, New York legislators are considering changing the name of one of the only state agencies in the country with “retardation” still in its title.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/nyregion/08name.html?src=me&pagewanted=all