Have you ever thought about how often you have heard or used the word retarded? I bet you could come up with a few examples, but then again maybe you can’t. Maybe the word retarded has just become a normal part of our culture and therefore a normal part of our daily lives. You may have heard someone telling a story about how they did something that you considered to be really stupid and by the end of the story it only seemed fitting to respond with…”man you’re so retarded” and move on in the conversation. Maybe when you were assigned to write an essay your initial thought to yourself was “well that’s retarded”. You may feel like using the word retarded is really only slang for those of the younger generation and you don’t use it regularly.
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Just a way we as a society go about conversing in our daily lives, besides no one should really be offended by the word retarded right? Or by the fact that if you were asked to describe someone who is disabled you’d probably give an example of a person in a wheelchair who is unable to do something for themself. Now think about what your answer would be if I told you that you had a 1 in 5 chance of becoming that disabled person, that 54 million people in the US have been diagnosed with a disability (US Census Bureau 2014). Would you want people to look at you and just see a disability? Would you want someone to refer to you as retarded or would you still want to be seen as an individual? Would you still want to feel empowered? Like you …show more content…
I most definitely would not want to be refered to as the R-word I’ve worked beside a wide arrange of differently abled people for the past 7 years and I can guarantee you that not one of them want to be labeled by their disability. Using the word R-word in any manor should be considered unacceptable. We as a society should embrace people first language. We should recognize that putting the person before their disability is important.
The R-word is defined by Mariam-Webster 2014, as “definition 1: a holding back or slowing down. Definition 2: often offensive, a retarded person; also : a person held to resemble a retarded person in behavior.” In the very definition of the word it points out that it’s not seen as a positive thing to
Just a way we as a society go about conversing in our daily lives, besides no one should really be offended by the word retarded right? Or by the fact that if you were asked to describe someone who is disabled you’d probably give an example of a person in a wheelchair who is unable to do something for themself. Now think about what your answer would be if I told you that you had a 1 in 5 chance of becoming that disabled person, that 54 million people in the US have been diagnosed with a disability (US Census Bureau 2014). Would you want people to look at you and just see a disability? Would you want someone to refer to you as retarded or would you still want to be seen as an individual? Would you still want to feel empowered? Like you …show more content…
I most definitely would not want to be refered to as the R-word I’ve worked beside a wide arrange of differently abled people for the past 7 years and I can guarantee you that not one of them want to be labeled by their disability. Using the word R-word in any manor should be considered unacceptable. We as a society should embrace people first language. We should recognize that putting the person before their disability is important.
The R-word is defined by Mariam-Webster 2014, as “definition 1: a holding back or slowing down. Definition 2: often offensive, a retarded person; also : a person held to resemble a retarded person in behavior.” In the very definition of the word it points out that it’s not seen as a positive thing to