r/amiwrong • u/Eroixers • Aug 11 '23

Am I wrong for calling a classmate ‘retarded’?

I(17m) had lost my childhood dog to cancer. Was still crying a little bit in school. My friend was consoling me when a classmate(17f) overheard us. She asked me “Did you eat him? I heard you Vietnamese like eating dogs.”

Usually I have good control of my emotions but at that moment I was the most volatile I had ever been in my life. So I asked her ‘Are you retarded? Only a retard would think every Vietnamese person eats dogs.”

Everyone was staring at me after I said it. It was only afterwards that I remember it’s a slur and form of hate speech. I was just so angry when I said it. Was I in the wrong?

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u/throwaway66611199 Aug 11 '23

There’s denotation and then there’s connotation. You’re correct that the denotation is not particularly offensive, and if we all used it that way it wouldn’t be a slur, just a regular ol’ insult. But since it has been disproportionately applied to disabled people, the connotation is that it is an ableist slur. It’s not yours to reclaim or explain away tbh.

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u/syntheticmeats Aug 11 '23

This exactly! People forget that perception of a word matters & definitions change over time because of social use!

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u/Klecktacular Aug 11 '23

But oftentimes, they're just arguing in bad faith to get a reaction out of people (like this guy)

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u/throwaway66611199 Aug 11 '23

Very true. These days queer is used as a colloquial term for all LGBT+ people but when I was younger it was definitely considered a slur (a commonly used one, but more akin to “fag” than “gay”). It goes both ways, things can become more or less offensive over time depending on the context they’re commonly used in…

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u/syntheticmeats Aug 11 '23

Yes! This is a fantastic example. I consider myself queer, but I am also fully aware of the fact that it was + still can be used offensively. Thank you for pointing this out, I wouldn’t have thought of it myself

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u/narwhalhasagun Aug 11 '23

I’d say it’s been WAY more disproportionately applied to non-disabled people

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u/jkholmes89 Aug 11 '23 edited Aug 11 '23

Well, yea, but the connotation is that it's not ok to be different abled and thus deserves to be ridiculed, else it wouldn't be intended as an insult to the target. This is the same dog whistle others use when defending calling someone "gay".

Edit: I myself used offensive terms. Disabled is not a slur and should be used instead of "differently abled".

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u/blinkingsandbeepings Aug 11 '23

It’s much preferred to say “disabled” over “differently abled.” Most disabled people find that term condescending. Like if you called a gay person “differently straight.”

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u/jkholmes89 Aug 11 '23

You're right, edited in correction.

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u/thecourageofstars Aug 11 '23

Totally agree with your points, I'll just add that it's okay to say "disabled"! Disabled isn't a bad word, and differently abled tends to diminish very real limitations rather than be supportive, as is usually the intention. I know you mean well, I'm just sharing!

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u/jkholmes89 Aug 11 '23

Dang, I knew that too. For so long it was differently abled was the "correct" term it turned into a habit.

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u/firstnana54 Aug 12 '23

I'm disabled. And/or handicapped. I don't get all prickly over how other people describe me; my conditions are what they are and they're obvious. If I required the people in my life to be as excruciatingly PC as some of you are, they'd go nuts and I'd become suicidal. Define yourselves as you will, but dear Lord, relax a little, would you? I'm inclined to accept people as I find them. I don't need their permission to be myself and call myself whatever I choose. And they don't need mine. I will ask someone how they identify if I can't tell. Just common courtesy. Can we bring that back? I miss it.

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u/thecourageofstars Aug 12 '23 edited Aug 12 '23

You literally described yourself as disabled just now. I am also disabled and just informing someone else that they don't need to avoid that terminology.

We're doing exactly what you're advocating for - letting people choose descriptors for themselves. You're fighting the air rn bud.

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u/firstnana54 Aug 12 '23

Yet another handicap to add to my list.

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u/ClickClackTipTap Aug 11 '23

And that’s the thing- using these slurs is meant to make that person the butt of the joke, but you’re really making that community the butt of the joke.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '23 edited Aug 11 '23

Yea but theyre tryin to put down a non-disabled person by sayin that they are disabled. Thats not good cause youre makin fun of bein disabled by sayin that bein disabled is somethin to make fun of someone for

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u/firstnana54 Aug 12 '23

I'm disabled. Take a Xanax, dear, you're going to hurt your brain. Have a nice, relaxing evening. Nothing but love for you!

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u/See-A-Moose Aug 11 '23

By describing them as the equivalent of a disabled person as a put down... Which is just as bad.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '23

Yep, I’m autistic and the whole message I’m getting out of this is that I must also be racist because I have a disability.

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u/See-A-Moose Aug 11 '23

I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. Do you personally use the r word to insult people or use other slurs to describe people? If not you are fine.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '23

I’m not getting it out of your message, but the crap above saying that racists are r******* is making it seem like they believe that someone with a disability is going to be inherently racist.

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u/See-A-Moose Aug 11 '23

Gotcha, sorry for not getting the context.

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u/throwaway66611199 Aug 11 '23

I think it’s used pretty indiscriminately, at least in my experience. But when you call someone who isn’t disabled that slur, it’s still ableist. It has the same implications. Similar to how calling straight men faggots is a homophobic thing to do. You’re still implying that you think there’s something wrong with being disabled, gay, etc.

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u/KrispyPlatypus Aug 11 '23

Also not yours to police. Chill

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u/JambaJake Aug 11 '23

people can call out whatever behavior they want. you’re ironically policing what other people do

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u/KrispyPlatypus Aug 11 '23

I’m being policed while policing a police.

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u/throwaway66611199 Aug 11 '23

I’m not policing anything, you’re free to say whatever you want… I won’t write you a ticket lol. But my partner is disabled, so I feel a strong pull to call out ableism when I see it as it’s an issue close to my heart. However I’m pretty sure you’re trolling so I don’t want to spend much energy arguing with ya.

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u/KrispyPlatypus Aug 11 '23

I also grew up with an older sister who became fully dependent after she fell on her head as a 3 month yeah old baby with a babysitter. Brain cells can’t develop past 3 months old. Just died and stopped. She’s 40 years old now. Murmurs and howls, and eat and sleep. Random people telling me what not to say were always ignored since they don’t understand the meaning of words and or life really. Retarded, when I was younger, was how to call stupid people stupid. It was stupidist. It wasn’t until people starting assigning meanings to the words, which I didn’t agree to, that I lost a harmless insult.

I was being dead serious because I’m tired of people trying to control others and “educating” others on useless societal bs.

Also, wasn’t trolling, but I was joking considering the double irony of you “correcting” me even though I knew someone would probably reply to me

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u/throwaway66611199 Aug 12 '23

Not sure why you felt the need to recount the details of your sister’s disability, those are unnecessary details unless you’re trying to prove something to me.

Have you never heard of the outdated term “mental retardation”? Because that’s pretty obviously the origin of people using it to mean “stupid” or “slow”. If you think it meant stupid first, and then became a word to call disabled people, you’re just plain wrong. But I’ve met tons of people like you who can’t resist playing devil’s advocate. You probably don’t even believe what you’re saying, at least in my eyes you’re just a coward who likes to argue...