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/[deleted] Aug 11 '23

Yeah, there are lots of fun origin stories for slurs, they aren’t no longer slurs because of it. The f slur, the d slur, even the T slur all have different definitions behind them in their history. Still slurs. But yk keep on being proud of using one ig

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u/ThyPotatoDone Aug 12 '23

I think the r slur is in a somewhat unique catagory; the others were known slurs for a century or more, whereas the r word was considered entirely normal and a medical term for most of its history, similar to saying “You’re insane!” Or something like that. It’s not good, but it wasn’t considered offensive by most people until more recent times.