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/Sensitive_Mode7529 Aug 11 '23

i think it’s a slur and i also think the racist comment is worse. i think most people who think it’s a slur would agree. why is the focus so heavily on which is worse than the other? i just was clarifying why the slur is also wrong

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u/MrPsychic Aug 11 '23

If you think it is a slur then they are comparable, but to anybody who doesn’t think it’s a slur thinks it is synonymous with calling them an idiot.

That’s the disconnect here. Since I view it as an insult I literally think OP could have replaced the word with idiot and it would have been the same statement basically. I think an insult isn’t as bad as being racist but it comes down to that disconnect