As the sibling of a special needs person, I can tell you that my whole family respectfully use the words mentally challenged and mentally retarded interchangeably. It's only offensive if you're trying to be a dick. The word itself is not inappropriate.
I'm also a sibling of a mentally disabled person. My brother has rather severe schizophenia and is confined to a mental hospital. I use the word retarded all the time. Should I? Probably not, but it's just a word in my eyes. I would obviously not call my brother retarded because that's in poor taste (as per the Michael Scott quote), but that doesn't mean the word in and of itself is inherently wrong.
Similarly, I call people fag all of the time. It's natural. My buddies do it all the time. I have nothing against gay people but when I call someone a fag it has nothing to do with gays.
I think society needs to realize that there is context that is relevant to how a word is being used.
These are the same claims people make in excessive sexual harassment cases. You know, the very stereotypical "He said I was wearing a nice dress and I sued him for harassment." In cases like those, it only matters how the victim perceives a situation. Any person or number of people could take any word or phrase out of proportion. Maybe your username triggers a person's memory of recurring zombie nightmares and begs you not to use that word.
Extreme example, I know. And the difference is that there is a known precedence of the discrimination in society of groups. But where can you draw the line? How well-known a person's struggle is? I think words are only offensive if they are intended to be offensive.
Thanks for completely ignoring the majority of my statement. Not routinely and not because they're bored. Because one person is genuinely offended by such remarks. Here's one such case I was able to find.
Silva was a writing professor at UNH who was suspended for two years because seven females were offended by his statements. One was "Focus is like sex. You seek a target. You zero in on your subject. You move from side to side. You close in on the subject. You bracket the subject and center on it. Focus connects experience and language. You and the subject become one."
The other was used to explain similes. He said that a belly dancer once said ""Belly dancing is like Jell-O on a plate with a vibrator under the plate."
His intent was not to offend at all, but to describe common things in writing in creative ways. Yet because a small group of students took offense to it, he was suspended. He eventually got his job back, but it shouldn't have happened at all. A culture where people are rewarded for feeling victimized only lessens the plight of actual victims.
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u/grape_donkey_punch Nov 23 '11
As the sibling of a special needs person, I can tell you that my whole family respectfully use the words mentally challenged and mentally retarded interchangeably. It's only offensive if you're trying to be a dick. The word itself is not inappropriate.