A scene from my youth: It's sometime in the 1980s, and we're at the Thanksgiving table: grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, and the family dog, waiting impatiently for her after-feast plate of table scraps.
One uncle in particular stands out. Paul is in his mid-30s and has profound Down syndrome. Pauley, as we called him, has never lived on his own. He has never cooked his own meals or picked out his own clothing. He lives in a "home" – an institution for people with severe mental illness. Because that's what you did with such family members in small-town Illinois in the mid-late 1980s.
His vocabulary is limited and isn't very understandable to those who don't know him. But he loves music, rocking back and forth in his chair to the sounds of his portable radio. He is always there, a presence at every family holiday until he dies a decade later.
I grew up in a household where mental retardation was a part of my family, though not a part of daily life as it was for my father, his siblings, and their parents. To me, Pauley just was. He was my uncle, albeit one whom I knew was dramatically different from all my other relatives and one who was too disabled for me to have any sort of reciprocal relationship. But there he was, all the same, a part of my extended family until my mid-20s.
As I move through the world outside of that family, I am continually amazed by the frequency with which I hear my peers use "retarded" in the same way that we in the LGBTQ community want straight people not to use the word "gay." "That's really retarded!" "What a retarded thing to say!" "S/he's so retarded!"
"Retarded" and "gay" are almost interchangeable slurs. Yes, they mean different things. But their use is similar: just as kids who call each other "gay" are rarely referring to their target's sexual orientation, adults who describe someone as "retarded" don't really mean that the person has a mental disability. Both words call up images of hated and misunderstood people in order to put an individual down.
What truly astounds me is to hear adults in the LGBTQ and progressive communities – who would all heartily agree that it's not okay for children to call someone "gay" as a put-down – use the word "retarded" in exactly the same way.
What do we mean when we refer to someone as "retarded"? Often it's a substitute for "stupid" – an obvious thing overlooked, a mistake signaling a lack of intelligence. Other times, it designates someone who is weird, stands out from the crowd, who makes us uncomfortable, or isn't "normal" or like "us." It can also refer to someone who is different. In short, there are many connotations to the word "retarded," but one thing all those connotations have in common is that none of them is positive.
Sounds a lot like how many kids use "gay."
So if it's not okay to use "gay" as a put-down, then why is it okay to use "retarded" that way? If the former is hurtful, then isn't the latter hurtful as well?
Imagine how our world would be different if our language reflected respect for all people. So why do we show discomfort by putting others down with words referring to those people whom we fear? Why, indeed, are there groups that we fear at all?
If this smacks of political correctness, then all I can say is this: If being PC means keeping respect for each other at the forefront of our minds – and in our actions and words – then I'm a shameless adherent of political correctness. I cannot think of a situation where respecting each other is inappropriate, burdensome, or the purview of any one political philosophy.
Indeed, respect is the right of all human beings. We are therefore obligated to show it to each other. Regardless of whether there is someone gay or mentally disabled in the room.
So the next time you find "retarded" slipping out, ask yourself, "What do I really mean? Is this really about mental retardation? Why do people with mental disabilities make me so uncomfortable? And why do I think it's okay to use this word to put someone else down?" You may learn something about yourself from how you answer those questions. And we will all, as individuals and as a society, be the better for that self-examination.
Shannon E. Wyss, a genderqueer radical living in Washington, D.C., is working on a book about transgender and genderqueer high schoolers. Wyss can be reached via http://www.freewebs.com/hugdyke.