Stop Using the R-Word for Anything Other Than Slowing Down

It’s a slur against people with intellectual disabilities

Collage of R-word uses from X — assembled by author

I thought that people had stopped using the R-word several years ago. Students in my college classes discussed how wrong it was to casually call someone “retarded” or apply the suffix “-tard” to any other word.

Recently, this word has not only been creeping back into public discourse, it’s been aggressively adopted by right-wing bigots and New York Mag-profiled first-time Gen-Z novelists alike.

When I was growing up, one of the biggest playground insults was “MR” as in “mentally retarded.” Kids yelled this thoughtlessly, making countless others cry. But that was a long time ago.

The Spread the Word campaign for inclusion of people with intellectual differences started in 2009. They explain why the R-word is harmful to people with ID.

“I don’t think you understand how much you hurt others when you hate. And maybe you don’t realize that you hate. But that’s what it is; your pre-emptive dismissal of them [people with intellectual disabilities], your dehumanization of them, your mockery of them, it’s nothing but another form of hate. It’s more hateful than racism, more hateful than sexism, more hateful than anything.”
— Soeren Palumbo, Spread the Word…