R-Words and Our Words
I’ll start with a confession: When Timbo Shriver and I launched Spread the Word to End the Word in 2009, we weren’t thinking much of 2018. 20-year-olds don’t often think almost a decade ahead, I suppose. We couldn’t see much past 10-feet ahead of us anyway (let alone nearly 10 years), with the stage floodlights in our eyes. On stage at the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games, we squinted into the lights and told the 5,000 local middle and high school students in attendance that we were starting a campaign. In this campaign — dubbed Spread the Word to End the Word — we would together mobilize for the respect of people with intellectual disabilities by sharing the hurtful impact of the word ‘retard.’ 5,000 local students cheered. We didn’t think then that, years later, just as many schools — not students, schools — would be participating in Spread the Word to End the Word.
Whether we thought about them or not, the years have come. What began with 2 co-founders has grown to a group of hundreds and thousands leaders young and old — with and without intellectual disability — who have founded their own campaigns for respect in their schools and communities.
That young people can be the catalyst for such action is no surprise; we bet on it, in fact. But let me share one surprise (amongst many) we’ve found. This campaign began as one focused on R-words. It focused on driving the decline of the word “Retard(ed)” in a quest to engender the Respect for people with intellectual disabilities due to any person. A campaign focused on these two R-words. But we discovered the campaign to be just as much about our words as R-words. Even if a pledge does not end a word, it does begin a conversation. And in these conversations come our words. Our words to overcome outdated social barriers. To meet fear of difference with embrace of shared humanity. To choose to include.
And whose words are these? Who are we? We are the many, young and old, who have witnessed this stigma and have said: enough. Some of us have intellectual disabilities — some of us do not. We are friends, brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, teammates, classmates. Maybe you’ve seen some of us wearing Special Olympics jerseys or Best Buddies t-shirts. We see others harbor the prejudice and fear that manifests in the R-word and we see a self-targeted robbery, a self-denial of life’s richness by closing off to an entire population with intellectual disability. And we want you to have what we have: the benefits of social inclusion that shout from the halls of our schools, workplaces, and communities.
We are the ones who have heard those with intellectual disabilities articulate the pain they feel from the R-word and social exclusion. Not the inconvenience or shallow embarrassment or passing discomfort: the pain. We are the ones who believe them when they say that this pain is real. We have felt it. And we aim to end it.
And so, as we approach our 10th annual day of Spread the Word to End the Word, I invite all of us to share our words. Share your story as a friend, an advocate, a sibling, or parent about the impact of the R-word, the importance of respect, or the impact of inclusion. We want this blog — appropriately titled Our Words — to be your tool to capture your story and share with all of us. You’ll see me share mine in the coming weeks — my story as a sibling with my sister Olivia who has an intellectual disability, my story as an advocate, my story as a wondering mind trying to unpack and understand this stubborn stigma — and I sincerely hope to see your story as well.
Onward,
Soeren
If you have a story, video, photo, poem, essay, guide, dance, (or anything else) to share with the world, follow the three easy steps in this link or publish your story on Medium and email it to spalumbo@specialolympics.org. If you prefer, you could also put your story into a word document, let us know whether you would like it published under your name or anonymously, and email it to spalumbo@specialolympics.org.
Pledge your support to end the R-Word here.
