A Living Language

This post is from Linc's dad, Sam.

I have long been of the opinion that censorship is far worse than vulgarity. I am a fan of Free Speech. I believe that without the First amendment, none of the others matter very much. The notion that I have a right to say anything I wish, regardless of whose feelings are hurt, is close to sacred in my heart. It is a freedom, along with the right to vote that makes us all citizens rather than subjects. Men and women have died for this idea, that our government has no right to tell its citizens what to say or how to say it.

Our culture, on the other hand, is another matter. We enforce all kinds of rules upon one another. There are expectations of what is acceptable and what is not. Language is a living, changing thing and there are cultural laws, taboos, which are not against the in any state of the Union. After all, it is not illegal to say the words ‘nigger’ or ‘faggot’ or ‘kike’ out loud, but just writing those words turns my stomach, and it should. We have decided, as a culture, that those are destructive, hurtful, demeaning words and therefore they are unacceptable. Most of us no longer say them. Most of us don’t even think them silently in our heads.

I am thrilled to say that in the four years that Lincoln has been alive, another word has begun to enter that list of the taboo: ‘retard’.

Comedians have widely abandoned the word, even though it was once a guaranteed laugh. Movies now only throw it in for shock value or to paint a character as bigoted or uncaring. A few weeks ago I heard a national talk radio host fly off the handle at a caller who used the word on air. Even public figures as sensitive to public opinion as Rahm Emanuel and Rush Limbaugh have faced considerable popular outrage for using the word.

Our culture has decided, with head-spinning speed, that the word is no longer acceptable. It is not funny, it is not endearing, it is offensive. Labeling something ‘retarded’ is rapidly becoming a sign that the speaker themself is a small, ignorant, backwards person, a person to be avoided, a person for whom you need to apologize to your friends and family.

That label is disappearing. Its sting is beginning to fade away. My fear that my son will hear it in casual conversation out in public or bandied about on TV is vanishing. For people like Linc and for the families of people like Linc, this is a very good thing.

Lincoln, however, doesn’t care about the word right now. He can’t talk yet remember? He has no idea how deeply words can wound. The power of words is still a mystery to him. I could call him that word all day long and he would never think less of my parenting skills. I might even perversely be able to get him to try to repeat it out loud today and he wouldn’t recognize the betrayal. Eradicating the word from the English lexicon has nothing to do with Lincoln’s feelings today but it has everything to do with his community, and it has everything to do with his future.

Liz and I don’t know what it must feel like to be a person with Down syndrome and hear that word fired off. We also don’t know what it must be like to be black or gay or Jewish when those other three words that I made myself type at the beginning of this post are said out loud. But we believe the testimony of those who know intimately how much it hurts so we don’t say them. As adults we understand that the way you talk about someone can dictate how you treat them, even how you think of them. The R-word, as we call it, makes all people with intellectual disabilities feel diminished, ridiculed, and threatened. Worse, it makes the people who say it think of those people as alien, as less important, even as less human.

Our culture is quickly (more quickly than I thought possible) beginning to realize that this way of speaking about one another is unacceptable because this way of thinking about one another is unacceptable.

‘Retard’ is derogatory, plain and simple. It is no longer a clinical nor legal description of anyone. Medical documents no longer use the term, and the government no longer uses it. It is only now used as a technical term (to slow down or decelerate) or it is used as a disparaging description of a human being. We all know what it means. If someone says that person over there is a retard, they mean that they are stupid, foolish, incompetent, unworthy of compassion or understanding, that they are someone to be despised and dismissed. They also mean that that is how they think of Lincoln. Next time you hear someone use the word, substitute it in your head with my son’s name. I’ll bet you won’t laugh then. I’ll bet it will be hard for you to keep from saying something like, “Please don’t use that word like that. I know someone with Down syndrome and that hurts.”

Good. I hope you say something. Please say something. You are a part of the English language. You are a part of this living, changing thing. You are a part of this culture. Help me change it for the better. Help Lincoln live in a world where he’s no longer a punch line.

This past April, Timothy Shriver (JFK’s nephew) went on HBO’s ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’. I watch the show on a regular basis even though, for a while, it seemed like Bill couldn’t do an episode without dropping an R-bomb. Shriver is the Chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics and was one of those who called for a boycott of the movie ‘Tropic Thunder’. I saw the movie and I thought it was funny, but his point is clear. The word is derogatory and it is only funny if you think of people with intellectual disabilities a certain way. You have to give Bill Maher credit for having Shriver on in the first place to talk about this. He knew it would be a hard topic and one that might not paint him in a great light. Also, remember that Bill has to play Devil’s advocate in order for the interview to go anywhere.

The interview is 8 minutes long, but if you’re pressed for time, just skip to 5 minutes in.

Mr. Shriver says, in three minutes, what I have just spent over 1,000 words trying to say here.

Bill Maher has not used the word on the air since.

Long live English, a living language!

Please visit http://r-word.org/ if you’re interested in helping even more.

-Sam