There is a blog called...get ready...Retarded in Love. (link has been removed). It's written by a very very young person who thinks she can order her life Just. So. She's got a to-do list that includes getting pregnant on schedule and having, presumably, perfect and lovely healthy children. Dust off hands. All done.
Some of you may be aware that a few of us contacted the blog's author, Michelle, about the title of her blog. Here is what I commented to her:
It would be thoughtful of you to change the title of your blog...yes, this probably comes across as uptight oldness or just plain uptight, but people who actually are labeled as retarded cannot defend themselves when someone uses this term for amusement. While the word itself should not be used as a label, it is still, and we all know exactly what it means. It's painful to people who love someone who is intellectually disabled to see a word like this used for humor by someone who is patently not intellectually disabled. If you must use a term that refers to cognitive deficiency as a result of being overwhelmed by love or made a fool of by love, I suggest "Stupid, " as in "Stupid in Love." God knows that's enough of a norm to avoid being offensive.
I thought that was pretty damned diplo-freaking-matic of me given that what I really wanted to say was, You stupid little young person, get that offensive word out of the name of your blog. It's an idiotic blog title anyway. (Yes, this coming from someone who has "daisymayfattypants" as her URL. Hey, it's my dog. And who's going to be offended by that?).
Ah...callow youth. Here is the self-assured young woman's response:
I realize my blog has come up as a topic on Twitter. I am going to give you the same response I just gave to my last e-mailer.
As long as I've had my blog, I'm sure you know you're not the first person to e-mail me something along these lines.
In my previous experience in debates with others, it comes down to this: agree to disagree. Here's why.
I am not calling any person retarded. In fact, if anything, I am only calling myself retarded. I am not even calling an animal, object, or idea retarded. I am using the word "retarded" in the way of modern slang, without directing it at anyone with the intention of harming feelings. So, the way I see it, it's just others choosing to be offended by my title - it is not being offered that way.
There are plenty of "normal" blog titles I could choose to be offended by, but I choose not to be so sensitive. It's really up to my visitors how far they want to take the meaning behind my title - and if they don't like it, they certainly don't have to come back, or support my blog in any way.
She's decided that this is an "agree to disagree" situation. She chooses "not to be so sensitive." I guess that's pretty easy for her given that she's presumably *not* someone who's actually been labeled as retarded.
Well, I don't agree to that. She defends the word "retarded" as "modern slang." Ah, the old "modern slang" excuse. She probably thinks that's novel, that no one's ever pulled that old chestnut out of their pockets before. I'm pretty sure that the n-word gets that defense, too, but you know what? It's not acceptable to use in a blog name, and it's still damned offensive. Without equivocation, she's in a completely indefensible position, modern slang or not. Hilariously, she thinks that a word that has been in use in this very context (i.e., "retarded in love") is "modern" slang...not realizing, evidently, that even really old people in their 40s like me grew up hearing it used in exactly this way.
So, nope. I don't agree to disagree. I continue to disagree. I urge anyone else who feels the same to do the same.
Oh, and Michelle, you infant, you child, if you read this, good luck with that to-do list. Life evidently has quite a few lessons to teach you. If you're blessed with a special needs child, perhaps you'll gain a better understanding, and--dare I say it--sensitivity about the "modern slang" you choose to toss around so casually.
15 comments:
After reading Michelle's blog, I'm not at ALL surprised by the response you got. Fits with what I read.
I wrote to her and asked her to change her blog title, and got the exact same response word for word. A form letter.
Yuck.
Yeah, pretty much the same case here, too. You know, I would never wish the path my parenting has taken on anyone with any malice. But I may just have to make an exception in her case. But I'm afraid for the child...so I won't. But geez...
Yes, I hope life teaches her some really good lessons that might make her change her self-involved, self-indulgent attitude.
Aw. How cute. She thinks that's a word she can reclaim, when it wasn't hers to begin with.
*cracks knuckles*
Scuse me. I think I have to channel some of my inner Bad Autie.
Goodfountain...felt the same way. Not such high-caliber product there.
kateypie35--I'm pretty it's a copy and paste she sends to anyone who's "sensitive" and complains.
Niksmom...she'd be lucky to have my path. What she'll get is what any of us gets...whatever reality has in store, which so far appears to have been not much. All I know for certain is, fate doesn't follow one's personal timetable.
Kassiane...channel away.
I have a few names I could suggest.
Ya know, the use of that word really is considered "modern" to teenagers. I hear it every single day, "oh that's retarded" "he's so retarded". It's lost it's true meaning. Young people don't understand that words really DO have a meaning. Just like saying "that's gay". Think about it... "cool" lost it's meaning. It became a habit to say it and it became a modern slang term. The best thing to do in this situation is to stop driving traffic to her blog. Go to BlogHer directly and e-mail them because she's a part of their network.
It's sad, but some people don't understand.
Hi, awelbaum--thanks for posting. I thought about the issue of "driving traffic" to her site, but I'm not too concerned that anyone from this site who visits hers will become a regular reader of her blog, which is trite at best.
I've been hearing "retarded" used that way since before I myself was a teenager, and my students have also been using it for years. In other words, not only is it offensive, it's hackneyed. Anyone who considers themselves an "artist" or writer should at a minimum avoid using it on that account alone.
I think this post is useful in that it lets any of us who are interested know exactly what kind of indefensible "arguments" and rationales we might be encountering when we work to have people stop using the R-word.
I am already in touch with BlogHer about this and have been. She's part of their advertising network, not an official BlogHer blogger.
I'm relying on Karma, that blessed bitch, to help that poor young girl to find her way.
Mama, you said in few words what it took me many paragraphs to articulate. Exactly.
The blog referred to is so poorly written (and the content so shallow), that I expect the author to quickly run out of topics that even she would consider interesting. I am sure that she is already taxing what few functioning neurons she has to crank out the trite trash she does.
It's only a matter of a short time before her blog is relegated to obscurity on some backwater server somewhere. She'll probably stop paying to renew her domain name at some point, which will relegate her puerile musings on her sophomoric site to be at least generally lost to circulation.
I'm sure that the only reason she hasn't commented here is that she got tired looking up "hackneyed" and still being confused after reading the definition.
Joe
I've brought this up on Twitter. Her saying that the word is slang doesn't excuse her usage of it because even though there are words that end up getting used as slang, when you really get down to it people do know the original meanings can make the words offensive.
And it's been brought up that she doesn't have much of a reach. 32 followers and she follows no one?
If she wants to be a mommy blogger, maybe she should be more sensitive to her audience - mothers. Just a thought.
Wow, what a lot of emotions can be conjured in humans by placing a few letters together ....it's like some form of alchemy .
Retarded means to "hold back" . It was originally used as a medical label for individuals who appeared to stop developing past the point of their age related peers . It was not created to demean, insult or place a value judgment on those individuals..."humans" did that all by themselves...just like the "N" word and a plethora of other words they use as weapons against each other . I'm sure they would do the same with "developmentally delayed" but it's more of a mouth full .
I have worked with developmentally delayed for 5 years and most of them are not just "delayed"...they have reached the limit of their intellectual capability and will never catch up to their peers...not in this life time .
This isn't a value judgment....this is reality and one shared by many Nuero-typical people I know who will never catch up to some of their peers . I consider myself retarded and use the term frequently when my brain wont do what I think others can do quit easily . I also consider myself a savant compared to my peers in other areas of development....(After all, I didn't vote for GW Bush) . The point is simply that the word itself is not a naughty or evil word just because some "morons" decided that people of differing intellects had less value and used it as a weapon .
Let the kids have the word, we don't use it any more and goodness knows my generation(I'm 45) did a very poor job with it's use . The problem is not one of magical vocabulary but humans being illogical and cruel and I don't see that changing any time soon .
Hi, krex...thanks for posting. Yes, words conjure emotions. That's because they're used for human-to-human communication, which carries an enormous emotional burden. We have emotional processing centers that cross paths with language processing, and we have emotional responses to words. That's a human thing.
While I am well aware of what the word "retarded" means...and we use it often in science to describe, for example, slowed growth, the fact is that the population that has received this label for decades (it's still on buildings in my city where the state sites people charged with helping this population) typically would not be able to parse a rationale like yours, which I admit is far superior to the one Michelle tried to foist off on me. It is because of this defenselessness that the casual transliteration of the word into teen language to describe someone who is only "acting retarded" sets off a powerful emotional response in people who *can* defend them. As much as I thoroughly understand your argument about words not inherently bearing emotion, they exist for humans, who are emotional beings, to use. Their nuance, their context, the tone of voice...it all carries relevance for words as tools of communication.
Words also carry the weight of zeitgeist, history, and interlocutor response, whether Webster's acknowledges it or not, and also whether or not callous people like Michelle do.
My husband doesn't have an issue with "retarded". And he can't see why I do when it's clear "noone means anything by it". So yes, we agree to disagree, and while I have no idea if he uses it elsewhere, he never uses it around me or the boys because he respects my wishes. It bothers me, but I can't make him understand why I think it's awful anymore than he can make me understand why it's not a big deal. I understand how complicated it can be to not use language that is ingrained in your head that you find out later is offensive to a group of people. Technically, imbecile, moron, idiot etc. all have roots to people with disabilities and devaluation of said people, but we aren't as sensitive to those words and use them (I try not to, but I'm pretty sure I still do). So I in a complicated "can't explain in a blog comment" way, I sort of understand my husband's "it's just a word" point of view . While I've seen a lot of people stop using the R word, I haven't seen their attitudes change much. That's what bothers me the most.
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