I mean yeah, the word retard has been controversial for awhile now, but awhile ago they started taking the MR out of MRDD signs in my area, so it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if even saying, mentally retarded was concerned bad taste now.
My friend works in a place like that (sorry I don’t know what they’re called) and he said that people in there call mentally retarded people cognitively deficient, which is a whole lot less concise than mentally retarded in my opinion. Also, the term mentally retarded has been used for years to be a legitimate description of people that are mentally handicapped. How long until mentally handicapped and cognitively deficient aren’t PC anymore?
I honestly don’t see the point in it, considering that people will just use any of the above terms derogatorily anyway. It isn’t the word the is used as much as the factor of malicious intent.
Thoughts? And no, “this thread is retarded” has already been said, so phooey on you.
I work in the field (the term you’re thinking of is ‘group home’), and yeah its kind of a thing.
The funny thing is, in my experience staff are waaay more likely than the general population to call something ‘retarded’ but would never ever ever use the term to describe a person with disabilities (except the term MRDD is still popular at least around here, its handy).
Same with gay. I will say it occasionally to say something I don’t like, but I would never actually call someone gay to insult them because of how they were born. See a video of Chris Rock explaining his use of the word faggot to get the gist of my meaning.
Actually, on the topic of PC; Can someone tell me what the proper term for black people? I got yelled at because I used African American so I’m fucking lost as to what to use now.
There’s a south park episode about that too, same deal.
This is kind of a cliche thing to get mad about though, so be careful! In reality it’s a race between sensitivity and the way words change their meaning over time.
And to put it in perspective, 30 years ago they still forcibly castrated disabled people, so there was definitely some room for improvement.
Ha. I kind of understand your plight. I almost feel bad using the word black people honestly, but I don’t think most black people think badly of calling me a white person, so it’s kind of a half-assed white guilt.
I still call people black, but there is the level of “I hope they don’t make a deal about this.”
Jarekov: I immediately thought of Chapelle’s Show.