"Retarded?" Hardly.
Hey Art ... your posts are consistently retarded ...
I'll preface this by noting that our 23-year old son, Alec, has Downs Syndrome. I also coach Special Olympics basketball and golf and we know hundreds of kids, teens and adults who are developmentally delayed.
Let me make a gentle request that you find some other word or phrase than "retarded" to get your point across. Here's why:
When used this way, "retard" has become a cultural pejorative. It's said as an insulting put-down and a way of diminishing the other person. In a lot of ways, it's as offensive as using the word "kike" or "slopehead" or even the "n" word.
Referring to someone who is mentally retarded as "retarded" is not offensive. When it's used as a general derogatory remark for someone who is not developmentally delayed, that changes things.
If you look at the bigger picture, a kid or adult who is described as a "retard" but isn't developmentally delayed has often committed some blunder and often for what we think is an uncaring reason. Working with Alec -- and a host of other kids and adults who are retarded -- I can honestly say that I rarely see them
knowingly commit a social blunder and even more rarely do so because they intended to.
(To the contrary, I've found developmentally delayed kids and adults often are crushed when they realize that they've offended or bothered somebody else. If anything, they care too much ... their openness and willingness to display their affection is considered either naive or childish and is distrusted or resisted by the rest of us.)
Finally, rarely are folks who are mentally retarded truly universally stupid or dumb. There are some areas where they have a difficult -- even impossible -- time understanding things. But, they're able to learn and to grasp concepts. It may take them a longer amount of time to resolve a problem or understand a complicated process ... or not. Alec shows amazing abilities to figure out how things work ... his ability to master his cell phone, video games, remote control devices, etc is outstanding at times.
For example, you could use these nouns that aren't going to bother anyone: dweeb, dunderhead, bonehead, clod, hammerhead, knucklehead, muttonhead, numskull, thickhead, thickskull, dunce, blockhead, goof, jerk, fool, and nincompoop. (whew)
Or, if you're searching for an adjective, there's always incompetent, inept, stupid, despicable, thickheaded, foolish, laughable, ludicrous, ridiculous, nonsensical, absurd, harebrained, kooky, sappy, zany, preposterous, cockamamie, daffy, dotty, dippy, silly, etc.
Thanks ... and off the soap box.
