Quote:
Originally Posted by medusacoils
On an even more serious note, I do wish the mod team would crack down more on people that make disparaging, disgusting and distasteful remarks like this;
I have seen this posted several times by a couple of members of this forum. Being the parent of "Special Needs Child", I find comments, like this, far more offensive then some cuss word.
Sorry, didn't mean to go all serious on you!
Wayne
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But it all comes down to an individual's sensitivity to a word or comment. I have friends with special needs children and they aren't offended by these kind of comments because they aren't being deliberately directed at person with the intention of inflicting emotional harm. Its a broad statement. If someone specifically told them that their kids are retarded, you bet they'd be PO'd. Like many words in our new vocabulary, the original meaning has been somewhat overlooked to become a new vernacular. Gay didn't always mean homosexual, neither did fag (and it means something completely different depending on what country you're in).
Have you ever used the word "moron" when dealing with someone? How about "idiot"? Both have the same definition as "retarded", but we use them daily. So why is the word "retarded" still regarded as offensive over those other words? Even historically "moron" and "idiot" were more offensive than "retarded" when speaking of the mentally disabled. They all started out as a statement used in ignorance are still used by most people. It can be quite demeaning, but I'm not sure people who use these words as slang these days really know the history of what they mean. That's not to say its acceptable to tell someone with disabilities they're retarded, or a moron or an idiot, that's just plain vicious, but to call someone doing something stupid one of those words had become commonplace.