The "retarded" renaissance

So, then, why "retard"? For one thing, "retard" and "retarded" have that retro, old-skool styling that is not only in vogue but also handy when that puerile, playgroundy connotation is precisely what's needed. Retarded, its fans insist, steps in where, say, "lame" (also an offensive term, if you think about it) leaves off. "I always thought 'retard,' which means slows and pretty in music, was actually a kind of nice way to express the condition. So I'm sorry it got a bad rap," says my friend Dixie, whom I called to find out if the teen TV network where she works would allow the R-word on air. (Answer: No way.) "It got a bad rap precisely because people used the term to mean lame. So now that we don't use it for the developmentally disabled, can we please use it to mean lame, stupid, way stupid? None of these have the punch that retard does. Some things are more than lame. They are retarded. The true essence of a poor, poor decision isn't conveyed well enough with lame. Or with gay, for that matter."

Ah, yes. About "gay." It's also made quite a comeback, from the fourth grade, as an insult -- but not against actual homosexuals. Even if you find that objectionable, there's still a difference. Gays -- unlike "retards" (See? You just can't say that!) -- have been using that term to describe themselves for decades. So the word itself, however you use it, just doesn't have the same thudding impact. And unless I missed them somehow, I haven't heard many murmurs about a radical political strategy to reclaim, à la "queer," the R-word.

In fact, perhaps not surprisingly, things seem to be going in the opposite direction. Just last year, the American Association for Mental Retardation changed its name to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, on the grounds that, while the term was still useful in certain legal and medical contexts, it had become dated at best, stigmatizing at worst. As one proponent of the name change argued, "It is in the process of dying its own death, of becoming an archaic term as others have before it."

That observation, in a way, bolsters the boosters' central defense: To the degree that "retard" is hate speech, well, we use it to speak of our hate for Paris Hilton. Or people who "go green" ... by private jet. Or certain politicians. Or any display, really, of eye-rolling dumbassery. Not the special-needs kids.

In fact, at least one person very close to the issue says she has no trouble separating the epithet, in this way, from its original meaning. "My sister has Down syndrome and I am most definitely an advocate for her and any developmentally disabled people. That said, I am in no way offended when I hear the word 'retarded,'" says Angelique Uhlmann, 40, a physician in Boston who was not offended by "Tropic Thunder." "In my mind it's just a word. I don't recall people ever calling her that, even, but I do recall people staring at her, mouths agape. That I find much more offensive than a mere word. Looks can kill, as they say."

Ari Ne'eman, an Asperger's autistic who is founding president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, isn't buying this argument. "That's like saying, 'I'm not really talking about the Jewish people when I say someone's trying to Jew me out of my money,'" he says. "It's very disingenuous to say this is not about the rights of people with disabilities, because in many ways reality and actions follow terminology. And if we can't reach a point where people with disabilities have the same basic rights to respect in public discourse that any other minority community really demands and is generally afforded, then we're never going to be able to address what is very real and tangible discrimination against people with disabilities." (Discrimination, he says, and even violence, noting that Sen. Joe Biden, Barack Obama's pick for V.P., in 2007 introduced legislation that would, among other things, expand the federal definition of a hate crime to include disability.)

Ne'eman and others maintain that disability is one of the last "acceptable" targets of bigotry. He decries this double standard: "There are people who would never practice bigotry against people of a different skin color or religion but are bigoted in their language or actions against people with disabilities all the time." I'd argue that no one's thrown around "cripple" much since Alexander Haig, but point taken. Plenty of racism has swirled around the Obama campaign, for example, but at least in "distinguished" circles, it has had to come at least a little encoded. We can argue all day about whether a particular, and subtle, turn of phrase, or sleight of Photoshop, or glance was anti-Semitic, or gay-bashing or whatever. But people -- whatever you may make of this -- are going around saying "retard," "retard," "retard," with not a whole lot of frowning in their wake.

Here's how it plays out in my world. The other day an electrician, not a tall guy, arrived at our fourth floor walkup complaining, jokingly, about all the stairs. "It's not easy for me and my midget legs," he said with a grin. Was he actually making fun of my sister-in-law, who is an achondroplastic dwarf? Of course not. Would he have said this to her face? No way. He probably didn't even know that the word "midget" is considered deeply offensive by many people with dwarfism. And yet, I cringed.

Ultimately, anti-"retard" activists are trying to do what I didn't do while that fellow fixed our ceiling fan: Say something. Or at least to get people, perhaps especially people like me -- who found the Simple Jack business hilarious precisely because we're so offended by "respectful" films like "Rain Man," and who are deeply aware of the power of words both to pinpoint and to prick -- to at least think twice about the insult's real-life impact.

"People are comfortable using 'retard' as a dis because in the past no one has stood up and said anything in numbers worth counting. Most marginalized groups come from places of family pride and tradition. They are able to stand strong together out of their heritage and make a statement. But people with intellectual disabilities, scattered through different families, are not part of a celebrated culture," says Williamson, who saw "Tropic Thunder" as equal parts outrage and opportunity. "I think today's high-tech world has finally allowed us to take a stand. Perhaps the word has continued to grow in popularity, since there has been no public pressure against it," she suggests. "Until now."