March 7th, 2012 is Spread The Word To End The Word Day, part of a campaign started by The Special Olympics to educate people about the offensive nature of derogatory terms like “retard.”
I signed the pledge and proudly display the badge on my blog. I’ve written about my feelings about the r-word and many others have blogged about it too. It boggles my mind that people (some who I’ve quietly un-friended online) continue to use the word, in jest. It’s not funny.
The r-word is “hate speech.” End of story.
Love that Max (written by Ellen Seidman) is a favourite link on my blog roll. In a recent post, Would You Call My Child A Retard Ellen offers up some of the idiotic comments people have made in defensive of using the word retarded. Unbelievable.
In answer to your question, Ellen…
….no. I would not call your child a retard. I would call him Max. And it breaks my heart to think somebody would look at my child and without even knowing her, call her retarded. Her name is Avery.
This is Ellen’s video. Please watch.
