Wikepedia states
“Much like today’s socially acceptable terms idiot and moron, which are also defined as some sort of mental disability, when the term retard is being used in its pejorative form, it is usually not being directed at people with mental disabilities. Instead, people use the term when teasing their friends or as a general insult.”
Is it only a slur if directed at soneone with mental disabilities? Is it a slur if durected at onself?
Whats lemmies take on this?
They’re not properly referred to by that word. They USED to be referred to by that word back when they (falsely) believed that such disorders made them inferior.
Classifying those who were mentally less-developed as “retarded” became the excuse for a world that would try all types of monstrous experiments, ostensibly in an attempt to “heal them” because this was they only way “those people” could be a use to society; as lab rats for things like lobotomies, electro-shock therapy and any other wacky insanity that the early 20th century had dreamed up.
In effect, while “retarded” was once the so-called medical terminology it very quickly became shorthand for an entire group of people that could be dismissed and used because they’d serve no other purpose otherwise.
Mental retardation is no excuse for abuse. But it’s still an apt term, in denotation. But the connotation has become unacceptable.
A plant’s growth may be retarded due to various conditions, and that may interfere with it’s prospects for survival.
Fire retardant may prevent a fire from starting, or stop one that has started to develop.
But when considering people, there are a whole slew of subtle problems, including that people may include that in their identity, and give up. They can be treated, possibly, but that’s all for them now. You’re a retard. It leaves no room for other things. People still feel this way about some diagnoses that, if they didn’t lean into them so hard, leave plenty of room for change. But the social weight behind “retard” just carries too much crap, and speaks volumes - some of which may be true, but a lot of which is not.
‘Disabled’, ‘undeveloped’, and ‘inhibited’ can be good terms. But most of it depends more heavily on how we treat others and what has been taken into common use.