Opinion Havers

13 readers

1 users here now

This is for people to express opinions, ideally those that are unpopular, boutique, eccentric or otherwise outside the norm. Please strive to upvote posts and comments that are articulate and somewhat thoughtful, even if you disagree with the opinion.

Argument and debate is completely acceptable and in fact what we're going for here! Dumb drive-by comments are not allowed and may result in a short ban.

founded 2 weeks ago

MODERATORS

BothsidesistFraud

-12

"Retard" is a great insult and no normal person believes it's harmful to the intellectually disabled (self.opinionhavers)

submitted 2 weeks ago by BothsidesistFraud to c/opinionhavers

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"Retard" is the perfect length for an insult and lends itself very well for emphasis. It rolls off the tongue in anger or disgust very well. Like with most insults, nobody even thinks about what it actually means (see: "motherfucker", "dumbass", etc) any more.

Furthermore, nobody calls the intellectually disabled "retards", and "retarded" is also quite rare now as is "mental retardation". So "retard" is perfect for repurposing as a general purpose insult. People who get up in arms about this are basically saying that the mentally handicapped are retards, which they are not, a "retard" is NOW your dumb friend who you are making fun of, and not an intellectually disabled person you never met.

Get angry about something else. Removing the slur from the intellectually disabled is a good thing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

in Portuguese (at least in the region of Brazil I live in) it's basically got that meaning you described (when you're pointing out the dumb thing your friend did).

From what I've seen, in English, plenty of people consider it a slur. I don't understand why, but since I prefer to avoid conflict, I just don't use the word.

I definitely understand your point, but I just don't care that much about it considering it's not my native language: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." So I don't have an opinion on the word and just prefer to respect the rules of whatever online space I'm in.

Also think of others' perspective: you as an (inferred) abled person may just not experience being called that word, but disabled people could have it used against them as a slur without you knowing or seeing that. Although... "queer" was once a homophobic slur but now has been taken back by the LGBTQ+ community (it's even in the acronym!) so the same could one day apply for the R word.