Person-first language is not a common practice presently in main stream society. Until individuals are in a situation where they personally come to realize how disempowering some words can be first hand, many people remain ignorant to how some words that are commonly used can negatively impact people with disabilities. People can be thoughtless at times, and being thoughtless can be hurtful to some and offensive to others.
In the age of political correctness our culture is slowly but surely becoming aware of the power that words have and how to conscientiously choose our words more wisely. The twenty-first century has seen an upsurge of national campaigns to promote empathic practices in our everyday lives against such things as bullying and having general respect for other people for whom we may not identify with.
O’Neill, B. (2011). Critiques politically correct language specifically the use of the word retard in his NY Times article reporting on a national campaign “Spread the Word to End the Word” in an effort to end the use of the word and its variants. As stated by O’Neill, (2011): “Retarded and “retard” today are variations on a slur” which are commonly used among today’s youth as a weapon with an assaultive potency. (O’Neill, 2011).
O’Neill (2011) regards the term “retarded” as a politically incorrect offensive word not because
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After the backlash, Ms. Coulter stood by her choice of words with an even more ignorant justification. As she referred to her previous tweet, she said she called the president the “R word” and looked for clarification in its offensiveness. In an interview with "Piers Morgan Tonight." Ms. Coulter stated: "maybe Biden should be upset with me calling the president a retard but not an actually disabled person," she chose the word "because it's a synonym for 'loser.' " How ignorant can you get? Loser is not anything near the actual definition of retarded, all she needed to do was refer to a
This lack of correlation between facts and her claim happens throughout her entire article and really hurts the article's credibility. After listing a slew of facts and anecdotes her response was “I find these facts and statistics terrifying”, this explanation does not give any insight on why on I should stop saying “retard” or the consequences that saying has. Throughout her entire article the only real point that states why we shouldn't say the R-word is because it hurts her feelings. I belive that hurt feelings are not what I would call a good reason in an argument to ban the word retard. Her entire article is based on appealing to people's emotions rather than appealing to people’s logic. A great contrast to Patricia Bauer’s article is Christopher Fairman’s “The Case Against Banning the Word ‘Retard’. Although he uses less facts and statistics than Bauer’s article, he uses them in a more impactful way and states how the fact is connected on the use of the word. One such example of this is when he talks about the N-word as an
People often think that a disability means that the person is cognitively incapable in addition to the obvious, or not so obvious, truth. I firmly believe that people should be labeled by their abilities rather than their disabilities. This is why I love the idea that the Deaf community defines itself as culturally capital-D Deaf rather than lower-case-d deaf, which is the condition of being unable to hear. When Drolsbaugh received strong reactions from using the word Deaf, it was because those individuals were unsure of what to do because of his deafness. I wonder what the world, or at least America, would be like if everyone understood this concept; more so, I wonder what it would be like if sign language was commonly taught in elementary schools in the hearing
The human race is rather ignorant. We give a label to people that we think are challenged because they are not like the majority. The people that do label, are the ones who are truly blind or deaf. They see nothing, they hear nothing except what they want to hear or what they think they want to hear or see. For you see the "handicapped" can do things that non-handicapped can not. If one really thinks about it, they are not handicapped. If any one is handicapped it is the
Eli Clare in Freaks and Queers observes how individuals use certain words to reaffirm their identities and also distinguish themselves from the rest of society. Being a disabled transman, Clare mentions various words, like handicapped, cripple (crip), gimp, amongst others, which have come to be accepted by the disabled community. He says, “cripple makes me flinch…but I love crip humor, the audacity of turning cripple into a word of pride” (p. 83). Some of these words, like queer for the LGBT community, are used as a means of agency and community for minority groups. But he also turns to the ugly side of language, which can be used to decrease and erase the worth of an individual. He mentions his discomfort with the word ‘freak’ and how
In “A Movie, A Word, and My Family’s Battle,” by Patricia Bauer makes an emotional argument that you cannot use the word “retard”, no matter how you mean it, without offending a large group of people while also setting back years of progress.
Kathie Snow mentions that a “problem” reflects a need (2010, P. 2). For instance, instead of saying a person who suffers from cerebral palsy, we should say, a person with cerebral palsy. Also, rather than calling someone mentally retarded, we can say, someone with an intellectual disability. It is degrading when we label people. We must focus on the individuals first.
In conclusion, Fairman concludes his article by saying that the Special Olympics’ plan of banning the word retard and protecting intellectual disabled people from the use of the word will not succeed because new words will form to replace old words, he also concludes by saying the freedom of expressing words is very important and precious so as a result, banning a word is not worth it.
As he regained calmness, he realized he was being silly and that a couple of teenagers are not a threat to him; this is where he uses logos once again. While “faggot” may not be a violent word to him, it could very well be one to another gay man. He maintains that oppressive language is not violent and I would argue that he is not well versed enough to make such a bold statement like that. I’m not prepared to challenge a gay man on his own experiences and what he drew from it, but I’m more than willing to challenge his belief that hate speech is not violent. A word like “nigger” has such a revolting, violent history that when used today it creates an unsafe environment for black people. Generally, people who use language like that aren’t very peaceful people and certainly pose a threat to black people. While I respect Rauch and his views, I believe he has a poor insight in to how harmful hate speech is, especially to non-white minorities because hate speech often materializes into violent acts and
In an article published by “Journal of Blacks in Higher Education” Lawrence states that “even though I am always troubled by public use of the term nigger, the most uniquely hateful words in the American vocabulary. And yet I would never criticize Chris Rock for when, where and how he uses it” (Lawrence 84). The reason why the writer in the article stated the he do not criticize Chris Rock for using the word Nigga he fell as if American is ‘censoring and policing black creative and expression” (Lawrence 84). Racial slurs can be positive in the African American culture because it is an image that project how black can become better parents for their kids at home and role models, how education is very important and good work ethics. “On the other hand the significance of Mr. Richards’ upheaval is about more than terrible drama strategy. Jamie Masada, the proprietor of the Laugh Factory, and Paul Mooney, a black humorist who used to compose for Richard Pryor, have joined legislators and activists, including the Democrat of California, in requiring a conclusion to the utilization of what they call the N word by everybody including blacks” ( Allen 1). This is why individual in America looks at racial slurs differently because its interpretation black culture and black entertainment depending on how they perceive the jokes.
Rather than taking the issue of intellectually disabled peoples' incompetence as unproblematic and given, Edgerton in his book has, in a different way, questioned the social and cultural assumptions that exist within notions of competence. He also argues that the concept of incompetence automatically take as fact notions of competence and seek to situate cultural interpretations of incompetence within this broader framework. In doing so the book contributes both to debates on labeling and competence and to cross-cultural studies of intellectual disability.
Historically, we have been taught that people with disabilities are different and do not belong among us, because they are incompetent, cannot contribute to society or that they are dangerous. We’re still living with the legacy of people with disabilities being segregated, made invisible, and devalued. The messages about people with disabilities need to be changed. There needs to be more integration of people with disabilities into our culture to balance out the message. Because of our history of abandonment and initialization, fear and stigma impact our choices more than they would if acceptance, community integration, and resources were a bigger part of our history.
The following is a response and reflection to the article “People First Language” by Kathie Snow. My first personal interpretation of the article was of a person on a rampage and I could not understand the content of the article. The author Kathie Snow seemed to be upset that people with disabilities are labeled, instead of being addressed by their name. In her article, it appeared that she was using false analogies. Her article compared people with disabilities and medical diagnoses like psoriasis, arthritis, diabetes. I am not sure if I agree with this analogy, because not all disabilities are a physical medical issue. Some disabilities are cognitive, social, or emotional and really have no relationship with medical disabilities. Although, it takes a professional medical person in some subfield of the medical field to diagnose a disability, it just seems that, there is no correlation between medical physical issues and disability. On the other hand, there were parts of the article that
The “Politically Correct” movement’s purpose is to bring historically condescending terms, offensive music and art, and controversial educational content to an end and replace them with more positive and less-offending references. Offensive and demoralizing efforts are wrong, but the censorship and deletion of words and phrases that do not contain the intention to demoralize are taking political correctness too far. Politically correct (or “PC”) antics have created a social decline that is growing worse with each generation, specifically regarding areas of art, education, language, and our right to freedom of speech; the degradation they have brought to the American psyche has even led to name-changing.
“Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.” (Einstein). Developmental disability, better known as intellectual disability, or mental retardation is a disorder that causes individuals to preform at below average levels (“Intellectual”). This disorder is characterized by continued infant-like behavior, decreased learning ability, failure to meet the markers of intellectual development, inability to meet educational demands, and a lack of curiosity (“Intellectual”). Some people with intellectual disabilities are able to live normal lives, while others may require assistance. Most people with intellectual disabilities have the same capacity to preform the same task as those without intellectual disabilities.
People with disabilities are still people, they are people with hearts and they are actual physical beings; people with disabilities do their best to live every day to their fullest, yet that is still not enough for others. I feel like as a whole, humans are generally uncomfortable with people who have disabilities. Let’s think of it this way, people live their life every day in their normal lives and then they come across a person with a disability and suddenly their life is interrupted, like it is such a barrier in their flow of life to come across someone different from themselves.