It's not cool to use the R word: Spread the Word to End the Word Day

Today is Spread the Word to End the Word Day- the R word, that is.

I can't tell you how many well meaning people have asked me what the big deal is with using the R word. People who would never argue with me when I say that the American with Disabilities Act is needed and who know that services to deaf and blind communities must be further recognized as part of access.

But when it comes to the R word, they hesitate. They look at me and say "I don't get it. It's just slang." They don't see the harm.

Perhaps they haven't had the word directed at them - or at a loved one. This would explain why they don't feel as passionate, as certain as I do that we must eradicate the use of the R word. When words are slung at people to hurt them, those words demean and dehumanize people.

But it doesn't stop there. Language frames how we think about other people. The words we use about disability are no different. Listen to how people use the R word. As this parent points out in his article in the Huffington Post,

There are two relatively simply exercises that expose the R-word for the instrument of hurt that (in it's contemporary context), it has evolved into. First; is there a single instants when the R-word is used as compliment? Do we find ourselves showering our peers with the R-word after a great triumph or a significant achievement? Is the R-word the stuff that support and elevation are made of?

The answer is, of course, a resounding no. The R word is used negatively. It is used to insult, label, demean, and dehumanize. As slang, it's become so ingrained into our speech that its use is thoughtless, like many other slang phrases, but unlike saying "Hey that's cool" or "You rock", if you substitute the R word, which is often done, the words reinforce the negative. The R word becomes an insult hurled at individuals or a group of people.

How did that become cool? You only have to look at the history of the disability community to realize that hurling derogatory terms in public at people with disabilities has been acceptable for far too long. For this to change, we need to go further than letting people with disabilities out in public. For, before we clap for the changes wrought by the ADA, isn't that what it's been about in part? Mandating through legislation that we have to allow access for people with disabilities wouldn't have been necessary if the history of the disability community wasn't one of exclusion.

We also need to change how we think about disability. Part of that may be to take some time to visit the Spread the Word to End the Word site and take the pledge. Believe me, if you think this is an attempt to infringe on your right to speech, read more of what a parent has to say.

...armed with the knowledge that the R-word is a source of pain and that using the R-word demeans a group that is not in a position to defend itself and who definitely never did anything to merit this kind of derision, the hope is that people will exercise some degree of compassion or at least a heightened sensitivity toward the continued use of the R-word. Again, this is not an invasion of the Bill of Rights. Rather, it is a civil call to integrate a simple change into the way we treat, regard and address the special needs population.

And read what others have to say over at the site.

"I pledge to be kind and respectful to all people and never use the r-word"

Now that's cool.