The R-Word

Last night, Connor, my 7-year-old stepson, said the most horrifying, dirtiest word I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth.

 

He called someone a “retard.”

 

To be more specific, he was speaking about my special needs daughter, who is now deceased. Ava, our special angel, was born with Aicardi Syndrome, a name that promised her multiple and quite serious mental and physical disabilities.  Ava was also Connor’s best friend. 

 

I don’t even remember how she came up in conversation or what was being said, but instead of saying, “Ava was kind of like a baby in a big kid’s body,” as he normally would, he flat out said, “Well, you know she acted like that because she was a retard.”  I felt the whole earth drop from beneath my feet.

 

I was stunned.  “CONNOR! What did you just say?”  He repeated it.  I asked him to sit down with me, and then I asked him to tell me what he thought that meant.  He had no idea, but he knew that someone had said it to him once to describe Ava.  When I explained to him that yes, she did have mental and physical retardations, we are never to use the word in a derogatory manner.  I went on to tell him that people use it in name calling against anyone who doesn’t act “right” or make good choices, but those people are in no way the same as Ava was.  I let him know we have a dictionary filled with appropriate words to describe people like that, and “retard” has never made sense when used in that manner. 

 

This tiny revelation brought my sweet little Connor to tears.  He felt betrayed by whoever taught him to say that, because they made fun of his sister and dragged him into it unknowingly.  He was afraid of all the feelings he’d hurt since then.  I couldn’t bear to ask him how many other times he’d said it before I found out.

 

What it left me wondering was, why on earth are is anyone at any age still calling special needs people retarded?

 

Think about it.  We live in a country where it is viewed (by most) as completely unacceptable to brand someone with a negative word based on their sexual preference, economic status, ethnicity, religious or even political beliefs.  The general consensus is that we should keep our mouths shut or expect to get mobbed by the townspeople with their pitchforks.  Yet, the most innocent of our citizens are still being persecuted and bullied for the way God made them?

 

Bullying is horrible in any form, but how are we expecting special needs people to be protected from it if we’re not even bothering to teach our children that it’s wrong, or to hold those accountable who practice the bad behavior? 

 

Recently in my home state of Mississippi, a 14-year-old boy with cerebral palsy named Austin Stokes experienced bullying in the worst form.  Without provoking his older, bigger attacker, Austin was struck hard enough to be lifted off the ground.  He was left with a busted eye, contusions, and a chipped tooth.  Cerebral palsy caused Austin to be legally blind and have paralysis in the left side of his body.  He was completely defenseless, and his attacker wasn’t immediately charged or jailed.  How can we let this happen?

 

I can’t help but wonder how many times Austin had to endure verbal bullying before it became physical.  Violence always begins with words.  It blows my mind that we have not yet slammed our fist on the table and said NO MORE.  Special needs people are nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of, and our country has a long way to go to prove we understand that.  In the 1800s and on into the 20^th century, many people with special needs were forced to undergo sterilization in an effort to create a cleaner society.  Does this sound like something that happened in Nazi Germany?  Because it happened right here.   Google “Vermont Eugenics” and I promise your jaw will drop.  President Roosevelt was an incredible advocate for special needs rehabilitation, but he still sympathized with people who were ashamed of those who needed it.  In was not until the passing of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that people with special needs or any disability were even protected by law in the United States, but that law doesn’t protect them from bullies.  As I type this I recall something my daughter’s neurologist shared with me as I struggled with understanding her syndrome.  “Nobody’s perfect.  We all have something wrong with us.”  He spoke the truth! 

 

People with special needs are not imbeciles.  They’re Rain Man, Oscar Pistorius, and Vincent Van Gogh.  They’re Beethoven, Steven Hawking, and Helen Keller. 

 

They are Austin Stokes and my daughter, Ava.

 

I challenge you to spike a change.  Why not make this the biggest civil rights movement of our time?  Check out www.r-word.org for help with getting started, and remember, the one thing worse than a child using the r-word is the adult who lets him.

-Paige