The pain of the “r” word

(Content warning:  References to and some usage of language now considered offensive, especially to the disabled population.) 

Last week, although I carried on and participated in life, I was assaulted by memories of being called “retarded”. 

I don’t know if this was what triggered it, but a poster on Twitter/X commented that he was glad that he didn’t hear “the ‘r’ word” anymore. He also mentioned that the only place he saw it was in a recent thread of people defending their right to use it. (I remember, but cannot find, a post saying, “I choose to use the word because I choose to use the word.”) 

“Retarded” was commonly used 40, 50 years ago to describe those who are intellectually disabled. The word itself means “a holding back or slowing down; to delay or impede the development or progress of.” (From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary.) 

In a psychology class I took in high school, our teacher (this would have been around 1980-81) ran through the IQ labels used at the time:  0-25 was “idiot”, 25-50 was “imbecile”, 51-70 was “moron”, 70-80 was “borderline deficiency”, 80-90 was “dullness”, 90-110 was “average”, 110-120 was “superior”, 120-140 was “very superior”, 140 and above was “genius.”

Somewhere along the way, “idiot,” imbecile,” “moron”, and “retarded” all became slurs and insults. The teacher who ran through the IQ labels *had* to know that people in her class would use these to insult others. If I remember correctly, there was plenty of snickering during that particular lesson. 

I can’t remember when I first got called “retarded”. I’m not retarded, or intellectually disabled; in fact, I participated in a gifted program in middle school and graduated as number four in my high school class (I was the top girl and if I had taken some harder math classes, I might have scored higher. :) ) 

As a kid, people knew I was smart; but my social skills weren’t the world’s best. I really did not know, at the ages of five and six, how to approach other kids and introduce myself, ask, do you want to play? etc. I was able to make friends; I can name you who was my best friend at a particular point in life. But apparently, I was marked early on as an easy target; and the trap was sealed with these three data points:  1. Being told to “ignore them”, 2. Being given the impression that if I fought back, I would be punished at school and the bullies would not be; 3. The Bible said you were supposed to love your enemies and forgive them.

In sixth grade, someone at the bus stop said, “Didn’t Tina’s bus already come? The PARC bus?” PARC was Pinellas (County) Association for Retarded Children. 

But it was one boy’s constant chant, “Tina’s re-tar-ded,” that stuck with me all last week for some reason. He would just never stop. And even if I had turned around and punched him, again, I might have been the one who got into trouble. And who knows how much worse things would have gotten. (My parents finally pulled me off the school bus in 12th grade after I snapped and punched someone in the back. I was then asked, “Hey, Tina, why don’t you ride the bus anymore?”)

Last week, I functioned, I did the stuff that I needed to do . . . and I still kept hearing the person’s voice in my head, “Tina’s re-tar-ded.”

When I told my counselor about it a couple of days ago, I realized that I hadn’t fallen apart; I had still done what I needed to do, but the question underneath my memories of being called “retarded”, of having my books stolen, of having my shoes thrown in the trash, of having embarrassing questions flung at me, of having someone deliberately *not* giving me an assignment paper that the teacher had asked him to pass out to everyone (with him saying the words, “you don’t deserve one”), of having someone snatch my paper and copy answers from it (where I should have told a teacher but didn’t, because I’d already been beaten down enough; this was 8th grade when this happened), having my wallet stolen, having a person ask a guest speaker — and making sure I could hear them — what was wrong with a person who didn’t talk in class (because I didn’t talk in class unless I was answering a teacher’s question), being asked, “Your little sister drinks milk from your breasts, doesn’t she?” (implication being, you’ve had a kid and you’re pretending she’s your sister; for the record, I didn’t have a little sister and I had my only child when I was 35); having someone try to force a ring on my finger, being kicked under a lunch table, being accused of misbehaving at the lunch table when I didn’t . . . underneath all of that, and other incidents I haven’t mentioned, is the question:  “What in the world did I do that was so horrible that you decided to make me the target of your bullying?” 

The counselor pointed out that what I was doing was trying to make sense of what was going on, which was normal. 

I also said that I considered myself — and my husband, to an extent — intellectually smart but emotionally stupid. We’re very good with facts and data. We’re not the world’s best when it comes to relating to people.  I’ve changed a lot since I’ve been in my current church; I am a lot better at talking to people I don’t know but I tend to ramble at times. I think that comes from anxiety. My husband, if given his head, will talk and talk about what he’s interested in and his opinion on certain events, and I don’t think he always knows when it’s appropriate or not appropriate to insert his opinion. He and I have talking about what we call “know it all-itis” and he’s working on it. I have “know it all-itis” as well, to an extent. 

Since my son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, I’ve wondered if my husband’s genes and my genes combined to wire his brain so that he is autistic. I’ve wondered if my husband and I have a touch of autism, and maybe that is why we came across the way we came across. 

My husband coped by digging deep into history, especially military history (he told me he got bored after hearing the beginning of American History for the third grade in a row) and playing Dungeons and Dragons and other board games with people. 

I coped by creating imaginary friends and using my Barbie dolls to act out some stories; I created a fictional rock group that also solved mysteries (see episodes of Josie and the Pussycats!); I read a lot of Nancy Drew and made up mystery stories. My favorite part of 6th grade English was Fridays when we did creative writing. 

But I admit, how much healthier would I be if I had never been exposed to the bullying, or if I’d been able to defend myself? 

Those who defend the use of the “r word” ignore the pain and the hurt it causes when it is hurled as an insult and a slur. The “r word”, and the other words used to describe intellectual levels, are mostly used these days as a way to insult and hurt people; not as a way to identify disabilities and then find a way to help others reach their potential as people. They’re used to dehumanize and depersonalize others. (If anyone has watched the movie Hotel Rwanda, the beginning of the movie shows a radio broadcast where the Tsuti minority were referred to as “cockroaches”. We in the USA have our own history with dehumanization of not only the intellectually disabled, but non-White ethnic and racial minorities.) 

Do we want to keep doing this? 

Do we really want to keep the “r-word” and other insults alive?

Do we really want to have an excuse to use words that may not have been designed to hurt but that have been used to hurt, to insult, to slander others? 

And if we do, why? 

Why would we want to subject people to the pain of the “r word”? 

Why? 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.