• JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    5 hours ago

    It’s the same as idiot or moron, which could both be rather limply accused of being ableist, but we all understand aren’t. You would call charlie kirk those words, and you would never call someone with a mental handicap those words.

    R-word (which lemmy censors) is fine, just don’t use it in the ableist and fucked up way.

  • pHr34kY@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    12 hours ago

    Gaydaddy, of course you’re afraid of retardant when you’re a flaming bundle of sticks.

  • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    241·
    1 day ago

    Got a comment removed on reddit, from an otherwise great mod, for the R word. (Jesus, can’t believe I have to type it that way.)

    I was asking another person if they could try slowing the action on their pistol, see if that fixed it.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.worldEnglish
      513·
      1 day ago

      No one has issues with the word when it isn’t the slur. If they do, they’re in the wrong. (Yes, using the word as the deprecated medical term is also the slur)

      Pissed off that you can’t use the slur anymore? Blame everyone who used it as an insult, turning it into a slur.

      Angry that things changed? That’s the way things work. Might as well be mad about weather or the movement of time.

      • ARk@lemm.eeEnglish
        52·
        1 day ago

        didn’t know slurs are supposed to give you good vibes or they’re out

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        68·
        20 hours ago

        “Retard” is a slur, among elementary school children.

        “But I was called that as a chiiiild! And now I have issuuuuues!”

        No. You were probably a normal kid and got called bad names like everyone else. Get the fuck over it. If you were actually retarded, you likely had no idea what the word meant.

        Y’all didn’t go to school with severely handicapped kids, did ya? In the 70s, we had no where else to put them but among the “general population” of the schools. And no, it wasn’t the prison most of you young folk grew up in.

        • ProgrammingSocksEnglish
          41·
          9 hours ago

          “Actually retarded” isn’t a real thing a person can be, so your argument doesn’t make sense. Sorry if knowledge advancing since the 70s offends you.

          • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            4 hours ago

            I think they mean “mentally retarded”. The term is simply a catch-all to describe conditions that inhibit normal brain function that was used a lot more often in the past (it was actually still a medical term until 2010).

            When I was young it was casually used as a catch-all word applied to extreme cases of mental disability. It was crude because it lumped together all kinds of different conditions, which is kind of a stupid and ignorant thing for intelligent people to do.

            Being a rude word, it was (and is) sometimes used deragototily in the exact same way as “dumb”, “stupid”, or “idiot”. In this way, the word makes sense… It’s a rude word, after all. It’s meant to offend because it’s understood to be ignorant. People, of course, love using offensive words when they want to empart diction, offend others, or be edgy.

            This all becomes less rude and more completely fucked up when it’s used to describe an actual person with a mental handicap. This is the use that could be justifiably banned, censored, etc. within polite society, or managed forums that have rules against denegratory speech.

            And yet, in the same way, calling a handicapped person stupid, braindead, or a moron is just as bad. The same exact rules should apply.

            Strangely, you can call people of normal intelligence all of these things and you won’t get censored or called out. I find this to be hipocritical, personally…

            I think countless people honestly don’t know why this word is rude, and through political activism and moneyed campaigns, they’ve been convinced that anyone who uses the word is a biggot. Personally, I find * that * offensive. I know why many people use this word, and to boil the every use of it down to ableism is doing a disservice to our united front against actual biggots and ableists.

            In short, I find the crusade against this word to be divisive and counter-productive.