Let’s get retarde…it started: discussions about disability and language

Have you used ever the words ‘retarded’, ‘special needs’, ‘special’, or ‘slow learner’ to mean stupid or weird? I have. The words’ wrongness makes them kind of fun to say – you feel ironic and a bit subversive. But you’d be less comfortable using these words in a context where they might be overheard by an intellectually disabled person or one of their family members. Why do you have to come face-to-face with people before you start thinking about their feelings? It wasn’t until I started having gay friends that the fun of using ‘gay’ as a pejorative term wore off. Sad really, that empathy can only travel such short distances, that you need to come face-to-face with people before you start thinking about their feelings.

Debates around ‘disablist’ language erupted recently when writer and satirist Ben Pobjie tweeted during a rugby match, ‘That was one of the weirdest, most learning-disabled tries I’ve ever seen’ (for the sport-challenged, a ‘try’ is a type of rugby move). This prompted writer and disability advocate Stella Young to write a post on ABC’s Ramp Up criticising his use of the term ‘learning disabled,’ arguing that it hurt just as just as much as the less-PC term ‘retarded.’ Pobjie’s surprisingly vitriolic reaction was to damn the piece and its author as ‘a moronic blog post about a tweet that the idiot author didn’t even understand or ask me about.’

A few days later, Geoff Lemon, in an otherwise compelling blog post about the carbon tax and the first world entitlement mentality, compared the carbon tax debate to ‘a dozen retards trying to fuck a doorknob’ (this was changed ‘a dozen drunken idiots trying to root a doorknob’ when republished by ABC’s The Drum). Responding to comments on his blog challenging his use of retard in this context he argued, ‘In my day-to-day understanding of the word, and in my usage of it here, it doesn’t refer to the disabled … while some [readers] have been uncomfortable, the vast majority … have understood my usage. Over 70,000 people have read this now, and about 20 have complained, while at least the same number have singled out that line for particular praise. I’m ok with that split.’

But when you’re talking about the hurtful effect of your words on a disadvantaged minority group, the argument that not many people have complained, and that others have found a line clever, doesn’t really wash. Human rights, including the right not to be discriminated against, are designed to be upheld regardless of majority views. Anyway, 20 complaints in this context is rather a lot when you consider that not everyone who’s offended will make a complaint.

And whether or not the writer intended to refer to the disabled in this context, it’s foreseeable that the term would be interpreted this way amongst some readers, particularly as the imagery seems to refer specifically to persons with intellectual disabilities. A reader who has a child with an intellectual disability, a child who has experienced ongoing discrimination including being labeled as a ‘retard,’ might be able to separate their child’s hurtful experiences from the use of the word in this context, but it’s unlikely.

Even apart from any offence taken by readers due to their personal associations with those with disabilities, I’d argue that using the term retard in this way is harmful in itself. Retard, if taken in its strictest sense, isn’t a bad word– it means slow to learn – and yes, many people with intellectual disabilities do learn slower than other people. But when used as an insult, it reinforces the idea that people with intellectual disabilities are dumb, abnormal, and on the outer.

Yes, it is just a word, but language as the basis for our thoughts and attitudes means that it is worth paying attention to. This is why in 2010, the US Senate passed a law called Rosa’s law, which removes terms such as ‘mental retardation’ and ‘mentally retarded’ from federal education, health, and labor laws.

Of course, many words in our language have a discriminatory origin, and there’s a spectrum of acceptable usage. We still say something’s ‘lame’ and talk about ‘crippling’ anxiety and something being ‘dumb’. We describe people as ‘crazy’, ‘mad’, even ‘schizo’, a term which has also caused controversy. It’s arguable that the usage of many, but not all, of these words has moved on from its original context. But as demonstrated by campaigns like The R Word, a movement which has focused on campaigning against the use of the word in popular culture and public discourse, the venom hasn’t leached yet out of terms like ‘retard’ or its equally negative synonyms yet. It was for this reason that the Black Eyed Peas recorded a cleaner version of ‘Let’s Get Retarded’, changing it to ‘Let’s Get it Started’, and columnist Dan Savage renounced use of the term a few years ago.

As a comedian or satirist, someone’s always going to be offended by what you say, and if you’re constantly self-censoring, you’ll lose that vital spark that gives your words colour and life. So attempting avoiding offence to everyone and all groups is clearly nonsensical. But when you risk causing hurt to, or reinforcing prejudice against, a fairly marginalised group who aren’t necessarily able to stand up for themselves, it’s worth considering whether you really need to use these potentially hurtful words. And I just can’t think of an instance where it’s worth it.

Cross-posted at WhyDev.

A ‘truly transformative’ Oxford comma

The Oxford comma**: woefully neglected by both parties during the federal election. The Greens have put it ‘back on the agenda’ and ‘delivered’ a ‘truly transformative’ ‘package’ for the Australian community, economy, climate, frogs, koalas, kookaburras, and punctuation lovers [Correction: this is not really an Oxford comma - see update below at bottom of page].

In all seriousness, it was a very warming feeling today to celebrate the carbon price agreement with other Greens. The mood was similarly jubilant to the 2010 federal election win in Melbourne, but it felt more real. I mean, who gives a fuck really, about getting people elected? What I mean is, it’s not an end in itself. It’s what people do when they’re in that matters, and without the Greens, the carbon price (also known by Tony as a ‘big bad tax’) wouldn’t have happened.

Please note the use of the Oxford comma in that last sentence [Correction: what is above is not really an Oxford comma].

Here’s a bad blurry photo of the event.

At the time this photo was taken Adam was explaining the tax in detail, saying why it was both better than both the status quo and the ETS. I got a bit lost in the fine detail, but could see the stalwart environmentalist/policy wonks in the room absorbing it intently.

I figure you can’t know everything, but if you try and stay as informed as possible, and make sure you elect people who you trust, intellectually and emotionally, to make the right decisions, things might work out a bit better. Or we might be fucked anyway.

I took this photo today. Sometimes I consider myself a bit of a bicycle advocate.

Why have bike lanes when cars can just park there willy nilly?

The thing is, I arc up about biking conditions being super dangerous. But I have to confess, sometimes my riding leaves much to be desired. I am clumsy, vague, and occasionally reckless – all in all, a terrible combination. But I’m trying to improve, after a stern talking to from my friend, who wears a fluoro vest and goes to immense lengths to avoid taking main roads. So shortly after taking this photo, I rode home in the rain and too carelessly turned on some tram tracks at the Merri intersection. My bike skidded and I fell sideways off it onto the road, grazing my hands and knee, and somehow finding myself unable to get up for a few moments, despite the obvious danger. I finally got onto the median strip and just lay there for a few minutes in humiliation. A quite beautiful girl came along, noticed my chain had fallen off, and asked two guys passing by if they knew how to put a chain back on. They did it for me. I love people sometimes (if not all the time).

**Correction. After writing this post, my good friend, whom I have been trolling about the Oxford comma, informed me that I am in fact mistaken about what the Oxford comma is. It is actually the comma used immediately before a  coordinating conjunction (usually and or or, and sometimes nor) preceding the final item in a list of three or more items. Whereas I thought it was just any comma used before an and. Oh, this is what happens when you try to be too much of a smartarse. So I retreat, humiliated, with tail between legs.**

Strauss-Kahn moment proves we still need feminism

So the frothy-mouthed Bob Ellis has added another worthless contribution to his slightly crazed oeuvre. In an article in The Drum titled ‘The Strauss-Kahn Moment – has feminism gone too far?’, he uses Strauss-Kahn as an example to argue that from time immemorial ‘wowser feminism’ has been used to destroy left wing figures by accusing them of crimes as diverse as rape, embezzlement, perjury, having sex, using prostitutes, incest, having sex with children, and chair sniffing. This, in Ellis’s eyes, is unfair. ‘Why are deeds so long common at Christmas parties used to ruin good men’s careers?’ In relation to the Strauss-Kahn affair, he bemoans that because of a ’dodgy hooker’s defiance of male piggery’, Strauss-Kahn was unable to sort out the Greek crisis.

Apart from the woeful inaccuracies in his examples, which I’ll leave it to more knowledgeable others to dissect, Ellis’s arguments are ludicrous. Firstly, he seems to be arguing that ‘male piggery’, including, rape, incest, and having sex with children, is acceptable. ‘Why are deeds so long common at Christmas parties used to ruin good men’s careers?’ he asks (not sure when rape was common at Christmas parties, but anyway). And, also rhetorically, ‘Are men too harshly treated for what men have always done, trying it on, attempting foreplay, rolling bedroom eyes and murmuring lewdly?’ Secondly, he seems to argue that there is some kind of a feminist/right-wing/military/corporate conspiracy to bring down male left wing politicians.

The second point ignores the fact that it hasn’t just been ‘feminists’ trying to punish these acts of violence against women (and in some case, boys), it’s also male politicians, judges, lawyers, and ordinary people. As for the first point, it’s as if we were at a party having a debate about whether or not women should be allowed to serve in the army front-line, and he’s just said, ‘Well I actually don’t think they should get the vote at all.’ In that sense, it’s almost a bit lame of The Drum to publish it, but I can’t really blame them considering the general vitriol incitement must be great for their hits. I wonder if this is not just a desperate cry for attention by Ellis. If so, that’s pretty sad.

The Strauss-Kahn affair illustrates exactly why we still need feminism. Despite forensic evidence which supports the woman’s case, the court relied on evidence of the alleged victim’s character flaws to grant the accused bail. As this fairly considered Guardian article points out, ‘rape is the only crime in which a preferred requirement is that the alleged victim have an unrealistically unblemished personal history.’ I don’t want to prejudge the outcome, but the evidence used to destroy her credibility is completely irrelevant to the rape accusation. So she’s a prostitute? She lied on her asylum application? She kept dodgy finances? She changed her story about the rape a few times, which trauma experts say is quite common after a rape? Are women of perfect character the only people who can be raped?

It’s clear that victim-blaming, the subject of SlutWalk protests, is far from over. Undermining the victim’s credibility is a typical defence in rape cases, the vast majority of which go unreported. Given that most women who are raped blame themselves first, the prospect of having not just their accusation challenged (as it should be, in our innocent until proven guilty legal system), but their character more generally, is likely to further deter the reporting of rape. Clearly, it’s not just their alleged rapist on trial, it’s them too.