Today’s prompt from the Ultimate Blogging Challenge is to discuss my opinion of things that are happening in the world. It’s getting closer to the midterm elections in the United States, and I’d like to talk about the use of the “R” word in social media and in politics. Use of that word helps to perpetrate toxic stereotypes about people who have intellectual disabilities. This has become very commonplace, and it’s a real problem for people with intellectual disabilities and their friends and families.
Using the word retarded in full or in part as an insult or a political slur needs to be brought to an end.
According to an article by Jackie Dilworth in the June 18th, 2026, issue of The ARC, “For many people with disabilities, the R-word is tied to real experiences of being mocked, excluded, underestimated, and treated as less human. This isn’t about asking for special treatment. It’s about taking people seriously when they tell us a word has harmed them… When people use the R-word as an insult, it turns intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) into shorthand for something ridiculous, embarrassing, annoying, or wrong. It doesn’t have to be aimed at a person with a disability to demean people with disabilities.”
These include “Trumptard,” “libtard,” and the list goes on and on. In addition, guessing a low IQ for political opponents falls under this categeory of slurs against people who have real intellectual disabilities. In my opinion, this is very offensive to people who have intellectual disabilities and who have faced discrimination, not to mention horrific absue.
In the past, people who were suspected of having developmental disabilities were routinely taken away at birth and placed in large institutions. The parents were told to forget the child being taken from them ever existed. These children, who were considered to be defective, were warehoused in these institutions. One of the worst was the Willowbrook State School for the Mentall Retarded in Staten Island, New York. There, the children were subjected to extreme overcrowding, neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and shocking medical testing that would have made Nazi officer and… um… physician… Josef Mengele proud. These kids, without any informed consent from parents, were intentionally infected with the live hepatitus virus. More than 700 children were intentionally infected with the virus. Many experienced symptoms, such as jaundice, vomiting, loss of appetite, and enlarged livers.
People who supported the experiments claimed that hepatitis was already rampant in the overcrowded institution becaiuse of the filthy conditions in the wards. These medical experiments on children who could not give consent was described by medical ethicist Henry K. Beecher as a severe violation of human rights. The horrors of Willowbrook were described in horrifying detail by Geraldo Rivera in his 1972 expose. This led to a lawsuit, filed in 1972 and settled in 1975 as the Willowbrook Consent Decree. Willowbrook was closed in 1987.
Other indignities that people with intellectual disabilities experienced included forced sterilization. One of the more shocking examples of this, one that led to a lawsuit (Buck v Bell) involved a young woman named Carrie Buck. She had been raped by the nephew of her foster parents and became pregnant at the age of 18. She had a daughter named Vivian Alice Elaine Dobbs (that’s a lot of names for one child). Her foster parents, who had been using her as unpaid domestic help after taking her out of school when she was in sixth grade, had her committed to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Feeble Minded. They accused her of feeble mindedness, incorrigibility, and promiscuousness. They also claimed that her mother was feeble minded. She too had been placed in the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Feeble Minded against her will.
Carrie was the first person to be involuntarily sterilizaed as the result of Virginia’s eugenics law. Although this case went to the Supreme Court, the results did not help Carrie Buck or others sterlized because they were determined to be “feeble minded.” The foster parents claimed that Vivian was also feeble minded, even though she was an average student. Unfortunately, Vivian passed away at the age of eight as the results of complications of measles.
People with intellectual and other disabilities were not even entitled to an education until the Individuals with Education Act, originally called the Education for All Handicapped Children, was passed by Congress in 1975. Children with intellectual disabilities now attend school, participate in extracurricular activities, and attend college. With early intervention, children who were previously written off as hopeless and uneducable can be encouraged to reach their potential. They can maintain employment, run businesses, and be artists and actors. Like everyone else, they have talents, as well as challenges.
The R word has become a slur. It is not helpful in describing anyone. It needs to be removed from common usage. It is disrespectful to people with intellectual disabilities to use that word in that way. Please don’t do it. Suggesting that your political nemesis has a low IQ or using one of many insults that incorporate “tard” is not helpful. It is more than okay to dislike and even insult your political nemesis, but it’s not okay to stigmatize people with intellectual disabilities with the use of the R word..
The assumption becomes that people with developmental disabilities are incompetent and fools. This just encourages bullying and cruel behavior. Please don’t do it. Please show some respect and find more creative and less harmful ways to criticize or even insult political opponents. It may take more effort but isn’t it worth it?
Working in the special education field for 35 years, the use of the “R” word is very inappropriate. Our students at one of the schools I taught at did an entire campaign to stomp out the word. It was very successful. Thanks for writing about this issue.
Thank you so much for your input, Cindy. I think that it’s great that the students ran this successful campaign. The best way to stamp out the R word is with education. Also, it gives people who have never received the attention they deserve an opportunity to use their voice.