20th March 2009, 1:50 PM
20th March 2009, 2:03 PM
Oh grow up. It's not a slur, it's a word that political correctness has deemed too naughty.
The other words that article mentions are slurs, specifically created and used to demean a certain group. Up until a few years ago, this word was pretty much a medical term. In some circles, still is.
Am I being insensitive? Probably. But political correctness is getting more out of hand now than ever, and it's annoying. Grow up.
The other words that article mentions are slurs, specifically created and used to demean a certain group. Up until a few years ago, this word was pretty much a medical term. In some circles, still is.
Am I being insensitive? Probably. But political correctness is getting more out of hand now than ever, and it's annoying. Grow up.
20th March 2009, 7:58 PM
"I'm not being insensitive or hating gays when I use the word as an insult! It's just a word, nothing else, really! I just mean it as... um... well... (an insult, because that's what it is, is what they'd say if they were being honest)"
Special Olympics are wrong and insulting. Laughing at people because of their mental challenges? That's just cruel... incredibly, incredibly common, but cruel. :(
Special Olympics are wrong and insulting. Laughing at people because of their mental challenges? That's just cruel... incredibly, incredibly common, but cruel. :(
20th March 2009, 8:15 PM
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/mo...index.html
I agree, it was just a standard, disgusting "mentally retarded people are funny to insult because they're dumb" joke, the kind that you hear way, WAY more often than you should.
Why should it be considered okay to make fun of people just because they were born with problems you don't have? It's not their fault! It's cruel... why is there a difference between insulting gays and insulting people with disabilities? If some of the things people say about this issue had been similar insults about gays, or black people, or something like that there'd have been definite controversy... but because we think "that's not as bad", that doesn't happen.
It should be considered as bad, and this campaign does good work in showing that. I'll admit that I haven't always thought of "retard" as being quite as bad as those other words, though it clearly is bad and a word to be avoided... I think I do a good job, and would never make a "joke" like that, but I probably should do even better. Oh, and sure, it is part of a medical definition. That would be fine, but the problem is that it's also a mean insult. Would making it socially unacceptable just make the terms, not the meanings, change? Perhaps, but I think we have made progress on these issues in this country over the past decades... we can make progress on this too, even if the low-hanging fruit of making fun of people with mental incapacities isn't one likely to go away.
Quote:Special Olympics bowling champion challenges Obama to match
Story Highlights
The president made an offhand remark during his Tonight Show" appearance
Bring it on! Kolan McConiughey said he would love to go to the White House to beat Barack Obama on his own lane.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- So President Barack Obama thinks he bowls like a competitor in the Special Olympics?
He's obviously never met Kolan McConiughey, a mentally disabled man considered one of the nation's top Special Olympics bowlers, with five perfect games to his credit. He'd like to go to the White House and show the president a thing or two about how to roll strikes.
"He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily," McConiughey said Friday.
His challenge to Obama followed the president's offhand remark on Jay Leno's Tonight Show Thursday comparing his famously inept bowling to "the Special Olympics or something." Recognizing his blunder, Obama apologized to the chairman of the Special Olympics before the show aired.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday said the president believes that the Special Olympics are "a triumph of the human spirit." Gibbs added that Obama understands that the athletes "deserve a lot better than the thoughtless joke that he made last night."
During an interview with The Associated Press, the 35-year-old McConiughey quickly rolled several strikes with his left-handed hook in a short demonstration of his prowess at Colonial Lanes in Ann Arbor.
In addition to five perfect games since 2005, McConiughey has also had an 800 series and carries a 212 average. He laughed as he joked about the popular president's apparently poor game.
"I'd tell him to get a new bowling ball, new shoes and bring him down to the lane," said McConiughey, who speaks with a serious stutter. "Keep his body straight, his arm straight and keep his steps straight. He has to practice every single day."
Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver was quick to respond to the president's apology.
"He expressed his disappointment, and he apologized in a way that was very moving," Shriver said Friday on ABC's Good Morning America.
Obama, Shriver said, wants to have some Special Olympic athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.
Still, Shriver said: "I think it's important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down to people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes."
Shriver is the son of Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics and has championed the rights of the mentally disabled.
His sister, Maria Shriver, wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a longtime Obama supporter, said laughing at the president's comments "hurts millions of people throughout the world."
"People with special needs are great athletes and productive citizens," Shriver said.
After a White House meeting with the president, Schwarzenegger was asked about Obama's remark and said he knew the president's heart.
"He loves Special Olympics, and he would do everything he can to help Special Olympics," the governor said.
With an IQ less than half of the 100 considered average, McConiughey lives with his foster mother and has held the same job at a grocery store for 16 years. He greets customers, sweeps floors and maintains the store's break room.
"He can't read much, can't do math, can't do bill-paying," said his foster mother, Jan Pardy. "Kolan faces all these challenges, but he has an area of genius, and his genius is bowling."
McConiughey has been bowling since about age 8. And he still finds time to bowl in three leagues.
"It would be an honor for him to bowl with the president of the United States," said Lois Arnold, president of the Special Olympics in Michigan.
Pardy said she saw Obama's comment on TV Friday morning and was not offended.
"Everybody has missteps," she said. "I don't think it was a slam against the Special Olympics."
I agree, it was just a standard, disgusting "mentally retarded people are funny to insult because they're dumb" joke, the kind that you hear way, WAY more often than you should.
Why should it be considered okay to make fun of people just because they were born with problems you don't have? It's not their fault! It's cruel... why is there a difference between insulting gays and insulting people with disabilities? If some of the things people say about this issue had been similar insults about gays, or black people, or something like that there'd have been definite controversy... but because we think "that's not as bad", that doesn't happen.
It should be considered as bad, and this campaign does good work in showing that. I'll admit that I haven't always thought of "retard" as being quite as bad as those other words, though it clearly is bad and a word to be avoided... I think I do a good job, and would never make a "joke" like that, but I probably should do even better. Oh, and sure, it is part of a medical definition. That would be fine, but the problem is that it's also a mean insult. Would making it socially unacceptable just make the terms, not the meanings, change? Perhaps, but I think we have made progress on these issues in this country over the past decades... we can make progress on this too, even if the low-hanging fruit of making fun of people with mental incapacities isn't one likely to go away.
30th March 2009, 7:42 PM
The moral of this story? Presidents shouldn't be comedians.
31st March 2009, 1:08 PM
Yeah, I think that's a good conclusion.
2nd April 2009, 4:26 PM
And here we all thought the age of the presidential malaprop began and ended with W.
2nd April 2009, 4:38 PM
Will there be a calendar of Obamaisms, featuring his special olympics remark and his "bitterly clinging to guns and religion" remark? Only time will tell. It depends mainly on whether or not conservative comedy will ever reach a mass level.
2nd April 2009, 9:12 PM
Weltall Wrote:And here we all thought the age of the presidential malaprop began and ended with W.
Anybody is capable of saying or doing stupid things. W certainly was worst than most, though, for sure... but this one of Obama's was certainly bad enough to be worth criticizing.
3rd April 2009, 9:54 PM
Every president is bound to screw up at some point and make the sort of off color remark that normal people can get away with but presidents can't. It's just that Bush did it all the time unapologetically. Of course, he was unapologetic for everything he did. As the "decider," he knew exactly what the majority of people (in the US and in the world) wanted and instead did things his way. In a true democracy, the people are the deciders.
But I digress. I imagine if Bush had made a remark about the special olympics, it would become a Bushism and an internet meme (mainly because remarks about Bush being retarded are about as common as remarks about Paris Hilton being a slut; it'd really be something if Bush, even jokingly, explicitly stated that he's retarded). But it wasn't Bush this time. It was Obama, who has a reputation for being more tactful than this, hence the uproar.
But I digress. I imagine if Bush had made a remark about the special olympics, it would become a Bushism and an internet meme (mainly because remarks about Bush being retarded are about as common as remarks about Paris Hilton being a slut; it'd really be something if Bush, even jokingly, explicitly stated that he's retarded). But it wasn't Bush this time. It was Obama, who has a reputation for being more tactful than this, hence the uproar.