My Midwestern upbringing was certainly peppered with people using ‘retard’ as a slur, so... mileage may vary?
What's being said here is that the word retard is an insult, but does not rise to the level/strength of a slur.
In any case, my experience (and - probably - the context of my cultural upbringing) was that the word was used to both denigrate people with developmental disabilities and to degrade those who did not. This wasn’t calling someone a “loser”. This was using an immutable characteristic of someone’s personhood against them and attacking others by asserting a resemblance.
Are you seriously going to try to pull some narrow technical originalist definition to argue that in this specific edition of this specific dictionary it defines “slur” as being about ethnicity and thus that word can’t be a “slur” bc it effects a class of people that isn’t a specific ethnicity?
'mint2: I can't reply to your post, but despite the 'ThrowawayR2 account name, his account is five years old with four thousand points. Ironically, the only way in which he could pacify you is to create a new account and post from that instead.
While what you say about the account is true, it’s literally called a throw away. Even with the age, it’s questionable whether it’s an alt account. But yes my bad. I was misled by the misleading name.
When we get to that point, we've lost the forest for the trees.
And yes, if you said “don’t be a cripple” to your friend and a guy physical disability overheard it, how do you think that would make them feel? Why would you want to arbitrarily hurt someone, twisting a verbal knife, just to razz your friend.
Look, we should be polite and not use offensive words, but be consistent. The referenced word is rude and offensive but in no way the same room as words that have resulted in lynching, genocide, systematic oppression.
If we want to go all polite and ban all “slurs” then we’ll be getting butthurt over calling someone “stupid” or “idiot.” And of course I’ve worked with people who are upset at any foul language and even blasphemy.
Are we going to get to a point that major reporters are thinking it’s attention worthy to say someone says “Goddammit?”
Arguing over whether that’s as offensive as another word just a matter of time and we are experiencing a slippery slope.
Either we’re going to get offended by everything and live in China/Disneyworld where there’s never offense, or we’re going to stop getting hysterical over unimportant things and use that attention to fight real, difficult, systematic problems.