South Carolina Special Olympics asks schools to drop R-word

From WSPA-TV:

The term “mental retardation” is one of those phrases you don’t hear often these days, as least when it comes to describing a person with challenges. However, slang versions have now become the norm. There is a push to “Ban the R” word in schools.

Tony Revels doesn’t mind the term mental retardation when it’s used medically.

“I’ve had my nephews say… hey, you’re retarded… I say, hey you’re talking about your cousin. You’re disrespecting your cousin when you say things like that.“

Christian is one of Tony’s three sons, and he has challenges. Tony knows that most kids don’t even realize what they are saying is wrong. “They don’t think about it. It’s like saying, you’re dumb,“ he says.

The Special Olympics is behind posters sent to upstate school districts, asking them to “Ban the R” word. Keegan Daniel is a special education teacher at Florence Chapel Elementary in Spartanburg District 5. She is passionate about the project, “I take a lot of offense to that word.“ Just Thursday morning she had a conversation with her students about it when a child said doing something was “retarded”.

“I said, how appropriate, and that I had just gotten an email, and I told them about the Special Olympics campaign about “banning the r” word, I told them, y’all don’t even have the real picture of what retarded really is.“ Keegan used it as an opportunity to educate them about the lives of families like Lake Cecil’s.

Lake is also a child with challenges. She is in a wheelchair and is non-verbal. Lake’s sister Ellie recently asked her mother if the “r word” is a bad word. She had heard someone use it at school. She said he made her feel bad. Her mother feels the same way when she hears it.

“Actually, when I hear it, I get a little body cringe,” says Murray Cecil. Murray is happy to hear schools are helping “ban the r word” in hopes parents will ban it at home too.

The Special Olympics prefers the term “intellectual disabilities”, but “mental retardation” is still used in official school paperwork. Some states have introduced legislation to change that.

A bill was introduced in both Texas and Virginia to ban the term from all state statutes and resolutions.