vendredi 26 août 2016

Essential Tips Regarding The R Word Pledge

By Lisa Brooks


The R word movement is ideally a national campaign in the United States that is usually aimed at encouraging all the citizens to avoid using offensive and dehumanizing terms such as retard. This term has a long history since it has been used for quite a while. The R word pledge thereby advocates for the believe that the usage of this term retarded in everyday or even colloquial speech is unacceptable, hurtful and very dehumanizing to the many individuals that have intellectual incapacities.

This advocacy forum hence is dedicated to ensuring that all and sundry respect all the members of community, their intellectual, personal or developmental problems notwithstanding. The advocates behind this movement also hold very strong opinions that mentally impaired persons should not be sidelined or overlooked under whatever circumstances, since it is not by their fault that they are the way they are, but is a natural force or fate.

It is also important to look into the history of this said pledge or movement. It was basically established in the year 2009 during Special Olympics World Youth Summit at the winter games. It was solely created by the youth suffering from intellectual impairment, as well as those that do not. The main motivation and inspirations of this campaign was literally powered by united passions to promote positive impacts made by intellectually disable persons.

The movement sought to make this world a more acceptable and warm place for all members of the society, regardless of the intellectual capacities. The campaigns are held every first Wednesday of March, and the anniversary is celebrated on 31st of March every year. People from all parts of the globe are usually recommended to be very vocal and active in educating others against using dehumanizing terms and sentiments that may adversely affect certain individuals in society.

This campaign is exponentially important, and has made great impacts since it was incepted in 2009. Respectful language that is inclusive of all persons is very essential to this movement, especially for dignity as well as humanity of persons having intellectual disabilities. Nevertheless, some people in the society do not fully recognize the demeaning, dehumanizing, and hurtful effects the word retard poses to intellectually disable people. It is now time to give some credence and attention to the minority, and revamp the consciousness of societal members to the hurting effects of using retard.

To clear on this, the pledge has time and again made it clear that it only intends to discourage as many people as possible from including the offensive terms such as retards in their speeches, whether formal or informal. This is because such terms demean them hence making them feel inferior and unwanted. It is very wrong to ridicule people because of their various conditions, not matter what.

There is also some controversy surrounding the alternative terms that should be used in place of retard. Many experts believe that using intellectual disability is an ideal replacement for mental retardation. This is because many believe that retardation evokes the term retard, and thus brings up very demeaning and painful memories of ridicule and also rejection.

Regardless of the fact that we all have our rights and freedoms of free speech, we also are entitled to petition choice of the language we use very carefully, so that we do not end up demeaning certain characters in the society in our utterances or even actions. Every person is very special in their own way, and therefore a person ought to come first at all times irrespective of their abnormalities and other conditions.




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