Reply #33: It's Also A Generational Thing...

[KharmaTrain]

I have a learning disabled family member, but growing up in the 60's, the term "retarded" was a term I regularly heard...and in many ways. My family used it in a clinical manner...as opposed to the kids in my class who threw it around in a perjorative manner. That was then...when many ethnic, sexual and racial slurs were far more in the open.

I'd like to think time had made people more aware and sensitive to how we define ourselves. The term disabled, handicapped and challenged replaced retarded in most people's vernacular and it depended on the person's disability. My children have grown up in a different environment and they see the word in a more offensive view than I do.

Just as we've had discussions and the evolution on how groups in this country prefer to identify themselves, maybe this will be an opportunity to have a discussion about some of the most ignored in our society...those who can't always speak for themselves.

Cheers...