Why words matter

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Like many people I woke up in early July to the announcement of the title of Rosie Jones’s documentary about online bullying directed at the disabled community. Like many I saw ‘Am I R*tard?’ and had a very intuitive emotional response to it. That word is no way acceptable and maybe to some extent I’m going to be a slight hypocrite as I reacted negatively to the use of the word in Rosie’s title but I’ve come to realise I cannot write this blog without using it.


There are words used to describe any minority community to ‘other’ them and alienate them. Words we, society as whole but particularly the disabled community, all feel uncomfortable using or even talking about. And maybe we should, maybe we have to. Words matter, words are powerful, words are hurtful and to see a person from within the disability community using the word with such casualness, I admit it made me see red.

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only one section of the disabled community 

Unfortunately the backlash that I realise I’m contributing to, has taken away from very valuable point of the programme which was to highlight the appalling abuse and discrimination Rosie and other disabled people receive on line. Rosie like many of us has been the victim of this. She should be admired for saying enough is enough and she no longer just wants to put up with it. Why should she? Why should any of us?

However Rosie is far from the only one who has been victim of this abuse nor is it only those with physical disabilities who have been the target of such abuse. By having only her and one other disabled activist (also with physical disabilities) on the programme it became a little focused on. While I want to praise Rosie for highlighting this issue I do think its important to reflect that the programme only focused on one section of the disabled community.

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an outdated medical term

My initial rection was no one should use that word, it’s an outdated medical term that refers to a specific part of the disability community. The word r*tard is an insult derived from term 'mentally retarded' which is what people with a learning disability were medically classified as in America until recently. Trolls and bullies may use it as part of their slang not really knowing what the word means. It isn’t just a word meaning any disability.

Rosie herself opened the programme saying that she was using the word so no one else ever used it again and then continued to use the word throughout the programme. The programme has effectively done the opposite of taking it out of the lexicon, not to mention the hypocrisy of telling other people not to use the word while using it several times in the programme. The use of the word has increased on social media since the title was announced, trolls and bullies and even people who don’t understand how or why that word is so offensive have been given some legitimacy by a celebrity on a national broadcaster using it.

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being an ally to other disabled people 

And we come back to the fact that the word refers to a certain section of the disability community. At no point was this reflected in the programme. There was no one from the learning disability community talking about the historical meaning of the word or how it made them feel, or how triggering it was. In fact there was no representation of any other form of disability at all.

I haven’t got a learning disability myself, I’m autistic. So lets be clear I’m not claiming to speak for the learning disability community. My reaction was of some one who because for so long learning disability and autism have been put together, has many learning disabled friends and perhaps has some understanding of how powerful that word is.