Lately there has been a (poorly written with some wretched grammar, but with some good points) article about running circulating. I'm not going to link to it, because I don't believe it needs or deserves any more traffic. It's not because it was poorly written, or because it has bad grammar, but because in the very first paragraph, before I can even bring myself to like the guy, he pulls the R word. Makes a joke about being retarded and acutally says 'to put it politely'.
POLITELY? it's Polite to ridicule and offend people who can't defend themselves? It's more POLITE to call your inability/non desire to take care of your body through exercise retarded than to say... um LAZY?
POLITE?
FUCKING BULLSHIT. You know, you're a relatively intelligent human being with access to MANY words in the human language and this is all you can come up with? Seriously? I mean I know in your title you admit you're an idiot, but REALLY?
But the article isn't the only reason I'm blogging about this. If this were written by someone I knew they would have probably gotten a email filled with education about the word choices they used, and depending on their response, might not really be my friend anymore. The reason I'm writing about this is because of the number of people I know, and love, and respect who are sharing links to this article.
When you click *like* or you share these things, you condone the language. When you post this article and then say 'yeah it bothered me to' but still share it... do you not care? Do you not care that now more people are clicking and reading and assuming that it's ok to make retard jokes because the rest of the article is funny? I had one person respond to me that the article was 'borderline offensive'... This isn't borderline offensive, trust me, I've got a kid in special ed, this guy crossed the border a long time ago. It's rude, it's wrong and it's time to grow the fuck up and change our language.
The thing is, I could have written this article myself, down to the huffing and puffing when I started running, to the revelation that running clothes are super rad, to the fact that when you actually start doing it, it's FUN... but I could have done it with out hurting my kid, and many other kids who do ride the special ed bus, and do attend a special class and just possibly might end up getting a check for disability for the rest of her life.
So please, think twice when you recommend something that carries this word with it. It's not just that it's offensive, it's that you're allowing this word to be whitewashed into daily life, swept under the rug because 'the rest of it was good' and people remain desensitized to the discrimination.
Do it for me. Do it for Ruby.
