Special Olympics: Apology not accepted

Oops. Sorry Rahm

The Special Olympics is disputing the White House claim that its chairman, Tim Shriver, accepted Rahm Emanuel's apology for calling liberals "retarded."

Seeking to damp down the controversy over Rahm Emanuel's reported, months-old use of the word, a White House official yesterday told me and other reporters that Emanuel had called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize.

"The apology was accepted," the official said yesterday.

The vice president for communications at the Special Olympics, Kirsten Seckler, told me that this account of the conversation is "inaccurate."

"Tim didn't accept his apology," she said. "Tim can't do that. He can't accept an apology on behalf of all people with disabilities."

Shriver had simply said, she said, that he was willing to continue the conversation with the chief of staff.

In all fairness to Rahm, he did hold a summit of sorts today with Shriver and 5 other disability advocates.

He "sincerely apologized," again, for using the word, promising to sign an online pledge to end the use of the word, the advocates said in a joint statement.

Emanuel also promised to "examine" Congressional legislation that would remove the word from federal law.

www.politico.com...

Lesson learned Rahm and mission accomplished Governor Palin. Kudos to her for shining a light on Rahm and for shining a light on the rampant inappropriate use of language like this. Consider this a very small victory for the disabled and for those who are unable to defend themselves against those who choose to belittle them.

I agree with what Rahm said initially. Which wasn't that "liberals are retarded," but that running ads against centrist democrats was "[effing] retarded". I'm really getting kind of sick of the special olympics trying to control what everyone says. I know it isn't politically correct, but retarded people are... well, retarded. I don't see any difference in calling someone retarded or mentally challenged.

I don't know, maybe I'm not offended by the word because I'm not retarded.

Also, I don't see how Sarah Palin is involved with this story in any way other than the mental abilities of her and her child. Did I miss something?

Kind of retarded that the government is wasting it's time with this non-sense.

He "sincerely apologized," again, for using the word, promising to sign an online pledge to end the use of the word, the advocates said in a joint statement.

Emanuel also promised to "examine" Congressional legislation that would remove the word from federal law.

I'm sorry but that's retarded.

reply to post by jibeho


Are people really that insulted by someone saying retard? I think we have become a bit over sensitive about words.

It means nothing really. I bet the "mentally challenged" don't really care. Its the bleeding hearts that think they should be insulted.

The big deal being made out of this is frankly, RETARDED.

Nice to see that the bottom of the ATS barrel has come to post in this thread. I suppose you all U2U'd each other in one giant circle jerk of giggles.

Kurious Scepshtick, the Master Baiter, you are a funny little fella. We have gone on around this issue before in other threads and you even insulted my daughters who have learning disabilities. Glad you have chosen to show your true ass by posting more inane comments here. Good for you! The world needs a holes to and I won't hold that against you.

Cheers to those who broke Rahm down into the sniveling little troll that he really is.

[edit on 3-2-2010 by jibeho]

Originally posted by buttking
I agree with what Rahm said initially. Which wasn't that "liberals are retarded," but that running ads against centrist democrats was "[effing] retarded". I'm really getting kind of sick of the special olympics trying to control what everyone says. I know it isn't politically correct, but retarded people are... well, retarded. I don't see any difference in calling someone retarded or mentally challenged.

I don't know, maybe I'm not offended by the word because I'm not retarded.

Also, I don't see how Sarah Palin is involved with this story in any way other than the mental abilities of her and her child. Did I miss something?

You call yourself Buttking?
That about sums up your comments.

[edit on 3-2-2010 by jibeho]

I have a couple of customers that are retarded and they told they were retarded, did not call themselves handicapped but retarded. The word in of itself is not offensive in the first place.

v. re·tard·ed, re·tard·ing, re·tards. v.tr. To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede. v.intr. To be delayed. ...

Not to be insensitive, but the word "retarded" is a word used to classify a person into the range of "slow and/or limited mental acuity". It does not mean "the Special Olympics people" by definition. When someone in our culture uses the word, it's derogatory because it has become an offshoot of "stupid". If you were to say someone's idea is retarded, you're not saying "That idea has Down Syndrome", you're saying "That idea is stupid".

We're told by organizations that are involved in such groups that we should not use the word 'retarded' to refer to the type of individuals that would qualify for the Special Olympics, yet every time someone representing said individuals gets upset about someone freely using the word, they are in fact participating in calling that same group of people 'retarded' in the process. You don't defend something if you don't think it is being attacked. Therefore, the only way you can perceive the word 'retarded' as an attack against a particular group of people is if you yourself classify them in that way...and if that's the case, you have no room to talk. If you want to separate yourself from a classification word, you simply stop linking yourself to it. In order to do that, though, you have to choose an alternative phrase to be used for classification that you're comfortable with. You can't keep changing your mind. At first, 'retarded' was ok, but now it isn't. Then, 'mentally handicapped' was ok, but now that too is offensive. The same thing happened with 'mentally challenged' and 'differently challenged' and now there are even people saying 'differently abled' is offensive. At what point do you realize that it's obvious that there's no possible way to classify a negative condition without it having a negative stigma attached to it?

I am in no way saying people with cognitive impairments or anything of the sort are "bad people". That is a classification that is without generalization and should be reserved for each individual out there in the world. But it's obvious that they are hindered in some abnormal way that deviates from the standard, so they are required to be classified as such. You are what you are. Obese people are obese, short people are short, bald people are bald, etc. Simply put, on the IQ scales, if you're at the line you're 'average', the highest points above the line are the 'genius' level and the lowest points below the line are the 'retarded' level. That's how they're defined, and then when you couple that with the fact that the current cultural consciousness uses the term 'retarded' as a synonym for "stupid" rather than actually taking a shot at a group of people, it becomes clear that someone like Rahm isn't trying to be offensive towards said group. He was calling liberals stupid (something I disagree with, but that's not what this is about).

Ask yourself this question: Have you ever said "that's gay" and meant it in any negative way, rather than meaning it as simply "that's homosexual in nature" or "that's cheery and pleasant in nature"? If so, then you would need to apologize to the so-called Gay Community for that as well. What if you called someone an idiot and you meant it in a derogatory way? Should you apologize to anyone below the average IQ because they may have found it offensive?

No decent person can really condone belittling or making fun of people with disabilities as an honorable act, but it's more than obvious that Rahm was not doing that.

reply to post by jibeho


Congratulations, your ability to use ad hominem in a fallacious manner is second to none. If I had any reason to believe you have ever been to college, I'd tell you to go back and ask your english literature professor why they apparently skipped their lecture on logical fallacies.

I assume the replacement lecture went something like "Don't respond with an actual argument, just try to discredit their argument by using an irrelevant piece of information."

Originally posted by buttking
reply to post by jibeho

 

Congratulations, your ability to use ad hominem in a fallacious manner is second to none. If I had any reason to believe you have ever been to college, I'd tell you to go back and ask your english literature professor why they apparently skipped their lecture on logical fallacies.

I assume the replacement lecture went something like "Don't respond with an actual argument, just try to discredit their argument by using an irrelevant piece of information."

Oh How droll. You clearly missed the point. I responded to you in a similar and ill advised manner. The same as your post really. Apparently the overuse of the r word in a negative connotation escapes you as much as your logic. I used to be glib arrogant like you too. Until I learned a few things in college while working with special needs kids for some of my classes. Truly an enlightening experience really. Then of course I had kids with special needs also. Naturally, I met other special needs kids and their families along the way.

Word of advice to you, keep your crass comments to yourself next time you feel free to let it rip in public. You never know who your audience may be or what they are capable of.



[edit on 3-2-2010 by jibeho]

reply to post by Etcetera007

Obese people are obese, short people are short, bald people are bald, etc.

Fat, tubby, lardo, shrimpo, shorty, cue ball, etc. all negative words used to describe your subset. No one likes to be called fat. Don't ever call a muscle bound short person shrimpo because a bar fight will soon follow. Get the picture?

Open your mind to use other descriptive words to describe idiots. Rahm didn't try hard enough.

Take the pledge!
www.r-word.org...

My son has mild cerbral palsy which has resulted in difficulties with certain things like sports etc. He is studying really hard to make up for his disability and would probably take great offence to being called retarded.

In fact, I take offence too ... he only has a disability, and is a lot smarter than most people I know (including myself).

Politicians ... well ... they are just ethically and morally challenged - there should be an Olympics just for them.

Has anyone seen the South Park episode with the bikers (a.k.a. fags)?

If not, then here is a clip:



The reason I show this is because it points to something pertinent to this discussion, which is the fact that the meanings of words change over time. Yes, "mentally challenged" or "Special" folks used to be referred to as retards, BUT, the term has a broader meaning now days, and those that do use it do so under a different set of criteria than a lot of us did growing up.

Folks, it's simply a word and it was used in a context that was not consistent with the negativity of decades past.

From Urban Dictionary:

1. retarded

An "unofficial" (not recognized by dictionaries) slang descriptor for a person/thing/action/object, etc., or a combination of, which is one or more of the following:

a waste of time, abandoned, abject, abominable, abortive, absurd, afraid, aimless, anxious, apprehenaive, arid, arrested, assailable, atomic, awful, baby, babyish, backward, bad, banal, barmy, barren, base, baseless, bastard, beastly, beggarly, behind, beside the question, blah, bland, bogus, bomb, bootless, boyish, brainless, bromidic, bummer, caitiffcapricious, careless, catchpenny, characterless, cheap, checked, cheesy, childish, childlike, clichéd, cloying, coarse, colorless, common, commonplace, confusing, contemptible, cotemptible, controvertible, conventional, cool, corn, cornball, corny, corrupt, counterproductive, cowering, cracked, crap, crappy, craven, crazy, crud, cruddy, daffy, daft, dastardly, dazed, dead, deadpan, deficient, degraded, degrading, dejected, delayed, delusive, dense, dense, deplorable, depraved, despicable, destitute, detestable, devoid, diffident, dim, diminutive, dippy, directionless, dirty, disgraceful, dishonest, dishonorable, dismayed, disposable, disreputable, dizzy, dodo, doltish, dopy, dotterel, down, downtrodden, drab, drifting, drudging, dull, dumb, empty, empty-headed, erratic, evanescent, everyday, evildoer, excessive, exhausted, expendable, expressionless, facetious, failed, failing, faint-hearted, fallacious, false, fanciful, fatuous, fawning, featherbrained, feeb...

www.urbandictionary.com...

Remember, words only hurt if you let them.



[edit on 4-2-2010 by Aggie Man]

reply to post by jibeho


Banning words sucks and is anti-freedom even insulting ones.
Whats next? Lets ban the word fat because some "weight challenged" people might take offense.

The ironic thing about the entire affair is that fact that Political correctness is a campaign started by the left in this country yet when one of their own says something completely anti PC he is given a free pass?

All i'm saying is if a Republican said the same thing the feigned outrage would be in full force here on ATS.

Personally, I could care less what he said but being in the position he's in, he has to choose his words carefully.

This thread is retarded. Who cares?

Originally posted by CuriousSkeptic
This thread is retarded. Who cares?

LOL



Sorry, I couldn't resist.