Read on Twitter
why the word "retard" is a slur and why only neurodivergent people can say it - a thread by a neurodivergent person.
content warnings // r slur , hate crimes , ableism , mentions of death & murder , experimentation , sexual assault , doxxing , brief mention of gore , kidnapping , general abuse & neglect
before we start, some basic definitions:
neurodivergent: any brain that isn't "normal". this includes autism, adhd, dyslexia, ocd, etc.
ableism: discrimination against people with disabilities (including learning disabilities & other brain/physical disorders)
neurodivergent: any brain that isn't "normal". this includes autism, adhd, dyslexia, ocd, etc.
ableism: discrimination against people with disabilities (including learning disabilities & other brain/physical disorders)
1. in the 1800s-1900s, neurodivergent people and people with mental illnesses were admitted to insane asylums, which were just an excuse to put people deemed "unfit for society" in buildings together and away from "normal" people.
these asylums had horrible conditions, and the doctors would preform brain surgery, electroshock therapy, and multiple other experiments on us because we didn't "fit in society" anyway. we were used as guinea pigs, treated as less than human, just for being different
we were kept in small rooms, packed with other people, starved, killed, and experimented on because we were viewed as less than human-and these views still affect us today.
2. if you have autism, you're extremely more likely to get rejected for a job. according to http://marketwatch.com , 85% of college graduates with autism are unemployed. source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/most-college-grads-with-autism-cant-find-jobs-this-group-is-fixing-that-2017-04-10-5881421
adding onto this (from the same source), 35% of 18-year-olds with autism go to college, but the large majority of us go unemployed, or have to settle for minimum wage or part-time jobs. and even when we do land jobs, we're fired of given less hours because of-
us missing social cues or doing something wrong and not knowing how to fix it, etc. even though we are completely qualified for the job.
3. disability hate crimes. according to this article by http://dimensions-uk.org ( https://dimensions-uk.org/get-involved/campaigns/say-no-autism-learning-disability-hate-crime-imwithsam/), 73% of people with a learning disability and/or autism have experiences a hate crime. these include, but are not limited to: physical attacks, emotional manipulation,-
sexual assault, robbery, and online abuse (doxxing, gore accs sending violent dms, death threats, etc). and if you think this doesn't happen often, you're wrong.
according to the US Bureau of Justice, people with disabilities are 2.5 times more likely to experience violence than abled people. disability hate crimes are widely unreported, however, because so many of us don't trust our government and legal system to help us.
it took almost twelve years for our government to include people with disabilities in federal hate-crime legislation. TWELVE. YEARS. source for the last two tweets: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/invisible-hate-crime
if 73% of us experience hate crimes, what does that mean for neurodivergent people who are black? who are trans and queer? not to mention those of us who have seen the stories of police killing autistic people because they're not trained in what to do with us.
4. nazi germany. disabled people were the first victims of the holocaust. we were killed in gas chambers, injection, starvation, experimentation, and exposure. 2016, in japan, the biggest mass murder since world war II was a mission to "rid the world of disabled people."
people with brain disabilities are SEVEN. TIMES. more likely to be sexually assaulted than abled people. this is all from the last source stated.
5. the tacony dungeon case. this was a crime ring discovered in 2011 that kidnapped mentally disabled people and held them captive to steal their social security checks.
for 10 years, the victims were isolated, confined, tortured, starved, drugged, stabbed, burned, and beat with everything from fists to hammers. some were forced into prostitution. people died. the victims begged NOT to be set free for fear of being punished.
ringleader pleaded guilty to 196 FEDERAL COUNTS, including hate crimes. source is still from spl center ^
people haven't taken us seriously since people learned that we were different. that we were wrong. we've been treated as less than human for CENTURIES. we have died listening to people calling us retards. the last thing that some of us heard was the word retard.
we have been isolated and dehumanized and ignored since we've existed. we have been taken and kept out of mainstream society for decades, for centuries. we have been seen as "less-than," and it's sickening.
the word retard IS a slur. no matter what you think it may be, even if it's just another word to you, it is NOT. people have DIED listening to that word. we have been KILLED for BEING 'retarded'. and if you still think that it's just another word after this, you're just ableist.
if you want to help, here's what the southern poverty law center says;
we are not less than. we are human. and we are equals. but the r slur is our word. and after centuries of being tortured and killed for being us? i think we deserve it.
PSA: a lot are asking me to clarify- the only types of neurodivergent people who can reclaim it are people with learning disabilities and disorders !! this includes adhd, add, dyslexia, & autism as the ones that comes straight to mind :)
im muting this now that it's reached the ableists- if you have any additional questions you can dm me ! :) <3
