Rampant use of the word retarded by Black leaders and entertainers proves the desperate need for a Black disabled movement in this country.
|
by Leroy Moore The usage of the R word, retarded, by Black leaders and entertainers is another example why this country desperately needs a Black disabled movement! As the Black community stood up to the latest verbal racial attack by a radio DJ, I and many others like me are standing up to our non-disabled Black leaders and entertainers to say you can’t be silent on the recent verbal bullets fired by some Black entertainers and so-called Black spokespersons. Check out the below quotes. * April, 2007 — Halle Berry gets her Hollywood star on the walk of * March, 2007 — Chris Rock calls President Bush a 'retard.' * January, 2007 — Jesse Jackson says 'that’s retarded' in an interview Earlier this year, one of my favorite Black comedians, Paul Moony, made a promise to never use the N word in his act after Seinfeld, Michael Richards, used it when he went off at an African American audience member in a L.A. club. The same promise or contract should be made between the disabled community and Black entertainers from Hip-Hop to the big screen without us having to picket against them until they promise to never use the R word. Many people don’t see the problem using the R word until it used against them. Recently the NAACP of Washington, PA wanted Mayor Kenneth Westcott (D) to resign because he wrote “retarded” next to a name of an African American individual who was speaking at a hearing at City Hall. It took over a hundred people with developmental disabilities and their allies to convince legislators during a rally at the steps of the Statehouse in Montgomery to pass bills removing the word "retarded" from state language. It is 2007 so why are we still going through basic 101-disability awareness? It is very hard to only blame Black leaders and entertainers when the word, Retarded, is all over the newspaper and other media. Many organizations have the R word in their title and it exists in laws and in the music we listen to. It has been ingrained into the fabric of our society so much that we can’t even compare the R word to the N word. Who is to blame for this? In the early days of the disability rights movement our lives and language were in the hands of others like doctors, scientists, professionals. Have we, people with disabilities, really reclaimed our language? By the recent trend of using the R word and a lack of penalty towards people using this term, it makes me wonder as a Black disabled man, how far the disability rights movement has really come! As you notice I didn’t touch on the recent popularizing of the R word in Hip-Hop in this article but if the Hip-Hop industry and the rest of society including my Black community and mainstream media wants to learn how to improve their language toward my community, I urge them to purchase Krip-Hop Mixtape Hip-Hop by disabled artists or better yet follow the quote from KRS One, “you must learn!” And the only way you will learn is by listening to us or better yet by us, the people with developmental disabilities, becoming the reporter, the politician, the hip-hop artist or the comedian! By Leroy Moore Jr |