View Full Version : "It's ready for a retarded president"
Here is an exerpt from Life magazine's interview with Chris Rock. How do you feel about his comments?
LIFE: In the first movie you directed, Head of State, you were president of the United States. Is this country ready for an African American president?
ROCK: It's ready for a retarded president, why wouldn't it be ready for an African American president?
LIFE: So, of the current presidential contenders, who do you like best?
ROCK: I like Al Gore, actually. (A) He’s more qualified than everyone that's running on the Democratic side. (B) If he won or didn’t win, he has an agenda to help people and make this a better world. . . . Maybe Barack will win, but I probably won’t see a black president. There’s real equality when you don't notice [race], you don't even talk about it. I probably won’t live to see that.
Complete Interview (http://www.life.com/Life/article/0,26385,1596186,00.html)
I don't think I am offended in the usual sense. I am just offended that anyone would put Bush in the same category as Rai. Rai is just so far superior to Bush that is belittling to her for anyone to consider them similar!
MathSpeak
03-14-2007, 10:25 PM
Yeah, Jo... my sis works in a dayhab facility with MR people and I would never think to compare any of them to Bush... Either way, it wasn't cool of Chris Rock to say - and I tend to like his crassness... it's something about equating retardation with stupidity (as he did here) that just doesn't sit well with me.
Polly
03-15-2007, 07:21 AM
Are we, as a society, losing the battle on the use of the word "retarded?" I know I don't use it. I've worked with MR kids and Rai is my goddaughter. But just about everywhere I look in popular culture, "retarded" is becoming more and more socially acceptable to use as an adjective.
There seem to be two camps: people who loathe and get upset at the use of "retarded" as an offensive adjective and the people who use it and feel that everyone else is overreacting. And unfortunately (in my opinion), the people who use it as an offensive adjective (like my brother) won't change and rationalize the use as OK. I don't see any way to change it-for example, I know my brother won't use the word around me anymore but he will use it everywhere else.
There's the old argument of raising your children to not use the word as an adjective-fine, I will do that with Elizabeth. But I also know that people who do use the word as an offensive adjective will teach their kids it OK. Sigh.
Polly
Danielle
03-15-2007, 10:16 AM
I think the same thing Polly, especially with the youth population, it's become such a "normal" slang term. I'm not even sure they make the connection between that term and true MR persons anymore.
I personally cringe when I hear it... then again, my kids think "stupid" is a curse word...
Jejune
03-15-2007, 10:39 AM
Gah. OK, I guess on the one hand, I'd rather hear what Chris Rock has to say about politics than what say, Paris Hilton has to say about politics, but I'm going to assume that entertainers, celebrities, sports stars, and the like are not usually going to be the best informed people. I also think calling George Bush retarded, whether for purposes of shock value or humor, is juvenile and also takes away any chance of a serious discussion of issues, because now all anyone will talk about is whether he's stupid or whether it's offensive, not what Bush is doing and whether they approve of that. I think all of the Bush is stupid jokes were stale long ago. He's not stupid. He's not intellectually curious, and I don't think he has a high intelligence, but he's not stupid and to write him off as stupid is to dismiss and to some extent excuse everything he's done.
Marzipan
03-15-2007, 02:59 PM
Kristen, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that, to some extent, it comforts people to consider him a stupid man, but clearly he isn't. Yeah, I know his family's well connected and he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But that describes lots of people at Ivy League schools, and people fail out all the time. And they don't all manage to get themselves elected president. Twice.
As for Chris Rock's comments in particular, I am disappointed in him. Anyone as funny as Chris Rock is clearly remarkably intelligent. He had the perfect opportunity for some real discourse there, and he threw it away on a cheap one-liner.
Are we, as a society, losing the battle on the use of the word "retarded?" I know I don't use it.
Polly has a great point, i think unless you are directly involved with people who live first hand with special needs many many people are becoming entirely desensitised towards the use of the word retarded as they fail to see how derogatory and disrespectful it can be to use it in as an insult.
It's almost becoming like the word "spaz" in England- originally it came from the word Spastic which is who people with downs syndrom were termed in England until the early 90s, it started out with kids mocking each other calling each other spastic which got shortened to spaz and now even Scope (which was formerly the spastics society- a charity for downs syndrom) don't use the term spastic any longer but we have a generation of kids and teens growing up using the term Spaz with little or no idea of where it comes from and why people can and will take offence.
A person doesn't chose to be special needs and it's insulting when they use such terms to describe someone who is acting idiotic or stupid as they have total control over how they act.
Do i take offense at Chris Rock saying it? I'm not going to hang him out to dry for her personally as i think like the rest of society he's just reached the stage where it's intergrated into mainstream insults so much he probably didn't think twice when he said it.
As for Bush- as much as i am not keen on the man he certainly has a way of making Blair dance to the beat of his drum :shakehead
gr8mommy
03-16-2007, 07:48 AM
Does anyone still object to 'idiot' or 'moron'? Those are also terms for describing those with diminished cognitive ability. The use of 'retarded' is going the same way--soon no one will consider the source of the word.
Does anyone still object to 'idiot' or 'moron'? Those are also terms for describing those with diminished cognitive ability. The use of 'retarded' is going the same way--soon no one will consider the source of the word.
Are they really? Do you know i honestly never realised Idiot or moron had ever been terminology used by the medical profession in the past to describe medically recognised delay in cognitive functions/ability in the same manner that retarded and spastic have been, hmmm- off to read up now, really is an eye opener that one!
I am just offended that anyone would put Bush in the same category as Rai. Rai is just so far superior to Bush that is belittling to her for anyone to consider them similar!
:giggle
Does anyone still object to 'idiot' or 'moron'? Those are also terms for describing those with diminished cognitive ability. The use of 'retarded' is going the same way--soon no one will consider the source of the word.
I am not comfortable with those words either. I don't like it when words that are used to describe what are essentially medical or cognitive conditions are used as slang. I joke about being offended that Rai and Bush are put in the same category. But it goes deeper. Rai is just so Rai. She is a beautiful person with feeling, thoughts and personality that extend beyond her mental retardation but yet all of those are affected by her mental retardation. It still is a HUGE part of who she is. I find the situation belittling because so many people do not take the opportunity to understand the people who are mentally retarded. Rai is still a person. I would be as offended if someone dismissed her as a retard because they simply haven't learned to look beyond that.
I also don't agree with the attitude, like Polly's brother has, that words should be used to take away their power. Power or not, words still have meanings. Those meanings should be respected and not bandied about to short cut what people really mean. Throwing around terms may have shock value, but that doesn't make them any more respectable.
It is situation that I feel will never be resolved. The terminology will change and then the slang will follow.
gr8mommy
03-17-2007, 09:58 AM
Except that those terms are no longer in use medically, nor is retarded in many areas.
I have no doubt that this hurts you deeply, and Rai sounds like a lovely girl!
No they aren't but I am aware that they were. Now the going term seems to be cognitively delayed. I am sure in the next 20 years people will find a way to have fun with that one. I know some are already adopting special needs in a derogatory fashion. Instead of saying they are so retarded they say they are so special needs. It will never end.
I do think there are worse things to say in this world but even idiot and moron belong the category of not nice words to use. Since they aren't used anymore to describe medical conditions they just don't have the same power. I guess if we completely stop using MR to describe a person's cognitive condition, then eventually it will lose more power too. But until that happens, it still has more power than other words.
Thanks-Rai is a pretty awesome kid!
Heather
03-18-2007, 07:21 PM
Rock was on SNL last night and he used the term again, only slightly different from how he used it in the interview. He made reference to America being ready for a black pres because we already elected a retarded one(I know it's not verbatim, but it's close). And he got what he was looking for... a Lot of laughs from the audience.
It's simply a matter of people out there not understanding, and often times, not Caring what the true meaning of that word is. Hell.. I didn't know that idiot and moron stem from that, but based off of how the words 'retard' and 'retarded' have come to be used.. it totally makes sense when you really think about it. Yet, no one would think twice about using those two. I never have.
I also don't agree with the attitude, like Polly's brother has, that words should be used to take away their power. Power or not, words still have meanings. Those meanings should be respected and not bandied about to short cut what people really mean.
I think my issue with that, in this case, is that it just can't work. I can understand gay people trying to reclaim "queer," for example, or physically disabled people trying to reclaim words like "gimp." But the point is that they are doing it themselves. Maybe the word does lose power for someone who it is used negatively against if they are able, within their own community, to use it in a positive way, or an ironic way. But somebody else can't come in and use the word and say it's going to have the same effect.
People with cognitive disabilities aren't, as far as I know, reclaiming the word "retarded" in the same way that "queer" or "gimp." Even if they were, it still wouldn't be okay for an outsider to use it, especially in the context that Rock used it.
I don't find it appalling, simply because it's such an acceptable word now that I think people don't mean offense, but I definitely think it's an issue of people not thinking about what words mean and the power they have.