The Reason Behind The R Word Pledge

By Thomas Cook


The R word is a phrase that stands for the word retard, or other words that may originate from it, say retards or retarded. The word has been widely discredited and campaigned against, for demeaning reasons. This led to a campaign known as Spread the word to end the word advocacy, which was a national event, whose aim was to depolarize and seize the using of the hostile words, to citizens of the United States. Henceforth, the R word pledge has won massive awareness and influence, in the States.

The campaign is manned by enthusiasts who confidently believe that using defamatory names like retards have adverse ramifications, and all people should refrain from using such names, as much as possible. Instead, they advocate for more polite, sensible, unbiased and respectful terms, during making of speeches or other conversations. Their argumentation is largely based on the fact that no one decides on their fate, and so no one wished to be born having intellectual complications. The affected persons, therefore, have no reason whatsoever to be demeaned by the rest of the sane persons.

The pledge was founded in the year 2009, during the Special Olympics Global Youth Activation Summit. Its main mission was to totally eliminate the usage of the word retard, from speeches ad general talk. The advocates of the motion believe that the individuals who have cognitive mental disabilities are, also capable of enjoying their lives and also share their experiences with the rest of the society.

Therefore causal references, they claim, to words like retard or even retarded, are esteem killers, and make the person with the intellectual deficiencies feel like they are more or less, human. This is seen to interfere with their psychology, which may in the end result in them not respecting themselves, and they view themselves as failures.

The people advocating for the mission summarized it as the R word, to generally refer to other terms and phrases that are crafted to have the end meanings that are unacceptable to the society, and do not uphold ethics. One of the most notorious ones is nigger.

The campaign, intriguingly, was initiated by people of all intellectual affiliations, both the sane and those with poverty of intellect. They were brought together by the basic reason that they had common interests and self-drive to stand firm for the abolishment of defamatory names for instance retard, nigger and other cruel terminologies. They hoped that the society, and the globe at large, would eventually a more comfortable and acceptable place to be lived by one and all, regardless of the malfunctions, upstairs.

The campaign celebrates its annual national awareness day every 31st March, since when it was founded the same day in 2009. Ever since, the youth behind the campaign have been exceedingly assertive on their struggle. This can be further supported by the fact that they even compelled the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to publicly make an apology for using the word retards, in January 2010. He apologized to the Special Olympics Chief Executive. This shows how they are optimistic, social status notwithstanding.

Many people have lauded the campaigns, and appreciate the manifesto of the activists. People have appreciated the efforts made by the advocates and have offered overwhelming support.




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