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What’s Wrong with ‘Retard’?

Over the past five years, Spread the Word to End the Word has elicited thousands of stories and perspectives answering the question “what’s wrong with ‘retard’?” But none of them have been as poignant and powerful as that given by Jonathan Franklin Stephens, a self-advocate and author with Down syndrome. While many of us bicker over things like political correctness and our constitutional right to insult, Mr. Stephens lays bare the impact of our words:

“So, what’s wrong with ‘retard’? I can only tell you what it means to me and people like me when we hear it. It means that the rest of you are excluding us from your group. We are something that is not like you and something that none of you would ever want to be. We are something outside the ‘in’ group. We are someone that is not your kind.”

Click here to read the full article on HuffPost.