Regarding the N-word…
DaasYochid: I hear people of a certain group using an epithet all the time, and since they’re the ones using it, it’s not considered offensive. So why can’t popa and I use the “R” word?
If this is not deliberate trolling, it may be the least intelligent thing DaasYochid has ever posted. “N-word privileges” is an irrelevant discussion, unless DaasYochid meant “Why can’t popa and I [who are developmentally disabled/w-e] use ‘retarded’?” Mistoma, dos hut er nisht gemeint.
Do I really have to talk about this? (Probably not…) Take it, Wiktionary!
In its pejorative sense, it ranks among the most insulting racial epithets in the English language, with strong connotations of cultural and intellectual inferiority or deficiency.
The term is generally derogatory (racist) when used by persons not of African descent (and sometimes when used by persons of African descent), but, it is also used by some black people among themselves, positively, especially when used in the form of “n—a,” in a form of reclamation.
It is important to note that many people do not believe that “N” is able to be reclaimed, because of its fraught history and continued pejorative usage. Usage by non-blacks, however, is almost invariably considered offensive.
So some do consider it offensive even when used by black people for each other.
Are the developmentally delayed/disabled then known to use “retarded” “among themselves, positively”, that the argument could be made under any circumstances?
There’s this, too:
it is hard to understand how the term “retarded”, which been obsolete in
that context for decades, would be offensive.
Wiktionary doesn’t seem to think it’s obsolete (I don’t know about common medical
usage), though neither does it find it offensive, unless used to describe persons with
mental retardation themselves.