Update: Earlier on I used a title that called for a ban on words such as "retarded" on Dailykos.com. I have been convinced by other Kossacks that a ban is wrong, but calling for a community standard is a much better way of approaching the issue at hand. I apologize for the "ban" remark, but sometimes frustration is a faster typer than reason. Banning words is a violation of free speech and doesn't help change how often people use derogatory words. We can however, question those who use it make them understand why those words are offensive to many people. That is the basis for this diary.
Update (BUMPED from the comments from Chacounne), who addresses the wide-ranging debate that this diary sparked: As someone who has a genetic disease that usually causes mental delays, although not in my case, it makes me very sad to see so many people whose hearts are so small that they can't see how using this language would hurt those with mental delays and their families. Using "retard" as an insult gives those who have mental delays the message that the way they are in the world is bad; that they can never be good enough. Dismissing and deriding the requests for change as political correctness comes off, to me, as bullying. How would it feel to you to be lumped in with Virgil Goode?
From JungleRed1 Who are you, the WORD police?
Aren't there MORE important issues at stake? Kagro X was clearly NOT making a joke about the mentally disable. GET OVER YOUR HOLIER-THAN-THOU SELF (SELVES).
Unbelievable.
This morning Daily Kos experienced an uproar over a post about Republican Congressman Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and his rabid anti-Muslim remarks. The author of the post was Dkos blogger Kagro X. While the focus was supposed to be on Rep. Virgil Goode and his modern day crusade against Islam, the discussion went off on a tangent after much outrage was directed at the use of the word "retarded" in the title of the post.
Later on, Kagro X corrected it, but not before leaving it up for a very long time.
I was saddened and dissapointed to see the use of such a derogatory word on one of the "supposedly liberal" sections of the blogosphere. Kagro X made a carefree mistake I assume, but his use of the word "retarded" reflects how little thought he put into making the title. I hold absolutely no grudge against Kagro X. We all are guilty of making mistakes of doing or saying things that insult other people for who they are or what they believe in, but the important part is that we always realize these mistakes and apologize for them.
Shouldn't alarm bells go off in the ears of ANY progressive blogger when they use words like "retarded" for a post in one of the major liberal blogs? Daily Kos is monitored by watchdog groups, the Mainstram Media, and millions upon millions of readers every week. Our main bloggers NEED to be careful of using offensive words.
The media will attack us for anything, even mistakes like this one. Beyond the media, we must refrain from such remarks for the sake of the movement. We are all in this together, and we all face our daily struggles in a world that creates barriers and walls more than it solves problems. This site of all sites should be an oasis of understanding.
Kagro X in the post, which can be found here, used the term "Virgil Goode: Still Retarded..." Later on he fixed it to say "Virgil Goode: Still...". He did not update a note to the post with an apology, nor did he in my opinion give a satisfactory apology in the comments section:
"The record is the record. Changing the title, though it's an easy enough thing to do, won't erase the record of what it once said, which is in the comments.
I'll just make sure I don't do it again.
...
Well, what're you gonna do? It was a distraction.
There's still a record. Can't hide from it. But why make people continue to fret over it?
Kagro made a good step in saying that he'll never use the word again and I applaud him for that. But the seriousness of the mistake requires a greater apology. Put aside the extreme offense to people with mental disabilities, what is of equal outrage is having such a blatantly derogatory word featured on a post RIGHT THERE on the front page of Dailykos.com, for the thousands of people who read the the post to see.
Major Daily Kos bloggers maintain a SUPURB site, let's keep it that way by refraining from using words offensive to fellow readers. "Retarded" is not ok, just as "faggot" "nigger" "spic" "polak" and other comments aren't either (and thankfully I've never seen those other terms on a Dkos post before!).