New film raises disability issues
The new comedy movie "Tropic Thunder" has ignited more than just thunder due to its use of the word "retard."
If the backlash from advocacy organizations and families against Dreamworks, the film's production company, casts some light, then movie lovers will have gained some understanding about the cruelty of the word "retard" and about the potential power of words to hurt and demean our loved ones who have intellectual disabilities.
"Tropic Thunder" provides a teaching moment. It's an opportunity to talk to our children, teenagers and other adults about how wrong it is to ever use the word "retard" and any other disparaging name for persons who have disabilities, whether they are intellectual or physical.
We are all just one mutated gene away from being born with a disorder that could cause us to be developmentally disabled for life.
Can anyone really think that it is funny, cute, clever or cool to make fun of persons who are different than we are through no fault of their own?
It is not necessary to be born with a disability to get one. Anyone can sustain a head injury from an accident in a car, or on a bike or motorcycle, or from choking on an object that cuts off the air supply to the brain. A stroke or other medical brain injury can result in loss of intellectual capacity at any age. Any of these events can change us from our present state to a life of permanent disability.
Parents and teachers need to teach our children to accept and be unafraid of a fellow human being who looks and acts differently than they do. Words such as "retard" must be replaced with another "R" word. That word is "respect."
All human life must be respected for us to be a civilized society in which all persons have value. Our founders granted equal rights to all citizens in our Constitution, yet we must work to see that this is in fact actually happening. When we devalue certain groups of people because of differences, we open the door for them to be abused verbally and physically.
Persons with disabilities suffer abuse eight to 10 times more than those in the "normal" population. Abuse and neglect occur when attitudes toward persons with disabilities allow it to happen.
It is a very short distance from the use of hurtful words applied to any group of human beings who are different to the use of abuse and violence against these vulnerable people.
South Carolina has stepped up and fought this problem by passing legislation to help stop abuse of vulnerable adults. The Vulnerable Adult Abuse Act, passed in 2006, is probably the most effective law in the nation of its kind. More than 1,100 reports to SLED were made in the first year under this law.
We can legislate to arrest and punish abusers, but attitudes take longer to change. We can start by telling our children that persons with disabilities are not to be feared or insulted but respected.
The short video at the web site blueberryshoes.com is the type of viewing that we should provide to help change attitudes.
NANCY L. BANOV
Rebellion Road
Charleston
Nancy L. Banov is the mother of a 42-year-old daughter with Rett Syndrome.
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