A 'kick in the gut' for Palin

AFTER THE n-word, the r-word. Politicians, commentators and officials in the US have been drawn into a war of words over the use of the offensive term “retarded” in the last few weeks.

It began when president Obama’s chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, told a group of liberal activists that they would be “fuckin’ retarded” if they planned to run negative advertisements about Democrats who opposed Obama’s healthcare reform package. The comments were made at a “closed door” meeting last August but only became public earlier this month.

The ex-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, took to her Facebook page to call for Emanuel to be fired from his job for such an insensitive remark. She wrote: “Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.”

Right-wing radio host and commentator Rush Limbaugh weighed in with his own take on the use of the word. “Our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult has taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I’m not going to apologise for it,” he said on his radio show. He went on to use the word “retard” 27 times on his show. Asked why she had not condemned Limbaugh for his use of the word, the way she had done with Emanuel, Palin replied: “He was satirical in that. Rush Limbaugh was using satire. So I agree with Rush Limbaugh.”

Picking up on that apparent inconsistency in Palin's stance, the political satirist Steve Colbert called Palin "a fuckin' retard" on his TV show, The Colbert Report. He said he was using the "Rush Limbaugh defence" of being able to call someone a retard on the basis that it was "satirical".

The controversy got wrenched up even further when the popular, off-beat TV cartoon show, Family Guy, had one of their characters, a teenage girl with Down Syndrome, say she was Sarah Palin's daughter. Family Guy, which is similar in feeling and tone to The Simpsons, is routinely described as a "nasty but funny" and "hugely satirical" animated show. For the past few weeks, the teenage son in the programme has been dating a girl with Down Syndrome. The girl has been consistently portrayed as a teenager out for a few dates who just happens to have Down Syndrome. Last Sunday night, when asked by the teenage son what her parents did, the girl replied: "My Mom used to be Governor of Alaska."

The following day, Palin said on her Facebook page that the reference to her son Trig, now two, who has Down Syndrome, was "a kick in the gut". Her daughter, Bristol, accused the writers of Family Guyof "mocking my brother", saying they were "heartless jerks". She said in a statement: "People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront, and yet they are some of the kindest and most loving people you'll ever meet. Their lives are difficult enough as it is, so why would anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them?"

The creator of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane, responded by saying: "From its inception, Family Guyhas used biting satire as the foundation of its humour." Family Guyis broadcast on the Fox TV network in the US. Palin is a commentator on the Fox News channel. Speaking on Fox earlier this week, Palin said of the episode: "this world is full of cruel and cold-hearted people – you've had Rahm Emanuel using the 'f-ing retard' term and you've even had our president mocking Special Olympiads." The latter is a reference to Obama's appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last year when he told Leno his average bowling score "was like the Special Olympics or something". He later apologised for the remark.

The r-word controversy (distressingly referred to as “Retardgate” by some commentators) continues apace, but you can’t help feeling that it is ignoring the real issue and being used instead to score political points. Kirsten Seckler of the Special Olympics leads a campaign called “Spread The Word To End The Word” (r-word.org) which wants the casual and highly insulting use of the word “retard” to be removed from cultural/political discourse. “We aren’t trying to ban a word but the pejorative in casual use,” she says. “Especially as used by kids in schools and in the classroom – it is isolating and it hurts”.

Peter Berns, the chief executive of Arc of the United States, an organisation of and for people with disabilities, has written about how people with disabilities react to hearing the term: “Every time they hear the word all these images flood back to them about how they’ve been laughed at, pointed at, made fun of, sterilised. The word is the moral equivalent of hate speech.”