#i feel like this is rambly but i have a headche so whatever

[tommy-shut-up-challenge]

I need to talk about my perspective because i see this take all over for years and its been frustrating to watch. disclaimer: i have one disability that makes math hard (among other things, but my focus will be on math classes) and one that affects my cognitive functioning. The cognitive one is more recent and makes the learning one more difficult. If I made a spelling or grammar error that makes this hard to read please tell me. I have issues typing and spelling and spell check only does so much.

This is all to answer your question of "why would you want that word in particular?"

So some background. I have a disorder that meant always missing lunch to finish math tests and using a calculator when other students couldn't in later years. My peers noticed, ofc. And tweens/teens are vicious, so i got bullied for being 'stupid,' slow,' and r-word. The slur is the one they liked the best. More taboo ig.

Yeah. The rword means slow, stupid, and all the other words you used. But, and I'm not blaming you for anything here because I used to think like this too, slow and stupid aren't insults. or at least they shouldn't be. When viewing being slow as an insult you also imply it is inferior in some way. That is ableism, and it's so common in our world that people don't even realise it.

The words stupid and dumb also come from the same place, although the meaning has changed enough it's not even remotely as offensive. That's a different conversation that is a lot more complex tho.

you state "with like fag or whatever that at least is referring to your actual identity... the rslur [is] attacking how someone behaves or comes off to others more than what they actually are" I have a disorder that makes me slower at calculations than my peers. I AM slow. That's a part of who I actually am. it's not what I come off as or behave as. My disabilities are just as much a part of my identity as my status as a trans person. Another product of the unnoticed ableism in our world is people not seeing disability as a part of the person who has it and more like baggage they pack around. (See: autistic person vs. person with autism argument.)

I am slow, I am dimwitted, and I am retarded. There is not morality to assign to it, and none of those words should be insults. I am not less for being slow. Stating facts about who I am is not self-depreciation or insulting. I should not have grown up in a world that allowed descriptions of the way my brain works (slowly) to be insulting, but I did so I turned them into labels.

And it did a phenomenal job of protecting me since it took away the words people used to hurt me.

i will honestly never understand the urge to reclaim the r slur like . it’s got the fucking ooze on it why would you want to even touch that