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| signing the pledge 3-3-2010 |
Back in high school I spear headed a new club called Dons Disability Awareness Club. One of the events we did was a Spread the word to end the word . It was a great event and many people signed the pledge and I still have numerous wristbands lying around the house.
People might ask me why I care so much about the use of the the word retarded. I mean I do not have a intellectual disability. I have a physical disability and a speech disability but not a intellectual disability so the word is just a word to me right wrong
When I was ten years old my parents signed me up for judo at the local rec center, The class met Tuesdays and Thursdays in the gym for an hour. I signed up in February and before long my friend ,she is no longer my friend,joined shortly after lets call her B. She was deaf and had NVLD, like me, but she was in inclusive education at the local elementary school which was connected to the rec. As faith would have it her new neighbors would move in and they had kids around our age. A fifth grader, a year ahead of us, a third grader and a four year old who was the only girl in the bunch. The third grader who we will call LM happened to have Down Syndrome. I met them when LM came to join a judo class after my friends mom told her new neighbor about the class and shortly there after LM and I became friends.
A few years later LM was at our same school in middle school and the three of us always hung out together,. At the time LM was into basketball so every lunch hour LM and I would gobble down our lunches and race to the blacktop to play in pickup games on one such occasion we were playing with a other kids in my grade, so older then LM , and LM was doing the best he could. He did not have dribbling down, needed reminders of what basket to shoot at, and got too close to the defender. Most of the other kids were vary nice to him and gave him the ball and not block him and let him shoot but on one occasion a kid who was dribbling the ball and LM was trying to steal it from her she said.
"GET AWAY YOU RETARD ."
LM sat down on the side of the court and I fallowed him. I was stunned. B's mom had told me not to say that word to LM and now i knew why. LM was a charming fellow. He loved basketball and Disney movies and did judo. He was full of life but the person who called him the R word had taken all that away from him as if she had popped a balloon that was LM's spirit.
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To this day the memory of that day is vivid and runs deep. He is the reason why I started Spread the word to end the word at my high school last year. He is the reason why Spread the word to end the word will be there this year even though I no longer attend. LM was the first person I really got to know with a intellectual disability but he was not the last. B encourage me to become a special Olympics athlete and I now know many people in my area wit intellectual disabilities. People with Intellectual disabilities are people who have different personalities. These people can be cliquish while others can be vary sweet and accept everyone. But when people use the R word they lump them all together in to a group that is beneath the speak. 
Having CP which results in unclear s speech I sometimes get treated as though I have a intellectual disability due to my speech. I know the feeling and it is not a good one. i see the mindset of thinking that they are above me and it does not feel right. I am intelligent but even if i wasn't I still would want to be treated with respect:Learning is not everything everyone needs to realize that a person is a person who has feelings we all cry the same tears. We all feel sadness. It is what makes us human so think about that the next time before use the R word,
Words DO Hurt
Spread the word to end the word
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