My roommate decided to throw a daiquiri party[1] at my apartment a few weeks ago and after a few of these fruity concoctions, I was entertaining my guests with a rant about the ridiculous clown car that is the Republican presidential field.

“It’s like a cavalcade of morons.  Each one trying to top the next with more hateful, more outlandish statements.  It’s like none of them realize they can never win a general election with these kinds of statements on the record,” I said.

“Yeah, they’re not exactly covering themselves in glory, are they?” a friend quipped.

“What a bunch of re-tards,” I exclaimed.

My friend got oddly quiet.

“What’s the matter?  Do you know some who’s retarded?” I laughed.

“Yeah, I do,” he said.  “My brother has down syndrome.”

I stopped laughing.

Despite the inherent awkwardness of the situation, my friend was actually very kind about it, accepting my apology on the spot and not seemingly holding it against me for the rest of the night.  I’m sure this wasn’t the first time this had happened.  Still, I couldn’t help feeling like a huge asshole.  I’d used the word retard liberally as a kid both in middle and high school, purging the term from my vocabulary somewhere around college.  Then The Hangover came out in 2009 and revived the usage of the dormant slur, albeit with the tell-tale emphasis on the second syllable.  Because Zack Galafanakis was so damn funny in that role and because it was such a gleeful mispronunciation, we all seized upon it, and it re-entered the lexicon.  We thought that if we mispronounced it as well, it somehow lessened the stigma and hurt of the term.  It didn’t.

About a week or so ago, Ann Coulter’s tweet calling President Obama a retard resurfaced on social media, as did the amazing response by Special Olympics athlete John Franklin Stephens.[2]  Stephens’ compassionate, moving response nearly had me in tears and made me instantly regret the countless times I’d used the R-word in the last six years.  I decided then and there to resolve to stop using it.  Do I still find it funny?  A little.  Will I still laugh when that scene in The Hangover comes on?  I will.  But I will make an earnest effort not to repeat it.  Because I know that it hurts people.  And because I should know better.

On a different but related note, I was back in DC last week, talking with a friend about our favorite football team’s prospects for the upcoming season.

“I think RGIII is done in DC,” I opined.  “I think it’s going to be another long, painful year.”

“Agreed,” my friend replied.  “Another sad year for our beloved Redskins.”

“So what do you think about that anyway?” I asked.

“About what?” he asked.

“About that name.  The Redskins.  Don’t you think it’s time we changed it?”

“No.  Absolutely not.  It’s our name.  It’s tradition.  No fucking way.”

“But it’s blatantly racist and offensive,” I argued.  “I mean, it’s basically like calling the team the Washington N-bombs or the Hartford Honkies.”

“What?  No, hell no.  We’ve had the name forever.  It’s not racist.  Why change it now?  That’s our team.  It’s our identity.  Native Americans don’t even care.”

“Actually, they do.  They’ve petitioned Congress to change it.  They’re furious about it.  And rightfully so.  I just can’t help but feel like it’s wrong.  Right here in the nation’s capital.  It’s embarrassing.”

We were clearly getting nowhere.

Don’t get me wrong, for most of my life I’ve supported the team, bought the merchandise, and sang “Hail to the Redskins” after every touchdown.  It’s not that I want to stop supporting the team, I just can’t continue to condone a hateful nickname.  And there are obviously scores of people in both the media and mainstream society who agree.  Many sports reporters and journalists (including the Washington Post’s editorial board) will not refer to the team by its chosen moniker.  The DC government has refused to give the team a stadium lease in the District until they change their name.  The outcry is getting progressively louder and harder to ignore.  The fix is relatively simply and innocuous: change the name to Pigskins[3].  We can still even call them the ‘Skins’.  Problem solved.

There is precedent for this.  Harvard and Stanford both changed their names from the far-less-offensive Indians to the colors that now represent these institutions.  St. Johns and Syracuse University changed their names from the Redmen and the Orangemen to the Red Storm and the Orange, respectively.  History is not on the Washington professional football team’s side.

A part of me understands the logic of wanting to keep the name and resisting the intrusion of political correctness into our time-honored vernacular.  At some point, if we continue to eliminate “offensive” words from our vocabulary, how will we express ourselves?  For people of my dad’s generation, who was born the same year the Boston Braves moved to Washington and adopted the now-controversial nickname, it must be even more difficult to accept these changes.  When terms like colored, Oriental, or retard fall out of favor because they are deemed offensive, unrepresentative, or even hateful, it requires an adjustment.  And these kinds of adjustments don’t come without friction, frustration, and resistance.

There is a different dynamic to the PC wars against which I will push back, however.  Increasingly, people seem to want to avoid ideas or language that they perceive to assault their sensibilities.  On college campuses, this has proven a flash point in recent months with professors under attack for supposedly offensive language, now deemed “micro-aggressions”.  Micro-aggression is subconscious insensitivity toward minority groups.  I think we can all agree that we generally want to avoid insensitivity, or making minorities feel uncomfortable, whether consciously or unwittingly.  And we certainly want to avoid overtly racist and hateful speech.  But restricting language to the point where expression becomes stunted and controversy too difficult to discuss misses the point entirely.  University students are apparently up in arms over teachers offending their precious sensibilities by uttering hateful phrases such as “America is the land of opportunity” and “where are you from?”  Really?  This is where we’re at as a society?

The thought police are out in force not only on college campuses but on the internet as well, and it’s our collective responsibility to fight back.  Comedians such as Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld won’t perform at colleges anymore because they’re deemed too offensive.  Or people won’t laugh at their jokes.  Or both.   One misstep on social media, and you’re pilloried by the masses.  When we’re so afraid of stepping on someone else’s toes or writing/texting/posting/tweeting something that is instantly shamed, we shut down and stop expressing ourselves.  It’s oppressive.  And alarming.  And dangerous.

At my alma mater, Duke University, a few students recently complained on social media about the required summer reading because it apparently offended their Christian beliefs.  The graphic novel in question, “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel, describes and illustrates the author’s gay, closeted father and her own coming out as a lesbian.  Apparently this was too much for the delicate incoming Dukies because they refused to read it.  College, it strikes me, is the precise time that we should be encountering books that challenge our perspective and shift our paradigm.  Students should be questioning and seeking out different authors and studies to verify that their opinions are well founded and legitimate and not solely based on limited perspective.  I remember writing a paper on the death penalty and totally changing my opinion, based on my research and the obvious conclusion that it was a bad policy badly implemented.  This is purpose of liberal education: challenging our beliefs, finding a rational, justifiable basis for our opinions, and confirming or rejecting accordingly.  If we’re afraid of ideas or words because they challenge us or offend us, we’ll never get down to the business of self-exploration and discovery.  And we’ll never learn, change, or grow.

Which brings me to the question with which I started: where do we draw the line?  How do we differentiate hateful speech from that which is merely controversial or uncomfortable?  This delineation also involves a very personal dynamic because what is offensive or repugnant for one person might not be all that distasteful to someone else.  I think that when a word, name, or idea is clearly derogatory or hurtful (like the confederate flag), we should do our best to marginalize and eliminate it.  This is the case with the word retard.  And also with the nickname Redskins.  If a concept merely challenges our previously-held notions in an uncomfortable but not hateful way, we should seek to understand the root of our discomfort and understand from where it comes.  Is it religion, or is it homophobia?  Do we oppose an idea because of a deeply-held belief or a preconception that was implanted by society, or upbringing, or limited perspective?  Do we want to burn all editions of Huckleberry Finn because it uses the n-word liberally?  Should we destroy all copies of Mel Brooks’ timeless Blazzing Saddles for the same reason?[4]  Undoubtedly these classics offend certain people.  But both of these works decry racism and lampoon racists.  What would be the point of getting rid of these cultural touchstones when they serve to broaden perspective and stimulate conversation about racial difference and progress?  Certainly, we could use a more productive dialogue about race, among other issues, in this country.

Change is admittedly hard.  No one wants to stop using their go-to put-down.  Or change their favorite sports team’s name.  But we do it because we know in our hearts that it’s the right thing to do.  We do it because we challenge ourselves to be better.  Just as we challenge ourselves with different ideas and uncomfortable new paradigms.  It’s the hallmark of progress and an examined life.  Me being me, I’m always going to offend somebody; it’s who I am.  I’m just going to try to do so for better reasons.

© Bill Gelfeld 2015

[1] I have no idea why he settled on a daiquiri party.  I think it had something to do with the availability of a blender and a hankering for fruity cocktails.

[2] https://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/

[3] An old-school nickname for an American football back when they were actually made out of pig skin, for those of you who don’t follow the sport

[4] I got in trouble with a couple guys on my freshman hall at Duke when I showed that movie as the social coordinator for my dorm.