If, culturally, you thought we left âthe R-wordâ back in the late â90s, youâd unfortunately be wrong.
Elon Musk, President Donald Trumpâs buddy-in-chief and the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is among those who uses the slur regularly: In the past year, Musk, has used âretardedâ as an insult at least a dozen times on X, the social media platform he owns and obsessively posts on.
Musk â whoâs always been something of a crap poster, also at 53â has actually routed words at renowned Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, star Ben Stiller, and most just recently, Timothy Snyder, a Yale history professor and authoritarianism expert who got under Muskâs skin by criticizing the Trump administration.
âIâm tempted to call this guy a retard but I wonât because Iâve used that word too many times,â Musk tweeted to his nearly 200 million fans onFeb 22 in action to discourse from Snyder.
You can not lay the blame for the R-wordâs return all at Muskâs feetâ it holds true that 4-Chan posters and aspirant edge lord comedians never ever quit making use of wordsâ yet itâs indisputable that Muskâs voice has an effect. A current research out of Montclair State University located that the use of the slur triples on X when the tech CEO tweets the word himself.
âUnfortunately the R-word is a word that is starting to come back into conversation because more people in positions of power â whether they be political leaders, business leaders, celebrities â are using it as part of their normal dialogue,â said Christy Weir, who works for the Special Olympics, the worldâs largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
Trump himself, of course, is not above insulting people, including those with disabilities: On the 2016 campaign trail, he mocked a < a href=â rel =â nofollow noopenerThroughout _ empty Trump slk: use the slur triples on X; elm: context_link; itc:0; sec: content-canvas(* )web linkPresident Joe Biden rel=â nofollow noopenerVice President Kamala Harris _ emptymentally disabledâ slk:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/28/trump-harris-attacks-mentally-impaired-criticism/â; elm: context_link; itc:0; sec: content-canvasâ target=â web link â data-ylk=â rel=â nofollow noopenerâ class=â _ emptyâ>one step below the R-word in offensiveness.
In some ways, the R-wordâs resurgence is a depressing sign of our political moment: Thereâs an inherent meanness to the way the Trump administration and the presidentâs various cronies conduct themselves.
You can see it on the White Houseâs social media feeds, which include press reporterâs impairmentâ data-ylk=â by carrying out an impact of the male.â class=â the last project, called bothSelena Gomez for a tearful video and
Itââpolitics of cruelty,ââ simulated ASMR video clips of expulsionsusing âgayâ as a pejorative and messages buffooning
she uploaded in action to ICE raids.â>Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, uses the R-word freely. President Donald Trump, pictured in the background, made fun of a disabled reporter on the campaign trail in 2016. Andrew Harnik via Getty Images
Some couldnât be happier about the comeback. In January, the Financial Times interviewed a number of finance bros who were glad that Trump won and that âwokeâ lost the election, if only because they figured it meant theyâd no longer have to self-censor their language around women, minorities and disabled people.
âI feel liberated,â one Wall Street banker told the paper. âWe can say âretardâ and âpussyâ without the fear of getting cancelled âĤ itâs a new dawn.â
Thatâs exactly the kind of thinking that worries disability advocates like Nila Morton. Hearing Musk or Gen Z politico bro podcasters casually slip a âstop acting so retardedâ into conversation makes the word more palatable, emboldening others to use it in their everyday lives.
âTheyâve tested the boundaries of what they can say and do, and many people who once hesitated to use offensive language now feel encouraged to push those limits as well,â said Morton, a graduate student at the School of Social Work at Howard University.
As someone with a physical disability who uses a wheelchair, Morton has experienced ableism and the sting of being called the R-word. She doesnât have any cognitive disabilities but has seen firsthand how painful and dehumanizing it can be for those who do to hear the word. Worse, sometimes those with such disabilities internalize the negative messages.
âEven if someone claims they arenât referring to disabled people when they
use the slur, the underlying message remains the same: that people with
disabilities, especially those with cognitive disabilities, are less valuable,â Morton said.
Welink Katy Neascaas-pull-quote-wrapper caas-img caas-lazyThe Arc
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âThis isnât an isolated trend [with Musk] â itâs part of a broader cultural shift thatâs concerning for disability advocates,â Neas told HuffPost. âWhen we allow this slur to make a comeback, weâre not just permitting offensive speech â weâre potentially undermining the foundation of respect upon which disability rights depend.â
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Why does the R-word have such sticking power?Â
The story of the R-word shows how our countryâs relationship with disability rights has steadily evolved, Neas said.
Like the words âmoron,â âretardedâ
It was eventually phased out of medical circles, but not before being adopted into mainstream culture as a generalized insult: âYouâre so retarded.âÂ
It remained a crass conversational fixture for some until around the late 1990s, Neas said, thanks to the self-advocacy work of people in disability communities. âWe saw a real turning point in the 1990s and 2000s when people with intellectual disabilities started saying, âThis language hurts us,ââ she explained.
In 2003, President George W. Bush renamed the Presidentâs Committee on Mental Retardation to the and President started as a medical term for individuals with intellectual problems. Committee the People â a time in the very early 20th century when individuals with impairments were pushed into Presidentâs Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities â a move with bipartisan support that underlined how phasing the word out is ultimately about basic human dignity, Neas said.
Then came a milestone moment in 2010, when President Obama signed Rosaâs Law â named after a young girl with Down syndrome â which officially replaced that outdated R-word with âintellectual disabilityâ in all federal language. A number of states did the same.
âIt wasnât just doctors or politicians deciding what was best, either â the push came from the community itself,â Neas said.
;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvasâ>In 2010, President Barack Obama signed Rosaâs Law, named after Rosa Marcellino. The legislation removed the terms âlink â and â rel=ânofollow noopenerâ from federal laws. SAUL LOEB via Getty Images
But now that progress seems threatened, Neas said, not just because of language trends, but because the disability community is facing serious policy challenges with Trump in office.
âThere are proposals for major cuts to Medicaid, which is absolutely essential for many people with intellectual disabilities, and threats to Section 504 protections,â she said. âItâs like weâre coming full circle as weâre seeing this troubling backslide in both language and rights.â
Neas thinks the R-word â and the tendency to short-shrift the disability community â persists largely because of a troubling societal blind spot. Unlike many other marginalized groups whoâve gained visibility in mainstream culture, people with intellectual disabilities remain incredibly isolated â theyâre often segregated in schools, workplaces and community spaces. When someone is out of sight, theyâre out of mind.
âIt creates a dangerous disconnect: When people donât have meaningful relationships with individuals with intellectual disabilities, using this slur feels abstract â like thereâs no real person being hurt,â she said.
âThe very isolation that keeps people with intellectual disabilities out of mainstream spaces allows this harmful language to continue without apparent consequences,â she added.
Hereâs how we can encourage people to ditch the word again.
Sometimes, all it takes to get someone to curb their use of the slur is just to remind them that itâs still insensitive and, frankly, weird to use in conversation.
Morton pointed to how she and other disabled people on social media pointed out to rapper GloRilla that her use of the < a href=ââ>R-word wasnât OK when she released a track in 2024Â that included it.
âSome other Black disabled advocates and I made a post on Twitter, tagging GloRilla, to educate her on why the word is offensive and suggest alternative ways to express her message,â Morton said.
And instead of taking insult at being called out, GloRilla listened and replaced the word with ânaughty,â which Morton thought was totally brilliant: âIâve been playing that song ever since,â she said proudly.
Use of the R-word is still sometimes a generational thing, too. Cynthia Kreuz-Uhr, the associate director of community engagement at The Arcâs chapter in San Francisco, pointed to how she and her young daughter gently persuaded her father, a minister and psychotherapist, to retire the R-word back in the early 2000s.
âMy daughter was shocked but simply said, âGrampy, you canât say that word!â Â My father was annoyed and said, âI didnât mean it as an insult, I meant it as a diagnosis â that manâs development is delayed,ââ she recalled.
As someone who works with people with developmental disabilities, Kreuz-Uhr seized the opportunity to explain to both generations how the word has evolved over time.
Instead of shaming people who use outdated, offensive language, she thinks we should invite them to support the disability justice community in their language and in other ways.
âMaybe you encourage them to vote to support services for people with disabilities, or to speak directly to [disabled people] instead of to the non-disabled people they may be with,â she said. âMaybe you suggest hiring qualified people with disabilities whenever thereâs a job opening.â
When trying to encourage someone to be better with language or behavior, Kreuz-Uhrâs advice said she keeps it pretty simple: âI try to follow the saying, âDonât call people out. Call people in.ââ
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