R as ret ar ded.
I'm from Balkans and I think there's no swearing anywhere in the world like in Balkans. We use slurs A LOT and pretty casually, so I am always surprised when I am censored on some word online.
It happened just now. The R word was removed from my comment, so I wanted to find out what's going on with it.
Since I talk to people from all around the world, I don't want to be an ignorant fool and I want to learn why it isn't ok to say something, so I can implement it without the feeling I'm being deprived of free speech.
Again, take in consideration the Balkan thing if you think I'm trolling with this post. I'm not. I swear to you, the shit we're able to say are insane and we really think it's no big deal.
So, when did R word became a slur and why it's not ok to call someone R word as an insult?
Thank you for the education. A human learns while grows and until dies.
EDIT: You're really nice community and I am really thankful you've explained this to me. As I said, I can be a Slow Poke sometimes and growing where I grew, some shit has just stuck as normal and I am glad to unlearn it. My heart is leftist, but I grew up as a Catholic in the midst of the war where we learned a lot of hateful stuff as a normal part of identity. I want to fuck it off from me, so thanks, really.
It used to be a very common insult along with the f-slur, when I, an elder millennial, was growing up. Then there was a concerted push to get it out public discourse on the basis that comparing someone or something to a person with an intellectual disability negatively is offensive and unfair. If you think about it disabled people being the go to comparison every time something sucks is pretty nasty. And for a long time, if you heard someone saying this they were either ignorant and uncouth or being deliberately edgy.
Now it seems like it's making comeback sadly. I've definitely noticed an uptick in it's usage lately
The R-slur was considered offensive even when I went to school in the early 90s. I distinctly remember kids getting into trouble when caught saying it, especially if it was directed at kids in the special education classes.
By the 2000s I feel like the lid had more or less been put on those kinds of slurs. But in the last 10 years or so they've made a comeback in spite of chuds claiming that they're being "censored" now, and that the 90s were like some bastion of freeze peach.
yeah it was sort of treated like a swear word though, and any context in which it was okay to say "shit" people considered it okay to say the R word. Some people had the more modern understanding of that being wrong, and a large proportion of the time it was because they had someone in their family with a disability