Call me narcissist if you must but this blog is all about ME. I have another blog about my kids, whom I love and adore writing about. But I was Nicole a long time before I was mom and I don't intend to give up being Nicole overnight.

p.s.
You can read all about my kids at Naptime Optional.
Or you can follow along on our Arizona adventure on my 365 project blog.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Update

Some time ago I posted about my struggle to overcome my retarded habit.

Apparently I started a revolution. (Okay, really it had nothing to do with me!!!)

Special thanks to Ryan over at Overcast Days for bringing this story to my attention.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

when i was teaching, i had to not say "retarded"....so i substituted "ridiculous". it makes it REALLY easy to switch over as the word is coming out your mouth. i also tried to not say i "hated" things. that was harder.....couldn't find a way to switch to something else unless i changed the entire sentence.

orangemily said...

Interesting article. I wonder what it is PC to say. Like since they have Special Olympics do we call them special?

Karen said...

I have worked with people who have disabilities in the past. As is would seem, really, people just want be recognized as people instead of their disability. I guess that seems fair. I would rather somebody said, "Hey look at the lady over there. She must be crazy to have so many kids." instead of, "Look at the Crazy Lady with all those kids." The interesting thing about that...They are both true statements.

UTSquishy said...

People need to grow up and stop being so **** sensitive about things and go and do something in life instead of worrying about who is keeping them down. At this point in history I think we're past the whole prejudice thing, and the only people that are hanging on to it are those with perceived prejudices. Instead of wasting your time picketing a Movie that we'll all have long forgotten about in a month (seriously, do we even have attention spans anymore?) go out and do something with your life.

You would think that by now people would realize that bringing attention to something like this is just going to give it more publicity. If you don't have enough self worth to realize that this is a throw away piece of cinema (seriously, no one thinks that this has the staying power of something like Wizard of Oz or Gone With the Wind do they?) that will make it's money and then be gone forever. Exercise your greatest power if you have a problem with it, leave your almighty dollar in your pocket.

It amazes me at how many people that protest these things, go to see it just so they can be offended. Do you really have nothing better to do with your life than to sit about and moan about who doesn't like you?

Nicole said...

I agree with the fact that drawing attention to anything you find offensives just makes them more popular and the best thing to do is just ignore it. Or like you said, vote with you wallet. I know that I personally will not being going to see this movie.

Having said that, I am still trying to strike the word retarded from my vocabulary. It is something I was trying to do before any of this said "controversy" over the word began. I just found that I was embarrassed when I used it in mixed company and have decided that there are better words that don't have degrading connotations that I can use instead.

I think prejudice still exists. We may not still require blacks to stand at the back of the bus, but that doesn't mean that we don't still judge one another. I find myself guilty of it more often than I'd like to admit. I'll see dirty kids in the store and think "white trash." Or teens with saggy pants and think "future gang member for sure." I don't want to judge people. I want to believe that I'm a better person than that....but I still catch myself doing it. And I think that's a form of prejudice.