Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Advice for Madonna: Lose the ‘r-word’


New York Magazine’s Daily Intel column writes a letter to Madonna advising the pop icon to excise the term “retarded” from her vocabulary. She used it a while back in a description of her ex-husband Guy Ritchie, then dropped it again several times in an interview in the current Rolling Stone.

Says Daily Intel, “doesn’t make you sound hip and young, it makes you sound old and out of touch.”

An excerpt:
Not to get all preachy and PC on you, but we think maybe it’s time for you to stop using the word “retarded” so much. We know, we know, you don’t mean to malign developmentally disabled people. It’s just an expression! But really, at the end of the day, it’s just not that cool of an expression …

… your kids Lourdes, Guy, David, and Mercy James are probably hearing the word at home, and might go on to use it in school — which is where, if they were normal kids, they might run into other children who are actually developmentally disabled, whose feelings might be hurt, which is one of the main reasons there’s a backlash against that word. Thankfully for your kids and those kids, the Ritchie-Ciccone brood doesn’t go to public school …

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