WashingtonPost: Emanuel says he will join effort to stop use of 'retarded'

[Guest guest]

*Emanuel says he will join effort to stop use of 'retarded'*

By D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 4, 2010; C02

White House Chief of Staff Rahm

Emanuel<http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Rahm_Emanuel>apologized

again Wednesday for using the word " retarded " during a private

meeting last summer, telling advocates for the disabled that he will join

their campaign to help end the use of the word.

The controversy over Emanuel's remark continued to dog the sometimes

foul-mouthed senior Obama adviser despite his having privately apologized to

Special Olympics Chief Executive Tim Shriver shortly after the comment was made

public last

week<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904575025030384695158.h\

tml>.

In a statement after an afternoon meeting at the White House, Shriver and

five other disability rights advocates said Emanuel had " sincerely

apologized " for the earlier comment during a strategy meeting, which was

reported in the Wall Street Journal.

" We are happy that he will join more than 54,000 other Americans in pledging

to end the use of the R-word at www.r-word.org, and that he committed that

the administration would continue to look for ways to partner with us,

including examining pending legislation in Congress to remove the R-word

from federal law, " they said in the statement.

An Emanuel aide declined to comment after the meeting.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Emanuel used the phrase

" [expletive] retarded " during a meeting with liberal activists in August. In

a letter to Emanuel on the day the article appeared, Shriver took the chief

of staff to task for using a word that is considered insulting.

" I know that private political discourse can sometimes include profanity.

But at the same time, our community cannot accept the idea that they will

remain the butt of jokes and taunts, " Shriver wrote. " I hope you will join

us in changing the conversation and eliminating this word from your

vocabulary. "

Emanuel responded to the letter with a private apology to Shriver, which a

White House aide said Tuesday had been accepted. That apology was first

noted on an online site called Disability Scoop.

Controversy about Emanuel's use of the word erupted more broadly after

former Alaska governor

Palin<http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/_Palin>called on

President

Obama <http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Barack_Obama> to fire his chief of

staff. In a statement on her Facebook page, she asked: " Are you capable of

decency, Rahm Emanuel? "

The meeting at the White House included Shriver; Imparato, the

president and chief executive of the American Association of People with

Disabilities; V. Berns, the chief executive of the Arc; and three

advocates for disability rights. A spokeswoman for Shriver said Wednesday

after the meeting that, " Tim accepted the apology. "

The advocacy groups have launched a campaign at http://www.r-word.org to try

to end the use of the word, which had until the early 1990s been in common

usage. It is now seen as demeaning.

" Every day our community hears this word -- in schools and workplaces, in

print and in movies, on radio and television, " the statement read.

" And every day they suffer its dehumanizing effects -- mockery, stigma,

ridicule. This is a word that is incredibly damaging -- not only to the

seven million people with intellectual disabilities in the United States,

but also their friends, family and to all of us. "

--

Ari Ne'eman

President

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network

http://www.autisticadvocacy.org

info@...

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