Times are tough for bigots, especially those who also are public figures. Racial remarks are out, as sports figures Jimmy the Greek and Al Campanis found out the hard way not too long ago. And tell a joke about women in your workplace and you`re almost guaranteed a push off or at least a nudge down the corporate ladder.
So what is a narrow-minded person to do? Picking on the mentally handicapped seems to be the answer for some. After all, they are easy targets.
Apparently, remarks about ”retards” are still ”safe.” You can bet that Baltimore Orioles pitcher Doug Sisk will not lose his job over his recent comment to a television reporter that the Orioles are not ”a bunch of retards.”
Not only the handicapped themselves are hurt by such careless remarks. My son has Down Syndrome. And when his father and I, while watching the news one night, heard Sisk say that he and his teammates are not ”a bunch of retards,” it stung like a hard slap, as it must have stung all those who have mentally retarded children or who are concerned with preserving the dignity of the retarded.
It is one thing for a young child on the playground to blurt out
”retard” as an insult to a playmate, for young children have ignorance and immaturity as a defense for such comments.
Most people, however, eventually grow up. They then become aware that the word ”retarded”-before it became an all-purpose insult-also referred to a significant segment of the pupulation characterized by developmental delays of various kinds and degrees.
But Sisk (and he is not alone) had no qualms about blurting out his tactless, childish remark in a taped interview. By doing so, he showed his lack of sensitivity to the feelings of the mentally retarded. Moreover, he showed a lack of self-respect. After all, no self-respecting public figure would let himself appear so foolish in the eyes of so many.
