I talked to a professor at Covenant, Mrs. Cynthia Young, about the issue of the r-word after I heard someone use it in reference to music. As professor of the Education of Exceptional Children class, Mrs. Young is very knowledgeable about the exceptional community. Isaiah, her son and seventh child, now twenty-two, has Down syndrome.
“They [the geneticist] said, ‘You know, we don’t know what kids with Down syndrome are capable of, but there’s a lot of new research, so just do a full court press and we’ll see what happens.’ So that was always our attitude. There was a lot of bad information going on at that point on the internet. Dr. Young [her husband] read that... he wouldn’t be able to do so many things--play video games or whatever. But I kept meeting people who said, ‘No, just… see what he can do.’ So he’s always been in an inclusive environment.”
He attended a Christian preschool in California, where Dr. Young, his father, was the principal. Then he went to Chattanooga Christian School (CCS) when they moved to Tennessee. He was able to go to school with four of his siblings at CCS.
When the Youngs arrived in Chattanooga, the Christian schools did not really want to accept students with Down syndrome like Isaiah, and Hamilton County seemed to automatically place them in separate environments. Isaiah did, however, graduate from CCS in 2017, partly because of a staunch effort on Mrs. Young’s part.
She attended school with him as his inclusion teacher because she wanted him to be in a Christian school environment with his peers. Because there weren’t inclusion programs in place at that time, out of love, she set up this “program” for Isaiah’s benefit by going to school with him.
“It really hit home, number one, that we’re all broken in some way. And I used to think, before I had Isaiah…, I would look at them [people with disabilities] and say, ‘Oh, they are so broken… and so sad, they’re so broken…’ Instead of seeing that--no--I’m broken in a way that you just can’t see what my disability is. You can’t see my fears, you can’t see my emotional brokenness, you can’t see... my selfishness, and stuff like that… You can’t see the ways that I come from a fallen ancestor.”
When Mrs. Young shifted her focus to how Isaiah is similar to his brothers and sisters rather than different from them because of his disability, she saw that more clearly. She saw what he’s good at and his great personality. She was able to more fully appreciate his love of music, art, dancing, and learning new things.
A lover of horses and Peppa Pig, Christa, the sister of Abbie Warren ’21, has a developmental disability.
“There’s four kids in my family--she’s the third… There’s four years between us, so I’ve been... playing with her and taking care of her my whole life--well, her whole life, and most of mine… There was no specific diagnosis. She can’t function like a normal seventeen-year-old. She functions more on the level of a toddler or a preschooler. She’s been making a lot of progress in the past few years, learning how to write and recognize a few simple words. She talks. I can understand her pretty much always when she talks.”
Christa doesn’t have any notable medical issues, as is the case with a lot of children with disabilities.
“She’s always a joy and a blessing to be around. She’s a sweetheart, she’s very smiley, she’s very friendly,” Abbie remarked.
Abbie has struggled with having a sister with a disability, but she wouldn’t undo the experience. They shared a room as kids, and Christa and Abbie are still very close. People know that Christa has a disability, but they don’t love her any less. They treat her like a normal human being.
Mrs. Young and Abbie love their family members with disabilities so much. What happens when they hear the r-word--a word that was once used in the diagnoses of patients with disabilities-- used to talk about things that people dislike or are annoyed with?
When Mrs. Young hears the r-word, she hears the speaker alienating people with disabilities. She hears them saying to a person with disabilities like Isaiah: “You’re so different from me that I can’t relate to you, that we can… never be friends.” She only hears negativity, and she’s shocked.
“Well, of course it’s jarring the way it’s jarring to you, right? … So sometimes you just... wince. Sometimes you could say something and sometimes you just… are sad.”
When Abbie hears people use that word, she doesn’t want to lash out at them. She just wants them to know what they’re really implying.
“I really wish people wouldn’t… I’m not happy about [it]. And I think it reflects a lot of either ignorance or thoughtlessness on that person’s part, so I’m not automatically jumping to the conclusion, like, ‘Oh, they’re a bad person,’ but I think it would be good for them to realize what it is that they’re saying… When they use that word in a negative way, they’re saying that there’s something wrong with people with special needs. They’re less worthy because, if someone is saying, ‘Oh, that thing is so retarded,’ like, they’re using that to say, ‘Oh, that’s worthless.’”
Abbie continued, “I want people to actually think about what they’re saying, and to make sure that they’re valuing these other people who are made in God’s image, who are different from us, or different from the mainstream.”
Mrs. Young demonstrated compassion, saying that even if people didn’t know about the connotations of the r-word before, they know now and need to respect others who do not appreciate the use of that word.
“I mean, a lot of people don’t know, but once they know, they need to really be thinking... about their language. Because we’re all a part of the Body of Christ, and we’re supposed to be loving each other, and that’s what that looks like… We do things that are fine with us because ‘we didn’t mean it that way,’ but our brother in Christ or sister in Christ is taking it that way, so we need to be sensitive to that. And people with disabilities are brothers and sisters in Christ-- Jesus died for them, so we need to love them the way we want to be loved.”
Last semester I heard that word said out loud in a public space on Covenant’s campus, which inspired this article. Maybe, like Mrs. Young said, you don’t know its connotations, but I hope you’ve taken the time to read this article and think about what it means to people with a disability and to people who love someone with a disability.
I don’t have any relatives who have disabilities (beyond ADHD), and I don’t know too many people who have disabilities, but I am passionate about this community. When people say that word, it makes me hurt inside for people who do not have a voice.
People with disabilities are just that: people. They are humans, and, in a similar way that using the n-word is frowned upon, the r-word should be frowned upon. Both are incredibly dehumanizing and totally inappropriate.
If you didn’t know before, now you know, and I hope you use this information for the glory of the Kingdom of God and to enliven the people of God.
This article was originally written on March 10, 2020.