There’s a clear campaign against the mentally ill with the global rise of fascism. Lots of it shows up in anti homeless rhetoric, but you can see it in the MAHA and anti vaccination movements.
There’s no reason to use the word “r-tarded” to describe someone. As someone who’s worked with the intellectually challenged, it’s an insult to them to compare them with people who are willfully ignorant.
So the solution to mean people co-opting medical language to be bullies is to …move to another term and change the vernacular we accept from doctors so they use different words the bullies can then co-opt?
Have you tried an approach that isn’t running and hiding?
The euphemism treadmill. It’s pretty…uhhhh…dumb
Hi, healthcare worker here. The r-slur hasn’t been used in the medical profession for decades. But hey, feel free to come up with more justifications for why it’s totally fine for you to call people slurs.