this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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The venn diagram of people who "don't understand" incredibly easy to understand concepts, and people who wish that there were no words to describe people who "don't understand" incredibly easy to understand concepts.
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There's describing someone's inability to understand easy concepts and there's using a medical condition in a derogatory manner.
Similarly, frowning upon the n-slur does not imply that we have no more words for referring to people of color.
Mental retardation hasn't been a widely recognized medical condition for at least 30 years. They started scrubbing the term out of diagnostic criteria in the 90s and I think the last one to use it was officially retired in the 00s.
That is not what I suggested. I compared your logical fallacy to a more extreme example in hopes that you notice how short-sighted your argument was.
To remind you, your comment implied "If I can't use , how else will I refer to ?".
There are plenty of other words you can choose from both in place of the r-slur and the n-slur. Arguing that this in any way limits your vocabulary is incredibly narrow-minded.
you don't have to use slurs to refer to people actually
You're right.
But, damn near anything that's said with mean intent about a visible minority long enough becomes a slur. So it is something of a game of whack-a-mole that continuously removes words from the language as collateral damage.
I personally think people should just stop being mean entirely, slurs or not.