Our campus comprises some of the most eloquent students in the nation—activists who stand for the rights of the historically oppressed, the misapprehended, the overlooked. Yet, I continually hear a word tossed around that is so insidious, so toxic, that its mere utterance fills me with a quiet dejection.
“That’s retarded.”
I look up, dumbfounded, with blurred gray eyes and an expression that conveys a silent suffering. The perpetrator—sometimes friend, sometimes foe—cackles, blissfully unaware of the slight’s impact.
Click here to read Andrea Platten's full column in The Daily Californian.