| By Jill Miller Zimon - Mar 31st, 2009 at 3:30 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Web 2.0 and Our Democracy |
Jen Nedeau wrote the post to top all posts at Change.org, It's Time to Change Our Language, about this effort to eliminate the use of the R-word. You can read about the official event, Spread the Word to the End the Word, at the Special Olympics website.
What you need to know: It’s pretty powerful to see just how misused the r-word, aka “retarded," is – see here on Twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+retard+OR+retarded
This event is a national day of awareness for America to stop and think about their use of the R-word.
Ways to participate:
Blog: A post about your experience with the “R-Word” and how you feel about it or just share the info about the 3.31 event.
Facebook: Attend the End the R-Word Day event and donate your status to end the R-Word such as:
Jill pledges to end the r-word todayTwitter:
- Tweet to spread the word to end the R-word, and use the #rword hashtag to show your support.
- Join the Tweetchat tomorrow at 4 – 5 PM EST. Use #rword to join!
- Follow our efforts at @EndTheWord (http://twitter.com/endtheword), where you can stay posted on the progress of our efforts to end the R-word.
- A sample tweet could be:
How often do you use the word retarded? It’s time to stop. Spread the word to end the word on 3.31 - http://www.r-word.org/. #rword”
Remember how Ohio 24th district state senator Bob Spada got some equally unacceptable terms dumped from the Ohio Constitution in 2007? This is no different. There are millions of people with intellectual disabilities who find those words as well as the r-word as offensive and cruel as any other slur. That's why I'm asking you to consider participating by taking part in one of the above actions.
Many thanks to Jen for putting so much of this effort together. Please help however you can.
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