Back on the Euphemism Treadmill: Thoughts on having offended

I recently tweeted about a man in Texas who was executed after a board-certified expert concluded he had mental retardation. Marvin Wilson’s case drew criticism because in 2002 the US Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to execute a mentally retarded inmate. For the sake of 140 characters I dropped the word “mentally” in front of “retarded” and sent out the following tweet:

“Texas to kill retarded man. For view from inside death chamber check out my report: Anatomy of an American Execution http://t.co/QyXk9DJB”

When this tweet appeared on my Facebook timeline, a friend informed me that my use of the word “retarded” is offensive. I was disappointed to hear this. In a world of the privileged and the dispossessed, I try to stand with the latter. I’ve never worried about pleasing everyone—a sure recipe for failure—but at the same time, I’m not in the habit of offending those with disabilities, intellectual or otherwise, or their loved ones.

I’m happy to strike the word “retarded” from my everyday vocabulary; however in this particular instance, use of the word was very important, perhaps even a matter of life or death.

In the Supreme Court case Atkins v. Virginia the highest court in the land ruled, “Those mentally retarded persons who meet the law’s requirements for  criminal responsibility should be tried and punished when they commit crimes. Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct.” To execute them would deny their eighth amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court used the phrase mentally retarded in its decision. In my tweet I parroted this phrase but dropped the word “mentally”, perhaps it’s less offensive with the qualifier. Yet later in the third section of the decision the justices write, “To the extent there is serious disagreement about the execution of mentally retarded offenders, it is in determining which offenders are in fact retarded.”

The Supreme Court left it to the states to set their own standard for who is considered mentally retarded. And this is where language becomes more than semantics.

Many news stories about Wilson’s execution edited the Supreme Court’s dated language, changing the phrase “mentally retarded” to “mentally impaired “ or “intellectually challenged”. In doing so, these well-meaning journalists also changed the facts.

Had Texas courts declared Wilson sufficiently mentally retarded, he would still be alive today. On the other hand, the State could have admitted that Wilson was intellectually challenged and still have executed him. The phrase “intellectually challenged” is never mentioned in the Atkins decision, nor does it appear in the 2004 Texas judge’s opinion that sets the State’s standard for determining if an inmate qualifies for consideration under Atkins (citing a definition from the American Association of Mental Retardation, which in a real sign of the times has since changed its name to the American Association of Intellectual Developmental Disabilities, even though it can still be found at www.aamr.org). Low intelligence is only one of the three criteria that Texas requires to be considered mentally retarded. A lack of adaptive behavior skills and the manifestation of these disabilities prior to the 18th birthday are the other two.

Stepping away from the legalities involved, Wikipedia offers, “The terms mental retardation and mentally retarded were invented in the middle of the 20th century to replace the previous set of terms, which were deemed to have become offensive.”

The language considered appropriate to use in the description of sensitive situations is ever-evolving. Harvard psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker describes this process as the euphemism treadmill. Mentally retarded has been shuffled off the treadmill and into the offensive pile, meanwhile intellectually disabled holds the current spot of appropriateness. Soon it too may find its way into the same bin of offense, replaced by another temporary phrase.

Supreme Court decisions in this regard are temporally challenged, forever stuck in time and the language of their day.

I hope for a time when we no longer need this debate, a cause that could be made all the easier, if states would stop executing people with intellectual disabilities and the Atkins decision can become an obsolete relic of history.

In the meantime the euphemism treadmill will grind on. I doubt we will ever be comfortable with any phrase used to describe conditions that we wish we would never have to describe in the first place.

This discussion reminds me of a similar adverse reaction I had a few nights ago while watching the Olympics. I was awestruck by the 400m qualifying race. South African Oscar Pistorius ran it in 46.54 seconds, even though he is a double amputee who wears prosthetics on both legs. Afterward the NBC reporter asked him what it was like to run with “able-bodied” athletes. Oscar handled the question with grace and humility, but I winced. If Oscar Pistorius is not “abled-bodied” then I can only imagine the euphemism that could be applied to me dragging myself across the finish line long after him. And no matter how much time I spend on the treadmill, euphemistic or otherwise, could change that.