Bernard Tomic Blasted Following ‘Retard’ comment

[britbox]

Bernard Tomic Blasted Following ‘Retard’ comment

Once against Australian player Bernard Tomic is embroiled in fresh controversy following a controversial phrase he used during his Wimbledon after-match press conference.

“I think he was up in the locker getting something taped. When I left, I thought he was leaving, so I just happened to walk out,” said the 23-year-old. “I did get to the court prior to him very early, and unfortunately I had to stand on court like a retard.”

Story: http://www.ubitennis.net/blog/2016/06/30/bernard-tomic-blasted-following-retard-comment/

 

[britbox]

Political Correctness gone mad?

 

[Moxie]

If the mentally handicapped find the word offensive, I don't see any problem being sensitive to that and avoiding it in its noun form. There are plenty of perfectly good ways in English to describe what Tomic felt at that moment.

 

[britbox]

I don't think Tomic had a Thesaurus handy when he made the remark. If we are so terrified at somebody else taking offence over such trivial stuff then it's a pretty sad state of affairs really.

 

[mrzz]

If the mentally handicapped find the word offensive, I don't see any problem being sensitive to that and avoiding it in its noun form. There are plenty of perfectly good ways in English to describe what Tomic felt at that moment.

I honestly doubt that any mentally handicapped person have come forward to complain. Naturally, people speaking on their behalf have...
And Tomic speaks English and chose that word to describe how he felt. Honestly, I think it is arrogant to tell others how they should express themselves.

People are free to be sensitive, as they are free* to chose the words they want to use. Of course, some words are nicer than others... but the world is not nice. The moment being nice becomes a duty, it loses all of its meaning.

(*) As free as the law permits.

 

[Moxie]

You see it as trivial, but others find it offensive. "Retard," in the US, is a long-discarded playground insult. It's not merely un-PC, it's childish. He may as well have said he felt like a "poppy-head." It sounds that infantile to us, beyond being insulting to some. It's not about being "terrified" of repercussions, it's about being sensitive to the feelings of other people. And Tomic, whether he likes it or not, is in the public gaze. He has to learn what will play and what won't. And you may not like it, but no one is quoting you in the press.

 

[Moxie]

I honestly doubt that any mentally handicapped person have come forward to complain. Naturally, people speaking on their behalf have...
And Tomic speaks English and chose that word to describe how he felt. Honestly, I think it is arrogant to tell others how they should express themselves.

People are free to be sensitive, as they are free* to chose the words they want to use. Of course, some words are nicer than others... but the world is not nice. The moment being nice becomes a duty, it loses all of its meaning.

(*) As free as the law permits.

Actually, the UK group who advocates for people with disabilities has complained, so you have to believe that they speak for people with mental disabilities. Otherwise, you believe that the disabled themselves are condescended to and have no voice.

But why is it not arrogant to tell those affected by insulting words that they can't be offended by them? And if they are insulted by them, why should we not take their lead and eschew them? We don't use nigger, kike, spick, chink...etc., because we have learned that they are offensive to their respective groups. If the mentally disabled tell us that "retard," used as a noun, is offensive to them, then why should we defend its use? And what is the difference between them, and any other minority group with a sensitivity as to how they are described?

English is a flexible language and rich in adjectives and nouns. It won't be poorer if we stop using "retard" as a stand in for dolt, ignoramus, idiot, nitwit, clod, or he could also have said that he felt awkward, stupid, uncomfortable, . No one is going to be the more restricted by retiring the notion of calling someone, or himself, a "retard."

 

[EdbergsGhost]

... standing there like a retard. Maybe it's not a comment that works for many in today's society, but it provided a visual that probably expressed how Bernie felt waiting there on the court.

Being that it's Wimbledon, the incident reminded me of one of my favorite Monty Python skits.

 

[mrzz]

Moxie, you are putting a lot of different things in the same bag.

The first confusion is to equate a result of hundred of years of social and language evolution to the complaint of one small given group of individuals. That is exactly what you are doing when you quote a lot of different words together. I am sorry, we haven´t "learned" that nigger is an offensive word. That word was meant to be offensive, people chose to use it (in the past and even nowadays) because of its offensive content. What society learned (at least a bit, luckily) is that different races are no inferior to each other. The language, and thus the choice of words, is a consequence of social evolution. American, African, Brazilian, black, white or yellow designate different human groups, and therefore have no negative content in themselves. If you use a pejorative word to refer to one of those groups, it means that you actually think or infer that this group is in someway inferior, and there lies the prejudice and/or the offense.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for the word "retard". I sympathize with the ones with mentally handicapped people in their families (I have friends in this condition), but there is a negative content in the term "mentally handicapped". This term is polite, it reminds the listener that we are talking about a human being. "Retard" is not polite, and refers only to the negative aspect of "mentally handicapped", which, unfortunately, is actually there. You cannot say the same for the terms which describe ethnic groups.

Second, when you say "minorities" you are referring to a lot of different groups. Those groups are so different (as the criteria to define them are different: sexual orientation, gender, race, physical/mental characteristics, political/religious orientation) that term itself has almost zero meaning.

Of course I agree with you that Tomic was rude, and maybe he would express himself differently if he had a brother in this condition (but maybe he wouldn´t). But I fall back to one of my first points, you cannot force people to be nice.

Nobody (well, I guess at least nobody here) is disagreeing with the content of the message (that is, Tomic was rude). What people don´t like is the tone, and the attitude. Nobody gets to chose other people´s words, period. If you look at your posts, you´ll see that first you said that
"there are plenty of perfectly good ways in English to describe what Tomic felt at that moment." and then "no one is going to be the more restricted by retiring the notion of calling someone, or himself, a "retard." ". Those two phrases have one thing in common: you assume that you know how the person feels ("retard" or not, restricted or not). That is what I call arrogant.

Moxie, I am only replying to you, and being so picky, because having read a lot of your posts, I know you have the best intentions and understands a lot of issues very well. A lot of people that would replicate your position here don´t. I do not like the fact that people offend each other, and I do not support them to do it. The issue here, unfortunately, is not that simple (I know you know that...).

 

[britbox]

I've never noted the word as being particularly offensive... offence is usually taken, not given... I don't think it has the same level in the political correctness league ladder of terms in the UK or Australia as it has in the USA... at least that's my feeling based on what you've said - even though it was a UK group who took "offence" - political correctness has steadily invaded the old country over the last couple of decades - in most cases for the worst.

I wouldn't look at it any greater context than calling a striker blind when he misses an easy chance in a football match... I doubt very much Tomic went out with the intention of offending mentally handicapped, disabled or special needs.... I lose track of which is the current "acceptable term" because it changes every 3 or 4 years, so probably two of those are now deemed offensive by now... Apologies if anybody takes offence...

 

[Ricardo]

Political Correctness gone mad?

Its gone mad because the world is full of p*ssies at the moment, where people have the habit of taking offence at 'everything'. It's eroded into our daily lives and we have allowed it to happen, thinking we are being 'sensitive'....that's really a load of crap.

some examples,
"i hit like a girl' someone may have complained about hitting too weak, and a label of 'sexist' or 'mysogynist' might follow.
'i feel like an old man' if someone says he is feeling very slow, so that's insult against the senior citizens?

this sort of sh!t can just go on and on, and we have allowed endless whinging of PC rats going on for too long. It's to the point where weak minded people have this sense of entitlement of being 'untouchable', as if their mere 'feelings' have some kind of holy significance.... Naturally people like Moxie I expected to be one of the first to jump out for supporting such PC madness, because it is what feminism draws its strength from.... trivial PC rubbish.

Put simply, nobody can prove in one way or another that Tomic had any intention of discriminating against the mentally disabled. I am not a fan of Tomic as a person, and think he is an arrogant brat but those who criticise him over such crap are nothing but whinging PC rats.

 

[Ricardo]

Moxie, you are putting a lot of different things in the same bag.

The first confusion is to equate a result of hundred of years of social and language evolution to the complaint of one small given group of individuals. That is exactly what you are doing when you quote a lot of different words together. I am sorry, we haven´t "learned" that nigger is an offensive word. That word was meant to be offensive, people chose to use it (in the past and even nowadays) because of its offensive content. What society learned (at least a bit, luckily) is that different races are no inferior to each other. The language, and thus the choice of words, is a consequence of social evolution. American, African, Brazilian, black, white or yellow designate different human groups, and therefore have no negative content in themselves. If you use a pejorative word to refer to one of those groups, it means that you actually think or infer that this group is in someway inferior, and there lies the prejudice and/or the offense.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for the word "retard". I sympathize with the ones with mentally handicapped people in their families (I have friends in this condition), but there is a negative content in the term "mentally handicapped". This term is polite, it reminds the listener that we are talking about a human being. "Retard" is not polite, and refers only to the negative aspect of "mentally handicapped", which, unfortunately, is actually there. You cannot say the same for the terms which describe ethnic groups.

Second, when you say "minorities" you are referring to a lot of different groups. Those groups are so different (as the criteria to define them are different: sexual orientation, gender, race, physical/mental characteristics, political/religious orientation) that term itself has almost zero meaning.

Of course I agree with you that Tomic was rude, and maybe he would express himself differently if he had a brother in this condition (but maybe he wouldn´t). But I fall back to one of my first points, you cannot force people to be nice.

Nobody (well, I guess at least nobody here) is disagreeing with the content of the message (that is, Tomic was rude). What people don´t like is the tone, and the attitude. Nobody gets to chose other people´s words, period. If you look at your posts, you´ll see that first you said that
"there are plenty of perfectly good ways in English to describe what Tomic felt at that moment." and then "no one is going to be the more restricted by retiring the notion of calling someone, or himself, a "retard." ". Those two phrases have one thing in common: you assume that you know how the person feels ("retard" or not, restricted or not). That is what I call arrogant.

Moxie, I am only replying to you, and being so picky, because having read a lot of your posts, I know you have the best intentions and understands a lot of issues very well. A lot of people that would replicate your position here don´t. I do not like the fact that people offend each other, and I do not support them to do it. The issue here, unfortunately, is not that simple (I know you know that...).

Good points, you would notice that these PC rats often self-appoint themselves to the role of moral judges and like to instruct others what to say/do. Like in the case of gay marriage, those idiots look entitled to point finger at those who don't support it....like you cannot have a different opinion or you are guilty of something (or get ready for label such as 'homophobia' thrown at you).

 

[Moxie]

Moxie, you are putting a lot of different things in the same bag.

The first confusion is to equate a result of hundred of years of social and language evolution to the complaint of one small given group of individuals. That is exactly what you are doing when you quote a lot of different words together. I am sorry, we haven´t "learned" that nigger is an offensive word. That word was meant to be offensive, people chose to use it (in the past and even nowadays) because of its offensive content. What society learned (at least a bit, luckily) is that different races are no inferior to each other. The language, and thus the choice of words, is a consequence of social evolution. American, African, Brazilian, black, white or yellow designate different human groups, and therefore have no negative content in themselves. If you use a pejorative word to refer to one of those groups, it means that you actually think or infer that this group is in someway inferior, and there lies the prejudice and/or the offense.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for the word "retard". I sympathize with the ones with mentally handicapped people in their families (I have friends in this condition), but there is a negative content in the term "mentally handicapped". This term is polite, it reminds the listener that we are talking about a human being. "Retard" is not polite, and refers only to the negative aspect of "mentally handicapped", which, unfortunately, is actually there. You cannot say the same for the terms which describe ethnic groups.

Second, when you say "minorities" you are referring to a lot of different groups. Those groups are so different (as the criteria to define them are different: sexual orientation, gender, race, physical/mental characteristics, political/religious orientation) that term itself has almost zero meaning.

Of course I agree with you that Tomic was rude, and maybe he would express himself differently if he had a brother in this condition (but maybe he wouldn´t). But I fall back to one of my first points, you cannot force people to be nice.

Nobody (well, I guess at least nobody here) is disagreeing with the content of the message (that is, Tomic was rude). What people don´t like is the tone, and the attitude. Nobody gets to chose other people´s words, period. If you look at your posts, you´ll see that first you said that
"there are plenty of perfectly good ways in English to describe what Tomic felt at that moment." and then "no one is going to be the more restricted by retiring the notion of calling someone, or himself, a "retard." ". Those two phrases have one thing in common: you assume that you know how the person feels ("retard" or not, restricted or not). That is what I call arrogant.

Moxie, I am only replying to you, and being so picky, because having read a lot of your posts, I know you have the best intentions and understands a lot of issues very well. A lot of people that would replicate your position here don´t. I do not like the fact that people offend each other, and I do not support them to do it. The issue here, unfortunately, is not that simple (I know you know that...).

Mrzz: This is a very anti-political correctness board, and I feel it is my duty, and my otherwise cussedness, that obliges me to speak for the opposition. I do not think by any stretch that "retard" is the strongest of derogatory words that a person might use, for the record.

However, I will disagree with a few of your points: that the N-Word was always a derogatory. It wasn't. It was a Southern pronunciation of "Negro," initially, though it has been a hate-word for fully 200+ years. Obviously, it's one of the vilest, for many reasons. But it, in my opinion, on a continuum with other words that offend minority groups. So I don't understand your point as to why using "retard" is merely "impolite" word, as you would have it, and not actually insensitive, which I think is worse. It has been used to describe a group with myriad causes that make people "mentally handicapped." It's simplistic, reductive and, to many, insulting, exactly because it calls them "stupid" with not understanding of their situation. I expect everyone in this discussion would agree they would demure before calling a mentally-handicapped person, in this day and age, a "retard." In the same vein, we understand that it is hate-speech to call a gay man a "faggot," therefore we don't condone it to be used as a way of impugning someone's masculinity. If you use these words as an insult, you support a stereotype, which undermines the place in society that each group is seeking for themselves, based on fairness and understanding, rather than small-mindedness and "otherness." As to minority groups, I don't know why you find the physically or mentally handicapped not to be a minority. Yes, there are lots of different kinds of minority groups, but does that make one less of a minority than another?

I'm a person who loves language, as I think you've garnered by now, and I'm not in favor of "language police," per se. But I am also aware of the power of language, of how language drives thought. I imagine that there are people in this thread who will use words like "retard" and "faggot," as they like. That is a choice. As long as they realize that it can be offensive, they can make whatever choice they like. I'm fully in favor of using extremely offensive language and ideas in comedy and satire to lampoon society, including and especially the notion of political correctness. When we diffuse these words, they will have no power any more, and it won't matter, but for now, a lot of them do have the power to offend. I'm just saying we should all be aware.

To return to Tomic, as I said before, he's in the public eye. The rules are different if you're going to be quoted in the press. He should definitely make himself aware of minefields. What he chooses to say after that is on him.

 

[mrzz]

Moxie, you missed my point(s) (or I failed to made it clear).

I wasn´t worried about the origin of the N-word (that is obvious for a Portuguese speaker, where "Negro" is not offensive), I was calling attention to the fact that society never "learned" that this word was offensive. The word was chosen (for the 200 years you mentioned) with the purpose to offend. What society actually did was to "learn" to hate less (I hope), and therefore to offend less. I put a lot of emphasis on this point because the facts are more important than the words, and one of the (many) things that I do not like about the PC culture that it usually cares more about the words than the facts.

When I said "retard" was impolite, I never meant to say that it was not strong enough to be offensive. I had no "scale of offensiveness" in mind, I was just separating apples from oranges, offensive from non-offensive (or impolite, given my foreign English I was using them as synonyms). Retard is offensive (and you gave a good list of why it is), mentally-handicapped is not. I called attention to the fact that even the non offensive term has a negative aspect. Someone could use this exact term to offend, as in "can you do this task, or are you mentally-handicapped?". Offense, in most cases, is not solely on the words. And yet, as BB put, offense is usually taken, not given.

But we better stop here, because we have a lot of fundamental disagreements. Most of what you wrote on your second paragraph I simply do not agree, but it would be a never ending discussion, as you would surely stand by those points forever. To put my position simply (and thus running the risk of being misinterpreted), I do not think we should force people to accept or like human groups A or B. We can educate, we can clarify, but if someone does not like a given group, there´s nothing we can do. And, for this person, a word that describes this group will be an offense. "PC culture" simply tries to hide this fact under a language etiquette.

PC culture, also, forgets the fact that we don´t get to choose the words used to describe ourselves. We don´t choose our names, we don´t choose our nicknames. We don´t choose the word someone in the street will use to call us if something fell from our pockets.

Again, I know you stand by your points because, in a nutshell, because you "care". But people can do that in different ways. And they can simply don´t care too...

 

[Moxie]

I think we largely understand one another @mrzz, even if we have some basic disagreements. I will say this, though: PC culture doesn't try to "hide" prejudice, it tries to change it. You are right that people will still think what they think. I also think that you're wrong that we don't get to pick our own "nicknames." No, not pick them, but disagree with their usage. As I said above, and I hope you recognized: people will decide what language they want to use. I only want them to understand clearly if it is offensive to others. Beyond that, if they don't care, it's on them.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Sticks and stones may break my bones...

 

[britbox]

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

^Exactly.