My thoughts after "Celebutard" (a little late, I know)

I wrote this when all of that stuff with Sephora and Kat Von D's shade of lipstick was happening.  When I'm nursing the baby, I have time to do some reading, so I read some articles and some comments.  Reading comments is a bad idea, by the way.  So that's where this is coming from.  I'm just a little late publishing it, because I typed it out on the ipad while I was nursing and hit save when I was done, but hadn't sat down to fix it up and publish.  I'm having a hard time finding time to write now.  I want to, but it's hard to make time.  Hopefully, I'll get back to writing a little more regularly soon.
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Since I'm a Christian, a conservative Christian, most of the relationships I have now are also with conservative, Christian people.  And among the conservative crowd, there is often a distaste for "political correctness".  On one end, I get it.  We don't want everything we say to be judged.  We don't want the "word police" on our backs.  But when did we throw out kindness, gentleness, meekness, and all the other qualities that the Lord Jesus would have us to emulate in the name of "political correctness". 

I am tired of seeing and hearing people casually toss around the r-word and equally insulting variations of it, like Celeburard. I'm tired of people saying I'm too sensitive. When it comes to my kid, yes, I'm sensitive. I'm tired of people thinking that I just need to be more resilient and teach my daughter the same. I guarantee that my daughter and my children will grow into some of THE most resilient people there are.

So, please, don't tell me these things or quote the verse, "great peace have they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them".  It's not anyone's job to tell someone not to be offended.  It's your job to speak with kindness, love, and the Bible even says that we should not offend our brother (or sister). 

So its not even about me being offended. This is about a society that finds it acceptable to steal my child's photo, put some joke about her counting to potato, and then circulating it around the Internet. Or Facebook pages created with the sole purpose of mocking people like my child. This is about a society that finds it acceptable to pay a person with a disability $2.00 an hour simply because they have a disability. This is about a society, who if it wasn't for parents who are willing to fight tooth and nail for their child, would be all too willing to shut our kids away in "special classrooms" for the "good of everyone", even though that is the farthest thing from the truth.

So until you have had a stranger lean into your stroller, look at your 6 week old baby and ask why you didn't have an abortion, don't tell me not to be offended. Or until you have called a preschool to find out about signing your child up, only to be told on the phone without ever even seeing her, that they couldn't "accommodate" her, don't tell me I'm too sensitive.

What does all that have to do with the r-word?

We all know who that word is referring to.

Her.



And those like her.

It doesn't matter how much you say that you are not directing it at someone with an intellectual disability, because we all know who that word is attached to. 

Even if you are not directly speaking about someone with an intellectual disability, you are still saying something is stupid, ugly, undesirable.....

Like her.  Right?



Only, she's not any of those things. But you tossing that word around makes it ok for that punk on Facebook to create that page, or that kid in the high school cafeteria to make a joke, because mom and dad have said it, or for the Goodwill to pay my kid $2.00 an hour, because at the end of the day, she's re****** anyway, and she doesn't know the difference.

So please, don't choose to be insensitive just so you can hold on to your distaste political correctness.