Ann Coulter crosses line with parents of special needs students with her “retard” tweet during presidential debate
Bad girl pundit Ann Coulter has turned offensive and cutting remarks into her signature brand and, based on how often I see her on TV, it seems to be paying off for her.
But one of her tweets this week set off a group of parents who already have it hard enough in my book: Parents of children with special needs who must navigate a dizzying array of state and federal mazes to get their children vital services. And never mind their battle to get their children respect.
In response to the presidential debate Monday between President Obama and Gov. Romney, Coulter tweeted: “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.”
The outrage was immediate. Much of the response to Coulter cannot be printed here, but one person writes: “Again, making fun of people w mental disabilities=not funny. BTW, I am both practicing Catholic AND conservative.”
I have read dozens of commentaries from parents of children with special needs about how hurtful comments like “retard” are to them and their children. Despite condemnation in the past for her use of “retard,” Coulter apparently has great affection for the word as she has used it before to describe people she doesn’t like.
The most eloquent response to her this time came from a young man with Downs Syndrome:
Special Olympics athlete John Franklin Stephen wrote: (This is an excerpt. Please read full piece.)
I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.
I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.
Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarky sound bite to the next.
Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.
Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.
After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.
I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.
Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.
No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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234 comments Add your comment
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
October 25th, 2012
2:39 am
Should anyone be surprised by this example of Ms. Coulter’s use of demeaning language? I thought her so doing was her stock-and-trade substitute for substance.
Teacher Reader
October 25th, 2012
10:27 am
America is the land of opportunity. Why else would people from other countries be beating down the door to get in? You have the opportunity of choice. You can go to school for poetry or you can go for engineering-each will give you different outcomes. You have a choice in where you live, the type of home you live in and the car that you drive. We have choice. We have education for our children.
Are you guaranteed to have success-NO, but you can pursue happiness and what you feel success is-which is different for everyone.
Kids who make choices to go into debt for $50,000 plus for jobs that will land them a salary that amounts to $30-40,000 are not making wise choices.
I don’t want wealth to be distributed evenly. I want my hard work to pay off and get me more than the person who does just enough to get by. I don’t envy anyone who works hard and make something of themselves or even someone born into wealth. The class envy has to stop. Our “poor” have cable, computers, other electronics, a roof over their heads, food, healthcare clothing, often times a car, and so much more than the poor of many other countries. We in America don’t know what it means to be poor.
Look at Europe now. It’s a crumbling system, because people expect to work 30 hours a week, earn a full time salary and retire when they are 50 and be taken care of until they die. The European system doesn’t work!!! Socialism does not promote innovation, creative thinking, and doing more.
I believe it is you who is misinformed and bitter because of the choices that you have made in your life.
By the way Obama went to some of the top schools in the areas where he lived, so he was not poor either, you really need to better investigate and stop relying on what he says. If you haven’t learned anything from Benghazi, he is not one to tell the truth even when the truth is staring him in the face. Michele didn’t come from poverty either. Both came from middle class or better families.
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
10:40 am
Oh Great. Bordeaux also has public wi-fi. “Another modern thing about Bordeaux is that they are making the center part WiFi accessible for free”
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
10:53 am
Teacher Reader, What are you sources? I do not mean list the articles, but maybe you should! I gave you real documented economic information and it went right over your head. zzzeeee! like an arrow.
I don’t want to do the “personal attack” or whatever, but you’re repeating generalized propaganda from your media where you live. I think you missed the part about US centralised ownership of media and how easy it is to project “the message” and support the current corporate system with maximum control and minimum access to services. I guess I need to thank you because you provide evidence that the #1 issue really is when Reagan changed the laws to allow centrlised ownership of media resulting in a consistent coordinated corporate message. And then you believe it.
Teacher Reader, I’m going to say it. You think like a peasant. I’ll even go and fetch the definition. I’d don’t mean it as a chop. I mean it as a determinative concept. Nah, you can look it up, it’s too cruel. Maybe I am wrong because you say you’re doing well and grandpa owned 100 acres, which gives you some foundation. What may be more accurate is that things are going okay for you and you simply do not care about your fellow citizens. I take strong exception about the fact that Georgia school children do not have eyeglasses. ‘Reader, you are what is called the bourgeousie, the comfortable middle class. You afraid that any improvement in society will result in that you have less. So you stifle innovation, you do not recognise effienciency, and it is just fine with you if people die on their front porch and children do not have eyeglasses. I’d call you a coward, except that a coward would have to care enough to be a coward. How’s that for some poetry?
You need to go and teach in, like, a rural area outside of Athens. Then get back to me. If you think it’s okay for teachers to have health care and students to not have eyeglasses, well, I don’t think that’s okay. Have a swell day.
Entitlement Society
October 25th, 2012
12:21 pm
@Private Citizen – those of us that work and provide for our families, understand the value of a dollar, when to spend on food/education/shelter versus cable/hair do’s/fancy basketball shoes and finger nails (yes, I watch them at Kroger using their food stamp card, all decked out in their garb, gold jewelry, iPhone, manicured nails and fancy hair while I clip coupons and pay my own way) have a problem with the way the current administration wants to redistribute the “wealth” of this country. I am by no means wealthy, so I resent my hard earned tax dollars being reallocated to those who obviously have discretionary income to pay for things that my budget doesn’t allow for, while they receive government subsidies that obviously aren’t needed. What happened to work ethic in this country? Maybe then your woeful students would have some eyeglasses!
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
1:16 pm
Well, Entitlement Society, despite the baubles and glitz, we need efficient delivery of services. I do the same thing, buy myself a new $100. smart phone and have it shipped from China, or some other object, or spend time looking online at an $8,000 racing car brake system that will bolt up to my automobile. Everybody needs amusements you may have noticed if you ever go to pay for you gas and have to stand in-line behind someone buying a lottery ticket.
Point is, these $100,-$200 things you mention maybe have little to do with priorities and more to do with the glass ceiling – tap tap tap – as the immigrant stand-up comic so wonderfully illustrated.
What happened to work ethic in this country?
Americans are working their behinds off, in case you haven’t noticed. US teachers spend 35% more hours teaching in the classroom than the colleagues outside the USA. Look up the OECD reports. They spend $500M a year documenting this stuff (more or less). http://www.oecd.org/about/budget/ This information is not just “made up” or opinion or what makes me “feel” good / bad. Everybody I know is working like a fiend. Parents of students are working like fiends. If they’re not, they’re disabled. I had a disabled lady who lived next door to me. She could hardly walk. I cut down a wooden stool for her so she had a comfortable place to sit. She’s dead now. Call her what you like, she paid with her life.
Maybe then your woeful students would have some eyeglasses!
These are not simple matters, the culture of going without.
Work ethic?
You mean like the old guy who forms concrete and had a “pin stroke” (whatever that is) and spent 2 days in the hospital and left with a $20,000. bill?
jarvis
October 25th, 2012
1:26 pm
What does this have to do with school?
jarvis
October 25th, 2012
1:30 pm
@Private Citizen, I love you constant reference to things being “free” when you mean “government provided”.
Those aren’t synonyms.
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
1:35 pm
jarvis Kids without eyeglasses has a lot to do with school. There are plenty of education theorists world wide who will tell you that you have to attend to social conditions and care for people as the context of education reform. Let me just make my reply quick. How would you do in school if you were not an adult, did not have the power of adult decision making, and you had headaches at school and could clearly see either the clock on the wall or your work in front of you? My point is there is a lot of this in Georgia. I do not think it is being documented or that “the data” is being collected and put together. If it is, this data about untreated vision impairment- aka “eyeglasses” – is kept off to the side somewhere.
How would you do in school – headaches and unfocused vision? -Kids don’t have a checkbook, either, ability or maturity to fend for themselves.
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
1:37 pm
“I can’t see! I can’t see!”
“Well, sit on the floor directly in front of the screen. Here’s a chair.”
“My head hurts.”
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
1:45 pm
jarvis Everything has a cost structure, nothing is for free.
efficiency: Achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
1:46 pm
jarvis services are not government provided. citizens pay for them.
Private Citizen
October 25th, 2012
2:04 pm
hey jarvis there’s plenty of anthropology papers written about do-gooders who go to far away places and the locals run them off and do now want their clean water or medical treatments. thing is, Atlanta is not a far away place. It is has a symphony orchestra and the busiest airport in the world. but regional people are allergic to the idea that people should have services. Currently, the country of Brazil has better health care coverage than that state of Georgia. can you explain this to me?
jarvis
October 25th, 2012
2:36 pm
Citizens don’t pay for our services. We borrow the money from China for that. Our citizens poorly attempt to pay interest.
As to your comment on school, thanks for the diatribe, but I was referring to the blog topic of Coulter calling the President “a retard”.
TOK
October 25th, 2012
8:38 pm
My background: my daughter, who is 4 years old, has Down Syndrome, and long ago I worked in a training programs for adults with mental retardation.
Look, Coulter is just a political shock jock whose shtick is to draw attention to herself by being outrageous. So I don’t really much care what offensive thing she says. But I’m unhappy to see how many people here are sticking up for her.
People who are mentally retarded get a lot of static (”Suck it, you ug!y-ass retard!”). Luckily, my daughter hasn’t yet received any yet, but I presume that she’ll get a large dose of abuse by the time she hits middle school, if not beforehand. So many people with mental retardation (and their friends and family) find the widespread use of “retard” as a particularly insulting way of calling somebody an incredible dumbass both demeaning and hurtful. Is that so hard to understand?
If saying this makes me a member of pc thought-police brigade or whatever, so be it. You’re free to say what you want. But if you feel the need to insult somebody’s intelligence, there are plenty of other ways of doing so without running down people with mental retardation. And if you persist in calling people retards even after it’s been explained you that it’s demeaning to people like my daughter, I’m free to call you a jerk.
heavenly
October 25th, 2012
8:40 pm
Her use of the r-word just goes to show how uneducated she actually is. It really is no different than the N-word, regardless of what she thinks. Does she really think that using such nasty words will make her opponents any less likely to win? Maybe she is just a really weak person who is insecure about herself and thus feels the need to lash out at people who “pose a threat to her”. It is appalling that humans such as her exist in the world.
Cornell University and University of Michigan Law should be embarrassed to have her as a graduate of their schools. She sets such a fine example for others (obviously said with much sarcasm). No wonder she is unmarried; no man can stand her enough to love her.
My2Cents
October 25th, 2012
9:35 pm
Too bad – I thought Ann Coulter had a better command of the english language. So many words available and such bad choices.
TJones
October 25th, 2012
11:53 pm
Ann Coulter and Donald Trump have a lot in common: an insatiable need for attention and an utter lack of class, which can’t be bought by either wealth or education.
Pardon My Blog
October 26th, 2012
7:33 am
I am not sure why this ended up on the “Get Schooled” blog because the tweet was referencing the Presidential debate and had nothing to do with education. I find it a veiled attempt to insert some political opinion wherever the AJC can. With that said, I agree that I don’t think the letter was written by Mr. Stephen especially after seeing an interview with him but I do think that Ms. Coulter should take up his challenge to go see the Special Olympics. But what I really would like to see is equal outrage when people such as Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Van Jones and others make racist remarks to try to stir up the masses. Where is the outrage when certain individuals promise violence and assassinations if their candidate of choice is not reelected?
The comments on this blog really show some of the personalities of the bloggers and alot seem to have alot of intolerence for anyone who disagrees with them. @Dunwoody Mom, I thought you had more class than that.
BTW – I have volunteered countless hours over the years in assisting with Special Olympics as well as other events to help youth of all needs and races.
Pardon My Blog
October 26th, 2012
7:46 am
Also, talk about using inappropriate terms or language, how about POTUS referring to Romney as a Bull*****er! and that was directed at a six year old!
my two cents
October 26th, 2012
1:24 pm
I hear the students say “retarded” and “gay” loosely as though it is part of everyday language. I think that those words can be very hurtful to some and mean nothing to others. This is a tough world were we have the most people ever, many different ideas pulling in different directions, it is difficult to come to a consensus to what should and shouldn’t be said. the s*** word is rarely bleeped on basic cable anymore. Times have really changed.
Archie
October 26th, 2012
1:54 pm
Unfortunately, the kind of “verbal violence” that Ann Coulter dispenses is profitable! When it ceases to be that, we will see (and hear) much less of it. There are some to whom she is a guru. On the president’s comment about his bowling ability, that could have been the proverbial “slip of the tongue.” (Disclaimer: “I ain’t so wild about him, neither!”)
lamour
October 26th, 2012
11:08 pm
I am a retired educator. As an integral part of developing good character within our students we taught them to be kind to each other, to help, to share, and to refrain from mean, hurtful, disrespectful remarks about others. Indeed those of us who are Christians have been taught the same. The very negative remark that Ann Coulter made about the President and its negative connotation for mentally challenged persons is inexcusable! It shows the unkind heart she has and indeed what kind of person she is. A good name is rather chosen than riches. Ann Coulter, your name is muddied by the behavior and ugly speech you have shown against others. God is watching and recording.
appalled
October 27th, 2012
1:02 am
Good Lord! You conservatives are like the bully followers in high school. You do realize that you have your own minds and can think for yourselves? right?? You would follow behind your bully leader and do as you were told and all you got for it was the hopes of being considered popular. The funny thing is, is that you weren’t popular, you were pitied. Your minds live in a hell beyond conceivability of the rest of us.
This horrible creature, not a woman, but a hateful being that thinks she is funny or charming, is nothing more than a sideshow freak. She is the “Heathers” but an adult. Your precious Romney is the same way. Your hate is vile and these monsters you choose to follow sicken most everyone.
Words mean nothing but the feeling that is behind them mean everything. She intended that word to describe an ugly, backwards connotation and not by definition. Only bully followers could defend their leaders stupidity.
Grow up and open your brains enough to lead and not follow! sheesh!!!!
appalled
October 27th, 2012
1:18 am
@Lou, boy are you wrong!
“That said–there is no way that young man with Down Syndrome could have written that letter. I’ve been a college professor and taught freshman English, so I know of what I speak.”
you shouldn’t speak on things you have NO clue about.
Pardon My Blog
October 27th, 2012
4:38 am
@appalled – Really?
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
October 27th, 2012
10:00 am
@Pardon my Blog “Also, talk about using inappropriate terms or language, how about POTUS referring to Romney as a Bull*****er! and that was directed at a six year old!”
Actually it was during an interview with Rolling Stone, and it was repeating the words a child had spoken TO Obama.
But don’t let the facts stand in the way of your faux outrage, now.
bootney farnsworth
October 27th, 2012
3:50 pm
there are more trolls in this blog than in Norway.
Gamom
October 28th, 2012
11:11 am
Ann coulter is an embarrassment. Why does she get so much air time?
Anna Hilde
October 28th, 2012
11:36 pm
Really? Is one word worse than another? I get it about Coulter, I do. She’s not someone I listen to, or care to listen to; however, most everyone here have called her a name. So, I take it one is worse than the other, and it makes me wonder, who exactly is the judge of which word I will personally find offensive? For instance Dunwoody Mom called Ann a wretched – and I’d say we all are wretched people – me most of all. My point is this – no one, I repeat no one on this board is any less guilty of calling someone a name or of thinking an ugly thought about another individual – yes, hopefully we wouldn’t use THAT word and it’s all about that WORD apparently. That’s too bad. We would do well to spend less time retaliating using name calling ourselves (from our approved list, of course) more time highlighting those we believe to be better examples and ignoring Coulter.
shaking my head
October 29th, 2012
2:25 pm
this is one of the reasons that I find it very hard to support anyone in the GOP field…if you have people like this pushing for you, then it falls way short of the love that we should exhibit as Christians…
Nextset
October 29th, 2012
2:49 pm
Liberals have real problems with Free Speech. They lust for power and control over the speech, money and freedom of other people. Good for Ann Coulter, she’s good with the English Language. Listen to some of her books on audio – good for a long drive.
If she wants to describe a retarded person as a retard, it is her speech and you’re not supposed to always like it. No One in this society is required to speak using approved words to communicate ideas and political thought.
Cry me a river, Libs. I don’t like your terms so much myself, but I so far haven’t tried to silence you.
Ole Guy
October 30th, 2012
2:34 pm
Two Cents, you are absolutely right; the world in which we find ourselves is definitely not the world of yesteryear; civility and just plain ole common gd sense has taken leave. Like the go go real estate markets of not too many years ago, it is quite doubtful these things will return any time soon…more-than-likely, not in my lifetime, and most-probably not in the foreseeable future. Whether this type of language is good, bad, or indifferent is no longer the issue. The real issue boils down to one of (let’s call it) survivability. One key ingredient, in life, is the development of a tough social hide. People, kids and adults alike, say (and do) the damdest things…
(Art Linkletter…modified)
A major survival/coping and, eventually, winning ingredient is realizing that life does not; will not always be “kinder and gentler” than we would like. Maybe…just maybe…this may lie behind the rash of teen suicides, abhorent behavior within the younger population, and anti-social behavior withinn the public at large.
This is not to be considered, in any way whatsoever, an obervation with racial overtones…perhaps the common complaint of being “dised” (disrespected) lies in the common feelings of a diminished self worth for any number of reasons…lousy job, lousy human relations with others, lousy socioeconomic situations, etc. It all comes back to the basic premise of perceived self worth.
Viewed in a positive light, perhaps it may be a good thing when those who are less fortunate become exposed to the insensitivity of the Ms Coulters in life. Like bad weather in the aviation world, the Coulters will always be among us, and like that bad weather, one can choose to either “stay grounded” in life, or learn to deal with it and, in the process, become a stronger person.
If it don’t kill ya, it’ll make ya stronger…
Mary Grabar
November 11th, 2012
9:38 am
Ms. Maureen, did you say anything about comedians and others making fun of Sarah Palin’s Downs Syndrome baby?
http://madamenoire.com/205702/did-he-cross-the-line-wayne-brady-cracks-joke-using-sarah-palins-son-with-down-syndrome/
If so, I would appreciate a link. Thank you.