Who Cares?

Photos of normal retards by Jodie Abrams.

There’s a difficulty in writing about retarded people that stems from the word itself. The word retarded, while being technically correct, still feels a little awkward and has an unintended harshness attached to it. But shortening retarded to retard is no solution. It’s akin to the use of the word nigger by someone who claims that they’re not racist. You know, as in "Naw, they’s all kinds of niggers, white niggers and Porto Rico niggers too. I don’t just mean blacks." There’s handicapable, which is clumsy and insulting. Handicapable seems to live in a protective bubble of denial and is sort of like the word version of that hairspray-in-a-can for bald men. It’s too falsely chipper. Special was a short-lived and transparent failure. The retarded person gets to hear themselves referred to as "special," i.e., "distinct among others" or "beyond the ordinary" and this is supposed to make them happy. People who say special know better, however. They invented the term so retarded kids could have something to shout back at the smirking normal kid who holds them down and farts in their face or sometimes rapes them. Truth is, the way normal people try to make "special" people feel special is through blatant condescension and patronization. If you still believe in the word special you are the kind of person who watches someone with a particularly low IQ sing the "airplane song" and say to yourself, "Ahh, look at that simple fellow. What a sweet, carefree life. If only my slate were so blank, la tabula rasa." Special doesn’t work because it is nothing more than a cheap and easy way to say, "Here, take this word as a gift and get the fuck out of here. You are freaking me out." Don’t these elitist intelligentsia see the self-important conceit inherent in that attitude? ?Oh dear, I am so burdened by the suffocating weight of the world’s injustices. If only I could be so simple and untroubled. How lovely it might be to root around the garbage can looking for my invisible friend while I wait for the nurse to give me my Cream of Medicine soup. Alas, I was cursed with intelligence, which I have put to good use by being a well-paid orthodontist and part-time hunter. Oh well, I guess I better put away my issue of People magazine, my colonoscopy is about to start.? Shit, maybe these normal assholes have a point. Countless books have been written and movies made where the idea is put forth that maybe, just maybe, it is more desirable to be constantly taken care of from cradle to grave, never saddled with trying to make sense of a senseless world even if it means that you spend your life (blissfully) unaware or unconcerned about anything that doesn’t have to do with spaghetti and meatballs.

Maybe the unretarded are actually jealous of the "special" people they are so quick to patronize. They look at them and see a lifetime of sponge baths and spoonfed snacks. Nonretarded people pay serious money to fly to Bali and go to a spa for that same treatment. And retarded people don’t have to get up at six in the goddamn morning to sit in traffic for an hour, busting their ass to get to work on time only to hear their boss bitch to them about the specs on the Anderson Little account not being color-coded correctly or some shit! Come to think of it, maybe this not-so-hidden jealousy that nonretarded people have regarding retarded people and their cushy lifestyle of ?want and receive? is an explanation for something I have started noticing with alarming frequency, and that is ?The Retarded Look.? You know what I’m talking about: people who dress retarded but aren’t. They just dress like one. You see them walking down the street singing too loudly, wearing a mismatched polyester shirt half-tucked into their wool pants and the poorly, ill-shaved moustache and dirty Irish riding cap on top of a mass of greasy, carefully unwashed, dandruff-dusted hair, set off by a delightful pair of thick, government-issued eyeglasses fresh from the prop box at Love American Style. Is this some underground, calculated fashion thing that I am not aware of? Is there a group of hipsters called "Eccentric Genius" that embrace the accessories of severe social retardation to create a new movement? Is yesterday’s eternally happy special person today’s fashion staple?
I certainly hope so. I think it’s commendable that these brave pioneers are embracing the "I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks of me" attitude. I might even consider it myself if I could handle the risk of not getting laid ever again. In closing, I would like to say that normal people used to use the word special as a patronizing token gesture to cover how uncomfortable they are with anyone less than incredibly capable. Then I thought about it more and realized they are actually jealous of the retarded and crave a carefree lifestyle. Then I proved it by citing a new fashion movement. Then I almost joined them but changed my mind. Then I made this closing statement.