Sunday, April 8, 2007
It seems strange, to say the least, but last month marked the 25th anniversary of my debut as a professional writer. (Note photo at right: Obviously, I started when I was 10.)
I've been at this craft full-time ever since. Last week, I put pen to paper and estimated how much I wrote weekly at each job. Added together, I've written more than 4 million published words in my first quarter-century as a journalist.
I don't write as much now that I'm an editor - most weeks I put down about 2,000 words. But I edit many more - thousands each day.
Working with so much copy, it's easy to become desensitized to the power that a single word can have, even when that word has special personal meaning.
I offer these observations as an explanation, not an excuse, for a decision I made a couple weeks back. Editing a column by a colleague, I decided to let the following stand at the start of the piece:
"The Population of the Nanny State, being composed of irresponsible rednecks, rejects and retards, must not be allowed to have Arms.' - The Second Amendment as seen through liberal eyes, according to Human Events columnist Mack Johnson."
M.D. Harmon's entire column was built on the premise that liberals have a low opinion of individuals, individual rights and the conservatives who defend them. It was the over-the-top nature of the quote that made it work as a start to the column, and changing it would certainly have taken something away from it.
CONSIDERING THE IMPACT
I did pause at the word "retard," though, and considered that it might be offensive to some. But the fact that it wasn't aimed at an individual and was not referring directly to people with developmental disabilities seemed in my mind to tip the scales toward its use.
You would think after 25 years and 4 million words I might know better.
It's true that some words are offensive, no matter their context. We call these obscenities, and if you're going to use them in a family newspaper, you better have good reason.
Obscenities are more than comedian George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words." They include, for instance, racial slurs that are offensive no matter the context and who uses them.
I had a Community Voices columnist send me a piece once that was riddled with that most horrible of slurs referring to African Americans. As a black person, she argued, she could use it without offense. After all, people used the word all the time back in her old neighborhood.
My response was to say that growing up in a white, working-class neighborhood, we used the F-word in nearly every sentence. That still doesn't mean it should be printed in the newspaper.
That racial slur carries so much weight, is so offensive to so many, that it can't be used in any context without offending our readers.
But is the word "retard" an obscenity? Is it a word that is offensive no matter how it is used?
I received two phone calls after the column appeared. One was from an advocate for the developmentally disabled. Another was from a woman with a close family member who suffered from a mental disability. Both said there was simply no excuse for the word appearing in the newspaper.
I don't know that I was convinced at that point. Certainly, I came away from those conversations thinking that I had not given enough thought to the impact of the word itself. But this was a quote, and the word was used with the clear intention to set an angry, over-the-top tone. Didn't our audience have a right to read and understand fully what Mack Johnson had said?
On Monday, the editorial board of the newspaper went to Augusta for what has become an annual forum at the State House. We get out to various communities we serve four times a year, and the spring usually brings us to the state capital.
OBJECTIONS IN AUGUSTA
More than half the initial crowd of about 30 at the forum were people who suffered from developmental disabilities or their advocates. Some people were angry. Some were in tears. Some demanded an apology.
I did a pretty good job of digging a deep hole for myself as I tried to explain my decision. What could I say, really? We spend a lot of time in this business thinking about the potential harm we can do with our words. But, as journalists, we're predisposed to letting words and ideas into the conversation, only shutting them out when absolutely necessary.
As I sat there, listening to one person after another say that the mere appearance of the word "retard" in the newspaper hurt them deeply, I thought of my own experience with the term.
I grew up very close to a cousin my age who had a developmental disability. His speech and motor skills were not what people would consider normal. He took more than his share of teasing in the days before political correctness.
And while I was not known to be someone to start fights, everyone in the neighborhood knew that the shortest route to getting in one with me would be to call Ray a "retard" in my presence.
That's not to say that I can ever truly know what it feels like to be a disabled person so horribly labeled. But I know enough to know that the people who told me they were hurt weren't exaggerating.
This was my call. I'm the editor responsible for the content of our opinion pages. I gave final approval to publish the column with the quote intact.
I made a mistake.
I am sorry.
Reader comments
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I realized before our conversation was finished that you remained unconvinced, so I'm glad the crowd in Augusta was as strong and eloquent as they were. Your column in yesterday's Sunday Telegram was certainly well received and much appreciated, and it did my heart good to know you get it and will be vigilant about gratuitously hurtful language in the future.
My sympathy on the loss of your cousin, who I'm sure would be cheering his champion and protector on.report abuse
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