The R-Word Campaign

The Special Olympics club, new to Tabor this year, has already become one of the most active clubs on campus.

The main work of the club has been directly working with intellectually impaired people by hosting events on Sunday mornings.

Tim Cleary, the faculty advisor, and Molly Bent, the student head and founder of the club, organize these events. Along with student volunteers, they play with the children who attend, keep score, referee, and help keep the day running smoothly.

Recently, however, the club has unveiled a new project: “The ‘R-Word’ Campaign.”

Still today, the ‘r-word’ is thrown around casually and often without much thought as to how this usage affects the culture around us.

Though originally a medical term, Cleary explains how it has been “bastardized” and is now used “as a synonym for ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ by people without intellectual abilities.”

This use of the r-word so flippantly serves to “denigrate people with intellect impairments, sometimes intentionally, but often times unintentionally,” as Cleary sees it. He mentions how people will often jokingly call their friend the r-word after they do something foolish.

Many consider the r-word an acceptable word to use because, as Cleary says, “They don’t mean it that way.” To Cleary and all those involved in the r-word campaign, however, the sentiment behind the word is hurtful, regardless of the speaker’s true feelings towards the intellectually impaired.

“Simply put,” he says, “the r-word is hate speech and is a word we should all try to extinguish from our vocabulary.”

This past week, the Special Olympics club debuted a video about the R-Word Campaign, in which many members of the student body and faculty expressed how the use of the r-word affected them personally and why they believed that people at Tabor, and elsewhere, should cease their use of it.

The club’s hope is to change the school culture into one where calling someone the r-word is unacceptable, making Tabor a place where everyone will be held accountable for their words.

On Sunday, February 14, the club hosted a Valentine’s Day basketball tournament. As always, the day was a success. Numerous Tabor students came out to officially kick off the R-Word Campaign by spending their Sunday cheering on the athletes and helping organize the day.

This week, students were asked to sign a petition to eliminate the r-word from their lives. Looking ahead, the club will continue to raise awareness for the campaign and try to get as many people involved as possible.

The combined effort of the Special Olympics club is to make an impact in the lives of intellectually impaired athletes and to make Tabor a more inclusive community. These efforts work to change the school culture, ensuring that Tabor is a place where all people from all backgrounds feel safe and comfortable.

By Madeleine Gregory

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