The Power of Words

Retrieved from: http://www.r-word.org/r-word-resources.aspx

A few years ago I was introduced to The R-word after coaching Special Olympics, and I remember one of the players saying,
 "Ugh, this is so retarded!"  The other players looked at him and said "What do you mean?  I'm retarded and  I'm awesome!"
 I was very surprised and shocked to hear this conversation, yet it was true, the one player had been classified and labelled as "mentally retarded", yet for some reason  all the other players had a good laugh about it because they were  all labelled by some as "Retarded', yet in my eyes they were amazing people. They were all committed to their jobs, their families and to soccer. As their coach I would never want to play soccer against any of them. I'll never forget the phrase "I'm retarded and I'm awesome". 

Today my friend introduced me to this website titled  No Homophobes.com.
It is about the use of words that are hurtful to those who are gay or homosexual.  It scans Twitter and tracks the number of tweets with specific words and tracks them.  It is amazing how we use words.

It is amazing that without thinking we could be hurting people with our words, or we could be spreading awareness. The message you are spreading depends on how you phrase it.