I have a rule when listening to the usually hilarious 103.1-FM comedy radio station that plays stand-up routines from some of the nation’s best comedians.
The second a comedian uses the word “retard” in a routine to make fun of people with developmental disabilities, I turn the dial.
Unfortunately, lately I have had trouble listening to the station for very long.
It always stops me. The word is like a dagger. I am the father of a child with Down syndrome and know how the word can be used to attack and belittle.
Comedy is supposed to have no bounds. Edginess is a virtue and political correctness is antithetical to humor. But the “R-word,” as it is now known, carries much weight.
Thankfully, the “N-word” is never heard on the comedy station and rarely are epithets describing gay people.
But people with disabilities are fair game. Why?
I asked George Gimarc, whose Texas company, Today’s Comedy, distributes the comedy channel to a dozen cities around the country. He said he has 18,000 tracks in his library with notes on many of them about their content and subject matter.
Gimarc bans any segments with the N-word and is careful about the “F-word” used against gay people. And he won’t play routines about abortion because it would infuriate half the audience. He even has eliminated comedy routines about drugs between 3 and 4 p.m., when people could be picking up their kids from school.
But he hasn’t censored routines that make fun of people with intellectual disabilities or that use the R-word.
“I haven’t had anyone complain about it,” he said — until now. “That is your sacred cow. I have a similar problem when I hear comedians who are banging the atheism drum, coming hard after Christians.
“The honest answer is everyone gets offended at some time.”
He is right. There are plenty of offending segments to go around — comedians bashing fat people, Asians, blacks, gays, religions, police, rich, poor. No one remains unscathed.
Yet, most comedians steer away from epithets, except for the R-word.
In 2008, the Special Olympics launched ” to encourage people to stop using that word. More than 560,000 people have signed an online pledge not to use it anymore.
In 2010, President Obama signed Rosa’s Law to eliminate the use of the words “retarded” and “retardation” in federal health, education and labor laws.
Colorado passed a similar law the same year, banning any “disrespectful, insensitive or outdated terms” from new state statutes or administrative rules.
Words and their meaning have strange shelf lives.
In the early 20th century, the word “retarded” officially replaced the words “imbecile,” “idiot”and “moron,” which were clinically used to describe people with low IQs.
Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker said offensive words can end up on a “euphemism treadmill” — in which a word replacing an offensive word can become offensive over time.
Some comedians have argued the R-word should not be retired. balk at using it to abuse people who have intellectual disabilities but believe the word can have good comedic effect and shouldn’t be banned.
I wish I could be so open, but the word still offends. I don’t espouse censorship and am uneasy with political correctness. But this word is hurtful. It doesn’t contain the brutal history of the N-word, but it can still destroy people who don’t have a loud voice in our culture.
Comedy is about deconstruction, observation and poking holes in mores. The best comedians find humor in exposing things that are unsaid or are able to flip meaning to point out the absurd.
Good comedy can pull back the curtain and expose what is really happening.
I fear the overuse of the R-word is retaliation against the disabled or exposing society’s unvarnished attitude toward people with differences.
But it is probably something else — fear of the unknown or a general misunderstanding about a group of people.
In the early 1980s, comedians like Eddie Murphy got huge belly laughs by disparaging homosexuals or joking about AIDS.
The disease was mysterious. The public didn’t want to talk about it. President Reagan waited for years to acknowledge the epidemic.
Comedians reacted to that fear with jokes and comedy bits that now seem incredibly offensive. It’s doubtful those routines are played on the comedy station.
I hope that soon recordings of people making fun of those with intellectual disabilities will be similarly arcane and offensive.
As people with disabilities become more included in society rather than being shut away, the public will have a better understanding about who they are. Less fear. Fewer jokes about how they are different.
— in an interview on his show with Tim Shriver, chairman and CEO of Special Olympics — reasoned that the R-word is a defense.
“You look at someone who is a person with an intellectual disability and it scares you. ‘That might be my child. That might be me,’ ” he said.
“You say the R-word at them to go, like, ‘Get away from me as a person because I don’t want that to be part of my personhood.’ “
Realizing how stupid this sounded, Colbert acknowledged Shriver’s point that the word should be retired.
Colbert looked at the camera and advised America to drop it.
Using the R-word, Colbert said, is totally gay.
E-mail Jeremy Meyer at jpmeyer@denverpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @JPMeyerDPost
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