Unfortunate choice of words.

I will preface this by saying that I do not read The Ottawa Sun on a regular basis. Or at all, really. It is such a bad publication, that even when I have been offered a free copy I have declined. On principle. It's THAT bad.

Having said that, a friend recently brought the following to my attention.

http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/columnists/anthony_furey/2011/01/11/16852216.html

My initial reaction was to say "Wow. This is EXACTLY what I would expect from the Sun." And then I got angry, as I am known to do. And then I wrote the following letter to the "journalist" and cc-ed the editor. And the head of the corporation.

"Dear Mr. Furey,


I would like to think that you don't mean to be offensive. There is a part of me that hopes that while you were sitting at your desk, composing your piece about lobbyists, it didn't occur to you that by using the word "retarded" you would offend people. I would like to think that even if you were trying to offend people, surely your target was the lobbyists. Sadly, a larger part of me knows that you actually did intend to offend people with abilities different than your own, because you knew that would be inflamatory. And hey. That brings publicity. And publicity sells papers.

Unfortunately, your opinon piece reads like the ramblings of an ignorant jerk. What you are trying to say about lobbyists doesn't come through at all because the reader can't stop thinking "Is this person actually as insensitive as he appears?" Yes, vernacular changes over time. This is a concept you seem quite stalled on, given some of your other recent pieces. The words we use to describe things will change. Words evolve as we become more educated and improve upon the way we interact with, understand and respect one another. This has nothing to do with being politically correct -This is about being intelligent and compassionate. It is about being aware of context and of the weight that is placed upon words, whether they be in the dictionary or not. I would think that as a writer, you might have a better appreciation of the power of words than your piece would imply.

The word "retarded" exists. You can look it up in a dictionary. I imagine it is found somewhere under "R". Congratulations. Your lack of appreciation of context, however, is somewhat embarassing.

It would seem that children aren't the only ones who are unneccesarily cruel.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Britton"
 
Words matter. The way that we treat one another matters.