THIS IS JUST RETARDED!

When you think of people not having a filter in their heads when they speak, you would just think that they didn't think before they spoke, right? Well, should that happen when something is put in print like, say, a high school yearbook? That's what happened at a Dallas-area Mesquite High School, when the school district forced the high school to pull its yearbooks after it described students with special needs as "mentally retarded." Why would you do that?

The contested use of the word was denounced by parents, forcing the school district to aplologize for a section dedicated to students with disabilities. The section read that "some of the disabilities the students in the Special Education Program are being blind, deaf, or non-verbal." The specific disabilities of students were cited in the yearbook with some labeled as "both blind and deaf, as well as mentally retarded."

The group ARC of the United States, formerly known as the Association for Retarded Citizens of the United States, disapproves of the words "retarded" and "retardation", hence the change in their name, because those words are derrogatory. And they are! It's no better than using racial slurs to describe a black person or a Asian person.

Mesquite High School students were upset that they had to return their yearbooks, while parents of special needs students scolded the school officials for allowing the wording to be published in the first place. According to one parent, "That word is hideous and the fact that it could be put i na yearbook and be overlooked by a faculty advisor, which was an adult--I can see the kids doing this and missing it, but not an adult!" The lady is right! How can an adult, who by the way is also a teacher, not edit this yearbook before it went out to students? It's unreal!

The school's principal was expected to call offended families personally to apologize for the offensive wording in the yearbook, while new yearbooks will be sent to students this week, although students were upset because Tuesday is the last day of classes. Oh, well! Blame the teacher who fell asleep editing this book! He's to blame for the students not getting their yearbooks on time! It's bad a enough that these families have so much to go through raising their child with special needs, and now they have to deal with their child being called names in their high school yearbook? I'm at a loss for words and I think the real "retards" here are the kids and teachers who were on the yearbook committee. They were the "retards" for letting the word slip through the cracks!