I’ll be honest. Until a few days ago, I had no idea who Margaret Cho was. But when Twitter lit up about her making an “I don’t want a retard” comment, the star of Drop Dead Diva and Dancing With the Stars appeared on my radar screen. While discussing her prospects for motherhood on Watch What Happens Live, Cho, who is 43, joked, “My period comes like twice a month. My eggs are jumping ship,” she said. “Seriously, they’re like, ‘the last one out’s a retard.” She went on to say, “I get worried about that, as an older woman, I don’t necessarily want to have a retard.”
It’s commonly known that older women are more likely to have a child with Down syndrome, so it’s probably not a stretch to assume that Cho was referring to having a baby with trisomy-21 (or another chromosomal abnormality). At first, I was only mildly agitated. Comedians who make jokes at the expense of the intellectually disabled are as common as white bread. But I decided maybe I ought to at least find out who Margaret Cho was (Ricky Gervais and Tracy Morgan I’d recognize if they walked in my house. Margaret Cho…not so much). What I found made my blood boil.
I found hypocrisy with a capital H.
Cho, who is openly bisexual, is a well-known advocate for LGBT rights and has received accolades for her efforts on behalf of women, Asians, and the LGBT community. Following are just a few of her achievements, pulled directly from her website:
“She…received the First Amendment Award from the ACLU of Southern California, and the Intrepid Award from the National Organization for Women (NOW). Throughout her career, she has been honored by GLAAD [Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation], American Women in Radio and Television, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), and PFLAG [Parents, Families, & Friends of Lesbians and Gays] for making a significant difference in promoting equal rights for all, regardless of race, sexual orientation or gender identity. In June of 2011, Margaret will be honored by LA Pride, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.
So according to Cho, women deserve equal rights, Asians deserve equal rights, and the LGBT community deserves equal rights, but babies with Down syndrome deserve to be …used as a punchline?
Equal rights for all means just that – equal rights for ALL.
Just like you can’t advocate for censorship while praising the First Amendment, you can’t claim to be for equality while treating others as lesser beings.
Cho issued an apology on her blog, and it seemed sincere (none of the “I’m sorry you were offended” non-apology rhetoric), and then she followed it up with a lengthier additional post apologizing again. I believe that Cho learned a valuable lesson, and I doubt she will make the same mistake again. I appreciate the fact that she acknowledged her mistake, rather than hiding under the cowardly cover of “it’s just comedy” that many comedians choose when called out publicly.
Apparently I need to check into twitter more often. I have to run to a meeting but this lights me on fire to no end. I’ll come back with a more thought out response but for right now, I’m incredibly ashamed that Margaret Cho is a spokeswoman for the LGBT community.
It is not a surprise for me. Integrating into a whole of perspective is challenging for lots of folks. All of my adult life I worked and was comfortable with extreme psychiatric diagnoses but it took until K was about 3 for me to fully integrate my thoughts with people with DS/intellectual challenges. I used to say, like others did about me “it takes a special kind of person to deal with….” but no more for the most part.
It’s kind of like expecting our kids to be comfortable with all kinds of other challenges in other people- not. K. has a huge difficulty, even still at 12, with certain challenges. This led me to join a theatre group in town which is for “all abilities” but really has mostly kids with a range of “disabilities”, to gain exposure and comfort with a range of folks. And there was a young man- that we are actually familiar with from our neighborhood who has some significant challenges and he screams loudly since he has no words, he spits, he flails. I had to do considerable work to get her in the room! She hates loud noises so the minute he’d yell, she would shrink up, start to cry and leave the room.
We would discuss how he is communicating and make a point of saying hello, discuss kindness and bravery and finally by the end she could stay in the room for the whole class.
On a small scale I come up against this too frequently, the most recent episode being during a clinical placement. I am a mature age student, and my supervisor, in the space of one day, referred to people as retards three times, in what I can only guess was an attempt to bond with students in some strange way. I can’t go into much detail due to confidentiality, but lets just say it was in a healthcare setting that this occurred. I then had to have ‘that’ conversation: ” my daughter has CP and is developmentally delayed please stop using the term retard its offensive”. This is exhausting, and disappointing, as this woman is a role model for future healthcare workers. I left feeling tired and aware that her behavior would only change for the duration of my placement.
A local friend of mine had a somewhat similar situation occur last year. At a community event benefiting the elementary school, she heard two different adults using that term: one was a teacher at the school, the other was a well-known pastor of a church that has a very active children’s and youth program. She didn’t say anything to them at the time, but after the event she emailed the principal of the school (she didn’t name the teacher) and also emailed the pastor suggesting that he consider incorporating the R-word campaign into his youth program. She didn’t mention what she had heard him say, but he thanked her and told her he felt convicted because he had used the term himself. He resolved to change the minds of the students as best he could.
I have long maintained that if they ever find the genetic fingerprint for homosexuality, it will be add to the prenatal test list along with DS. Would homosexuality also become a punch line for Cho? I doubt it.
You are not the first person I’ve heard say that, Kelly. In the meantime, there are already conditions that can be identified – such as, you know, being FEMALE – that people may use to pre-select their children. Where do we draw the line?
Check out this response from a columnist. Be sure to watch the Larry the Cable Guy bit the author includes. Do you think Larry, being a “character,” makes what he says okay because he’s playing someone else? I don’t.
http://humorinamerica.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/thats-not-funny-margaret-chos-ableist-faux-pas/