Dear Ben,

An Open Letter to Ben Stiller about Tropic Thunder

Imagine this:
1. You're given tens of millions of dollars to make a major
Hollywood movie.
2. You choose to put in the words: retard retard retard retard
retard retard retard retard retard retard retard retard retard retard
retard retard retard retard retard retard.
3. After the movie's release, you say "Hey, you took that out of
context! If I offended anybody, I didn't mean it."

Sorry, Ben. You offended me. I have an 11-year old son with Down
syndrome. He is a human being. He's not a symbol or a character on TV
or a joke. He is real. With feelings. Imagine that!

Jack (my son, not your Simple Jack) is my hero. He's not perfect, and
he spends more time in the principal's office than he should. But he
gets up every day of his life and works twice as hard as other kids
to be able to do what kids do. He swims like a fish, but can't ride a
bike. He reads and writes and has a great sense of humor. I love him.

His life has challenges of every kind. He deals with them. But what
Jack really doesn't need is an adult like you coming over just to
kick him in the gut a little bit with that word to sell some tickets
and make a joke. Thanks just the same, Ben!

I know what you're saying. I've heard Sergeant Sam and the talk radio
callers and the comment-posters. You're saying "Hey, get a life!
Lighten up! LOL! This is way too PC! Retard is just a word like
stupid and idiot. Find something else to worry about. The movie is
just a movie! Don't see it if you don't want to! Retard!"

That's what you're saying, Ben, and all you comment-posters on the
web, but this is what I'm hearing: You insist on being able to demean
and verbally abuse my kid with a loaded, hateful word that conjures a
special visual image and carries a sad, long history of abuse. To me,
it's like the n-word. Oh, you don't do this directly. You just say
retard around your friends to tell a joke, and in your movies and on
TV and radio and on the web, when you mean "fool." Then in a few days
a kid on a playground somewhere aims that word at Jack. Or Sofia. Or
Hannah. But hey kids, Lighten Up! LOL!

Ben, this is all getting a little too mean for me. I thought we were
all supposed to be better than this. I know the word retard didn't
start with you. Jack's heard it before! Not that often (his
classmates are great kids), but he has and what a great day it is at
our house when he comes home and my husband and I try to patch those
feelings back up. And believe me, Ben, our kids are smart enough to
know when they're being ridiculed. I don't even need to tell you how
it feels as a parent to watch my kid, an especially vulnerable kid,
get ridiculed with that word, but "knife in the heart" should about
cover it.

... But Ben, your movie is too much. Thanks to
the movie and YouTube, I'm expecting Jack will hear that word on the
playground when he goes back to school next week. A lot more. See,
fifth graders just didn't get the context of your movie. They just
got the word and your permission to use it. So I will stand up now,
I will protest and march, with all of the disability community, and
say Enough. Please Stop. Think about our kids, our brothers and
sisters, our neighbors and friends with intellectual disabilities,
and pick on someone your own size next time. You say "Get a life."
Ben, get a heart. And stop hurting our kids.

Suzanne Shepherd is a member of the Board of the Down Syndrome
Association of Central Texas and a mom. Jack is a fifth-grader at a
local elementary school.