Steve Harvey’s Wife Said The R-Word, People Freaked, And We Have Stuff To Say About It.

Steve Harvey and his wife are under fire for using the word “retarded” in a playful Instagram video.

“I’m sitting here arguing with my husband, ’cause clearly he thinks I’m retarded [and] I don’t know how to cut a beet,” she said in the video.

Too early in the morning for this! 🙄 I just want to make some fresh juice

A post shared by Marjorie Harvey (@marjorie_harvey) on Mar 31, 2018 at 9:38am PDT

So Daisy and I talked about this at length in our book, Right For A Reason: Life, Liberty, and a Crapload of Common Sense, which you should buy and read immediately if you haven’t already, because it’s awesome and I say that with no bias whatsoever.  The part where we talk about the word “retarded” is in the Political Correctness Is Stupid chapter, if you have it laying around and want to refer back.

I’m the mom of a 21 year old boy with severe cerebral palsy and the intellectual capacity of a 3 month old. And I use the word “retarded” from time to time to describe ridiculous people or ridiculous things, because a) it’s a habit, and because b) it’s the perfect descriptor, and because c) I am frankly sick of people telling me I can’t say it. What I DON’T do is use the word to describe people like my son, or any other person with Actual Intellectual Disabilities.

We explain further in this audio clip. Before you get all outraged at me (and believe me, I’ve heard it all before), LISTEN.

There are always gonna be people who are mad at me, and obviously mad at Steve Harvey’s wife now, for using the word in any way, no matter how obvious it is that no ill intent is meant.  Here were a few of the comments in response to the Harvey video clip:

“Using the R word in a negative/derogatory way is demeaning to others, regardless of whether she is using it toward herself or others,” read one comment. “Just something to simply think about when using that word as an insult … in other words, just don’t.”

“There are people like me, my family, my daughter who has Down syndrome, who are all hurt by the implication you made,” another follower said. “By using the R word in that way, it infers that people with cognitive disabilities are less than or dumb. Please consider taking the time to either personally or publicly reconsider using a word that hurts so many. I’m not saying that was your intent, but when know better, we should do better … right?”

“I can tell you that most people who use the word have an idea in their head when they do,” another commenter argued. “And that’s a person who is dumb or slow to understand. That’s who Marjorie was comparing herself to, whether she realizes it/meant to or not.”

“Why is this funny?” one commenter asked. “Any intelligent person knows that saying ‘ret@rd’ is considered derogatory and offensive to some. … Be smart about things that come out of your mouth. I have seen celebrities ruin their careers over things that have come out of their mouths! Be humble!”

As you heard in our radio segment above (the part where my whiteness is on full display), Steve Harvey came to his wife’s defense.

“What you trippin’ ’bout ’cause my wife said the word retarded. It’s a word, ain’t it? And she ain’t talking ’bout nobody but herself to me. … She ain’t saying it ’bout nobody’s baby. I don’t ever comment but damn is you just looking for something to be pissed off about ’cause we ain’t. And I wrote it retarded. NAH!!”

I feel like Daisy and I were slightly more eloquent in our explanation of why we don’t take issue with the word in our book and the above audio clip, but yeah.  We’re on #TeamHarvey on this one.  Everyone needs to calm down.

Hannah’s sister, by the way, is basically the female version of my son (although I think she’s slightly more intellectually advanced.)  And Hannah uses the word “retarded” to describe ridiculous things too, because there is nothing WRONG with the word, except for the fact that random people at some point decided to make it A Huge Deal.  Just like they did with the word “idiot” which is now no longer A Huge Deal.

Look – the comments from the folks who are outraged above are all very well-meaning.  They’ve bought into this whole BAN THE R-WORD thing because they mean well.  And that’s lovely of them.  I’m simply tired of words being made into weapons, and I’m not playing the ever-changing game of “this word is off limits today.”  There are universally agreed upon curse words, and we’ll get fined if we say those on the air.  That’s basically my barometer.  Beyond that?  Language is fair game.  Just ask any hip hop artist who peppers their “songs” with the n-word.  You’re damn right I’ll sing along if I like the song, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.  Black people wanna claim the n-word?  I’m gonna claim the r-word.  You know why?  Because if you get to be all outraged about it, then I’m gonna be all outraged at your outrage on BEHALF of my son.  We should be raising our kids not to be wounded by words, especially when those words aren’t even directed at them.

Oh, and if you’re outraged about our use of the word “retarded” you should also know that we often even say stuff is GAY and retarded.  Yeah.  We go all the way there.

Come at us, bruh.  🙂