the "R" word

The "R" word:  Hindered in motion; delayed.  -Webster's 1828 dictionary

Ignorance is silent.  But sometimes it wonders out loud, "Why do they act that way, look that way?"  The ignorated smile sweetly at them, slap them too many hi-fives, and over use the word 'special' around them or about them.  Some of the ignorated, who have been trained to help them live 'normal' lives, treat them like under-privileged children, deluging them with encouragements, faux exuberance, and pop rhetoric.

You see them everywhere:  in the malls, at burger joints, pumping gas into their vehicles, at the gym, in the movie theater, behind the news desk on T.V.  They give the others sideways glances wondering at their competence, blind to the courage being displayed before them.  But mostly, they keep their distance leaving the 'professionals' alone to interact with them.  Rather than extend a warm smile and a greeting, or even acknowledge their personhood with a nod,  they stare down their noses from lofty perches of higher education, sophistication, and 'normalcy.'

They have every ability at their disposal to inquire and learn how to include 'special' people, but they do not.  Rather, new words are continuously concocted to describe them, which go in and out of political correctness, all of which somehow convey a defecit compared to that grey ghost, 'normalcy.'  Terms such as 'handicap,' 'challenged,' or 'disabled,' even 'special,' keep these wonderful, different-abled human beings boxed inside compartments, separated from the rest of ('normal') society.  The ones who have what is perceived as a greater capacity to learn, interact, and include, use that capacity in creative ways to exclude.  In doing so they de-value this segment of society, hindering their own progress into new levels of rich, elevated life, thereby hindering elevated living for those around them.  That is just the "R" word.