Lauren Potter, the actress with down syndrome who plays Becky Jackson on Glee, sat down for an interview with Entertainment Tonight where she talked about her new boyfriend and how she wants everyone to stop using the R-Word.
She sat down with Entertainment Tonight to dish about what it’s like being hounded for autographs and “pursued” by boys. Although she looks the part of her underclassman character, Potter is actually 20-years-old. But one thing Potter isn’t gushing about? The use of the R-word about which she forcefully says, “enough is enough.” Potter is urging Gleeks to sign a pledge and kick the R-word from their vocabularies. SOURCE
I’ve worked with people who have down syndrome in the past and honestly, while most people do treat them with the respect they deserve, it really does suck how people just throw around the term “retard” whenever they want to describe something stupid. Although I get it: Like “fag”, a lot of good, open-minded people use it not because they hate anyone in particular, but because it’s a word that’s just so ingratiated into society. So maybe we can do to the R-word the same thing South Park did to fag: Re-appropriate it in a way that makes it mean something else. Hey, if they can change fag to mean “Douchebag Harley riders who ruin everyone’s good times,” they can do it for “retard”.