I thought we'd banished the R-word. Then came Musk and the followers of Trump.
Using the R-word is vulgar, hateful and immature behavior. It must stop.
It would have been about 57 years ago. I was a first grader at Madison Elementary School in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. My mom would drop me off in the summer at Lindsay Park, just off Congress Avenue to play in the wading pool. There was an older boy in the pool, probably in eighth grade, who had Down syndrome. There was also a group of older boys on bikes hanging around the fence surrounding the pool.
At some point the kids on bikes began jeering at the boy with Down syndrome, laughing and yelling "retard" over and over. The boy in the pool laughed, too, as the group continued chanting the slur.
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I don't know when, but he eventually got out of the pool and joined the older kids who were now off their bikes.
Then there was a lot of commotion. It seemed like everyone jumped out of the pool at the same time and swarmed the group as the boys kept cheering as they lead the boy with Down syndrome into the bathroom.
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Everyone followed, like a mob caught up in the moment. It seemed like something exciting was going to happen. Then a couple of the kids grabbed the boy and forced his head into one of those big, stinky, county park toilets while another boy flushed the toilet, giving the young man a "swirly."
When he was lifted out of the toilet bowl with his wet head and water running down his cheeks, he laughed. Because the whole group was laughing. Yup, everyone.
That day and those images have haunted me for the last 57 years.
Today, I am the proud father of a very talented son with Down syndrome. I thought as a culture we had banished the R-word and begun welcoming everyone with special needs and disabilities into our lives with open arms and minds. Then came Elon Musk and the followers of Donald Trump.
They think it's cool and anti-woke to throw around the R-word to virtue signal their unwillingness to follow the norms of a polite and empathetic society.
Their actions are already picking up steam as more and more folks and conservative media types are using the R-word. Just because they heard Musk use it, they think it's OK and must be cool to not be 'politically correct."
I'm afraid these celebrities, insensitive fools and keyboard rage posters are going to bring us back to a time when playground bullies felt empowered to use the R-word and act like young mobsters, giving swirlies and hinder-binders to the kids with disabilities. And the herd mentality will take over as other kids join in to become accessories to the cruelty.
All while everyone laughs.
That's not who we are, and we need to stop it right now. The R-word is never acceptable. Period.
Craig Peterson is the CEO of Wisconsin's oldest independent public relations firm, Zigman Joseph & Associates in Milwaukee. Peterson has been professionally involved in Republican politics for over 40 years and lives in River Hills. This column originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Musk's R-word use isn't 'politically incorrect.' It's cruel | Opinion
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