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I recently heard about Ann Coulter’s tweet calling the President a retard:
I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) October 23, 2012
While this personally pisses me off … She has every American privilege & right to say what she wanted to say.
HOWEVER – by comparing anyone to a mentally handicapped person really isn’t funny guys.
And I was so happy to see this open letter response from a Special Olympics athlete – 30 year old John Franklin Stephens, that I just had to share it!
Now, I did a reading of it because I didn’t want the Google gods to say I was copywriting the original post (which can be found here) … and because I wanted you to see this letter as well.
So here is the transcript of everything in the video EXCEPT the original letter (which you can see in the video).
Enjoy?
Transcript
Hey guys! This is Kassandra with ProsperousHeart.com and so the subject today was Ann Coulter’s message on Twitter a few years ago that I, apparently, just recently learned about where she approved of “Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard” in reference to President Obama.
Now, I found a post on Facebook that illustrated this open letter from John Franklin Stephens – a 30 year old (at the time) Special Olympics athlete and I just love it SO much I really wanted to share it with you guys.
I really didn’t think that just putting it in print would do it justice? So I wanted to speak aloud as to how (in my head) I would imagine John Franklin Stephens’ voice [inflections] to sound as if he were to say this to Ann Coulter.
Of course, now this gentleman does have Down Syndrome so I’m not sure exactly what his speech patterns would be like, but this is how I hear him in my head right now.
Again, I just absolutely LOVE his open letter to her. This is absolutely incredible and it’s TRUE!
I have met a few people who are not seen as “normal” right? And they have opportunities that they have to overcome that most people don’t have to.
But they are some of the most LOVING people! They are incredible, they’re strong, they’re eager to take on life with what they have and do the best that they can with what they’ve got!
They ARE, truly, people who can inspire others … They have a passion for life & they are just incredible people – every single one that I’ve ever met, I’ll just be real honest here.
So guys – this is several years old so no need to start another backlash war ..
But seriously.
We as a society need to stop using that word in regards to someone else. Just because what we think that they are doing is stupid (or whatever the case may be) — calling someone a retard because of that, because you don’t agree with what they’re fdoing, because you think they’re being stupid or that they’re slow or mentally challenged?
That’s not acceptable guys! It’s just not.
So I’m not going to go on a rant any much longer than that. It’s not worth the time, honestly for me to get angry over.
This happened. It was several years ago.
I just wanted to share this with you guys to maybe bring some awareness to your word choices – to be aware of what you are speaking.
Words are powerful, guys!
Whatever words you use you can either speak life or you can speak death over someone.
Now, that is totally another post for another time – I just wanted to share this with you guys out of love because this man right here – John Franklin Stephens?
Oh my gosh I have so much respect for this gentleman.
I personally have not seen the Special Olympics yet. But I’ve heard about them, I’ve supported them as long as I’ve known about them.
I think they’re great!
If you get the chance, I think you should go or at least watch it and see these people! They’re amazing, they’re incredible, they’re just wonderful people.
So, that’s it from me for now. Again, this is Kassandra with ProsperousHeart.com and I hope you have a wonderful and thoughtful rest of your day!
