Below is a powerful response from a man with Down’s Syndrome to Ann Coulter who recently called President Barack Obama a “retard.” He is Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens. He is also the antidote to today’s hateful political discourse.
Dear Ann Coulter,
Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?
I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.
I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.
Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.
Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.
Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.
After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.
I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.
Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.
No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.
Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.
A friend you haven’t made yet,
John Franklin Stephens
Global Messenger
Special Olympics Virginia
Obama hater Donald Trump’s big announcement certainly was a flop yesterday.
Coulter is the political pundit equivalent of P.T.Barnum. She has a following of sorts, gets a lot of air time, makes outrageous statements, sells some books and laughs all the way to the bank. She does not care who she steps on or hurts in the process as long as she profits from it. Not unexpected for a sociopath.
Keep it in context.
Who among us has never used the lord’s name in vein? Who has never cast a stone or uttered a hateful remark?
Not all insults are the same. A public figure such as Coulter has a greater responsibility than the private one when she uses such expressions of hatred to sway millions. A president has a vastly greater responsibility still.
And facts should not be ignored simply because it is election time.
I think John Franklin Stephens qualifies for the Grace Under Pressure Award. Bravo. Defanging the shrew takes guts indeed.
Frankly, The people from Wasilla were enjoying their racial slurs yesterday……..
BTW – I can hardly wait for news of Ms. Coulter’s slur to reach Wasilla Alaska! That one time a Dem used the word ‘retard’ Mrs. Palin went on a week long publicity tour to decry the insensitivity of it all and how it was a personal insult to her and her family.
It is amazing that the ones usually doing the name calling….. Never see themselves as wrong….. They just jump on the bandwagon with more…… I read somewhere something that went like this…. I’d rather be alone and happy than be with you…..the young man speaks many truths….
enoch – lets pretend I buy your argument that people here are as bad a mAnn Coulter (I would certainly plead guilty with an explanation to that charge in part).
How would you compare me who is a nobody, that nobody listens to anyway, commenting on a blog read by a few hundreds (perhaps a couple of thousand) people to a media circus like her? She is a regular on FAUX news and NBCs Today show, she has books published (albeit by a wingnut vanity press who then buys cartons of their own creation to get it up onto the NYT list) and is popular with large segments of low-information citizens. There is no comparison so please don’t try to pretend that there is.
As for my own guilt I will say this in my defense, I do not bully people smaller than myself, I will gladly berate, disrespect and mock people with power or status above my own. mAnn cannot make the same claim.
I’ll also note one other difference – I have never committed voter fraud by voting illegally. Ms. Coulter has even admitted she has.
“Point of hate mongering is to assure the haters, who hate all pols but Obama the most, go to the polls nov 6 instead of kicking the dog.” Favorite tweet from yesterday by Jonathon Alter
Swarthmore mom – This is a Christian tenet: that the “new” covenant supersedes the “old,” and that Jews – the “firstborn” heirs to the “promise,” so to speak – must be reconciled to (perfected by) the “new” covenant to be restored to their primogeniture.
Jews just laugh and think it’s a bunch of hooey.
Brooklin Bridge – Wow. Then again, since when has politics ever been principled and symmetrical?
The cancerous Ann Coulter is not the only one to whom this lucid soul should be extending tolerant wisdom. It’s a fact and therefore only fair to recall that Rahm Emanuel had a similar term, used just as hatefully, to describe Obama’s more liberal followers who felt betrayed at Obama’s secret negotiations with the insurance giants to get rid of the public option so as to eliminate the last significant government price control over the cost of “forced” health insurance; the term Emanuel used was ”f**king retards”. The intent of belittlement and the gross ignorance of the underlying reality regarding the “butt” of his comparison was exactly the same. The only difference is that while Emanuel knew his “message” would ultimately be received by those he intended to smear (liberals), he was if anything, even more sneaky than Coulter in the way he delivered it. NOR –and this is important, – NOR did Obama object to Rahm’s smear either publicly or privately through the same underhanded method of rumors and leaks, and in this omission of which he had to be conscious he joined Emanuel in both intent and character. Indeed, Obama went on to craft his own insults for those who fought hardest for his election, even though the insults had to be more high handed as he delivered them in public and Obama’s courage, like many who have preceded him, is at its greatest when he is well hidden, protected by the millions of enlisted children of those he impoverishes, thousands of miles away virtually or in fact, from the people he controls or insults or – and this, in a Democracy, is unique to Obama since the Magna Carta – from those he assassinates with no judicial review.
“Ayn Rand / Ann Coulter … same difference.”
Neither true nor fair, Dredd. Rand is wrong enough on real issues to have to invent charges against her she doesn’t deserve – such as the merits of her “objectivism,” and her notion that charity for its own sake is indefensible.
Carol – “I have no problem criticizing Coulter. She’s the one with nothing positive to say.” Perhaps…but she’s not the only one with “nothing positive to say”.
All I was getting at is that, if one criticizes Coulter only, and because she’s Coulter, that one is no better than Coulter, herself. For the criticism to have teeth (in my view), the criticism has to go to the meanness of her comments, and no others who may be mean-spirited, as well, should be exempt from our criticism.
So, have at her! Criticize your heart away. But to have merit (again, in my view), you must be just as willing to criticize anyone else whose comments are not courteous, considerate of others and even charitable.
“I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.
…
Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.”
Ayn Rand / Ann Coulter … same difference.
I have no problem criticizing Coulter. She’s the one with nothing positive to say. She’s the one who makes stuff up just to get publicity. She is the one who doesn’t care who gets hurt as she enjoys being nasty to people.
As for her having a change of heart…Get real. You have to have a heart first in order to change it. Coulters’ heart has so many layers of hate and spite surrounding it a nuke couldn’t penatrate it.
She is a nasty nasty woman who deserves no consideration.
“It is hard to understand how a person like Ms. Coulter gets air time and she gets a lot of air time.”
Justice Holmes, I think this is the first of your comments I’ve read, so please don’t believe what I have to say refers in any way to you. You do, however, raise a question that is as easily asked of some people posting here as of Ann Coulter.
Read the posts of your fellows here, and see how many comments there are that make no pretense of positive contribution, but exist solely to tear down. John’s comments are a rebuke to anyone who “races from one snarkey [comment] to the next,” just for the amusement it affords them – or to achieve a completely unjustifiable sense of superiority, take your pick.
It is hardly becoming to criticize Ann Coulter if we are not willing to criticize ourselves, too.
It is hard to understand how a person like Ms. Coulter gets air time and she gets a lot of air time. She also gets book contracts and paid speaking engagements, many before organizations who claim to be Christian “values” voters. No one will change Ms. Coulter but reading the eloquent response of Mr. Stephens will hopefully have an impact on some of her audience. Thank you Mr. Stephens.
Someone got a good spanking!!