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
ElaineM,
Above you go after Enoch because, as I understand you (it was a short comment), he says twice if you criticize her then the search for sinners must not stop with her but contuinue with yourself, family, friends, etc.
While a bit awkward to handle, it is a correct way to judge. But one subject at a time, you and I say. But what he claims to note (I believe) is that we never pursue the others guilty of the same issue.
I’m personnaly sure that we do, but refrain from it within the JT family for reasons I won’t discuss now.
He agains abandons reality and pursues the ideal. Uselessly.
You and I don’t disagree as much as we have a different view on him. I’d like to know on what basis you condemn him visavis his comments on Coulter.
BTW. There was a sequel with Bill Clintor showing how things are, and not how the conservatives lie that they are on FAUX news interview—-on the sequelae offerings after your video of Coulter on “widow complaints after 9/11”. Enjoy it. Great.
Coulter should never have called Obama a retard for a number of reasons. My issue is that there is way too much sensitivity and wussiness out there. How about the “sticks and stones” attitude making a resurgence? If Coulter wants to insult the President then she is no different than some of the regulars on this blog that hurl hurtful invectives against those whom they disagree with. If someone calls you an azzhole then say “back to you and even more” and end it there. Did Coulter call the Pres a retard because she thinks he has Down’s? No, she must have thought the word has a large insult quotient to hurt. A power word if you will. Give it less power and ignore it. Prof Turley recently declared the “end of free speech”. So why the outrage over this? A bit duplicitous don’t you think? If Mr. Stephens reacts badly towards this word he must identify with this word. He doesn’t, so what’s the big deal? If someone calls me a retard I ignore it. The power is neutralized. Nigger doesn’t mean so much to blacks because they call each other that. It’s the mean intention of those using it as an insult that is the rub. Irish don’t care about being called a Mick or potato xx, or similar. They don’t give a crapl If one is called a Viking is that so bad? Maybe it should be. Vikings made their name not by spreading peace eathru the world. They were great at the rape, pillage and plunder of many peoples … including the Irish. Yet hundreds of schools and colleges name the Vikings as their team name. Really? Do those schools support the rape of women and the murder of their rivals?
So buck up. Stop behaving as a victim when someone acts like an idiot. OOPS … I didn’t mean to be insulting and hateful to those who are not as smart (or process info more slowly) as most of you regulars.
There’s a lot of mean and nasty in the world right now, thank G*d there is also a lot of John Franklin Stephens…….
Mr. Stephens’ response to Ann Coulter is powerful criticism without being mean.
Ms. Coulter could learn a lot from him.
Here’s a Randy to all you Ann Coulter want to B’s.
>> Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See
>> if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.
Well written and wise words, Stephens, but you wasted your time.
Coulter and her ilk would lock you and others behind walls and sterilize you. It would make the “Lost Children” of Romania look like a positive thing.
Odd that people insisted that ‘shock jocks’ like Howard Stern be banned from public radio for using swear words….but real riders of the ‘shock’ wave of outrage and making money using ordinary words in an utterly profane, obscene manner…like Ann Coulter get away with it.
The Republicans like a “circus” such as she provides. But America should keep in mind they have no intention of serving up the “bread” that should go with it to keep the ever poorer masses subdued.
Ann better STAY skinny, otherwise, when the time comes to ‘eat the rich’….she will find out what happens to unwanted circus animals in hard times.
FYI: My comments are being edited by the NH attorney Jeanne M. Kincaid
How do you respond to the eloquency of Mr. John Franklin Stephens? There is so much I can say, but still I cannot match his articualte and refined words of wisdom.`
“No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.”
Ofcourse the Coulters, and the Justices (ON THE U.S SUPREME COURT) who give lip service to the Special Education statues they pretend to buy…i.e. the Winkleman Decision (and we know it is ONLY LIP SERVICE) because when mothers like me go after their rights, these guys (and gals) provide The Cover of destruction and nightmare: The porn and death-threats, jail-time and illegal removal of the child so that a School District attorney can be triumphant at the child and parent’s expense!
GOD IS WATCHING. AND HE WATCHES AS YOU QUIETLY SEND THE MURDERER TO KILL THE MOTHER …UNDER COVER TO THE NH STATE ATTORNEY!
The child that the parent (me) had hopes to over-come the in-born obstacles thus OVERCOMING! let’s hear the words again!
“No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.”
Unfortunately, the parents of Massachusetts (the USA….all 50 states) are not aware that they are not only fighting the School Districts, but they are fighting federal Judges and Justices on the Supreme Court who say one thing, and do another!
They are totally unaware of the vast hypocrisy and how they are made pawns: How they are set-up and mocked and scorned:
How the Special Education statues and the U.S. Constitution no longer means a thing! But God is watching!
The u.s judicial system is one of utter chaos and lawlessness!
“She is a cartoon that plays a buffoon, while dancing with spite in heels.
Saying her say suffers her soul, to be mired in multiple weals”.
Technically and honestly this is sad. One can not promote bitterness and spite without also welcoming it inside. Doing it for profit is an even deeper self flagellation.
Bitterness and Spite,.. Only its Owner Truly Bites.
“She combines sex and politics – a powerful aphrodisiac for the frustrated conservative crowd who feign propriety in public but lust in private. She’s Sarah Palin with a vocabulary!”
Mespo,
I don’t doubt the truth of this, but I note that in my single days I went to bed with many beautiful women, sometimes sadly due to the urgent call of lust, rather than reason. My attraction to women has always been their faces and what they showed. I can categorically state that both women’s faces betray a rather nasty quality that I’ve never found appealing, nor stimulating. From my psychotherapeutic knowledge I’ve always felt that men attracted to either of them basically were those “Alpha Males”, who in private dreamed of being dominated by a woman in NAZI regalia. 🙂
“To expiate the pain of losing her firstborn son in the Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush’s Crawford ranch, … It’s the strangest method of grieving I’ve seen since Paul Wellstone’s funeral. Someone needs to teach these liberals how to mourn.” -Ann Coulter
“No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.” -John Franklin Stephens
“It is truly strange how the defense of civil liberties has become a liberal proposition in so many minds.”
It truly does make one wonder what Eisenhower would think of it all, Mike. It should give those on the right with a conscience serious pause about the direction of their alleged leadership.
This is the link to ABC story on Emanuel apology: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/02/rahm-apologizes-for-privately-calling-liberal-activists-retarded/
Can you give out any links where Coulter has apologized, for anything, she has said?
That is the difference. Brooklyn Bridge Coulter used it again In September, after Obama made a video about disability issues, Coulter tweeted, “I had no idea how crucial the retarded vote is in this election
(Is this a republican ideology: In August, GOP official Jim Roddey told a bad joke at an election victory party that referred to Obama supporters as being “mentally retarded.”)
It is despicable that these terms are used as joke material and are bad excuses for political discourse. As public figures, Coulter and Roddey, or anyone who posts or says every harmful epithet that comes to their mind should know better — and we as a society should hold them accountable for their mishaps.
http://www.usforacle.com/poor-word-choice-offensive-and-disrespectful-1.2782814
First, congratulations on a rebuke well done by Mr. Stephens.
Second, what mespo and OS said. Coulter is a sociopathic sideshow barker.
Third, for the whiners, one cannot build a house without cutting timber. If you want a circle of people singing Cumbaya and lavishing each other with unmerited praise just so as to not “hurt their feelings” I suggest you don’t want free speech at all. It’s messy and contentious by nature. If your ideas and statements are meritorious based on content, they will withstand critical scrutiny. If not, rest assured that those who do stand for free speech and understand not just the right but the consequences of it will continue to stand by your right to say whatever you please all the while exercising our right to free speech in challenging what you say by any means we please up to and including deconstruction. If that presents a problem for you, that’s your problem. Free speech is a big pants game. Wear ’em or accept that you’re perpetually going to be offended.
“Jews just laugh and think it’s a bunch of hooey.”
Enoch,
You presume to know what all Jews think. I’m a Jew and I don’t think it is funny at all, I find it disturbing. The stereotyping of Jewish thought as monolithic, as even some Jews do, is in itself a sign of lack of knowledge and bigotry.
Beyond that though, once again you stray from the point made in a blog post in a manner that is easily understood as obfuscation. What do you thing of Coulter’s remark? What do you think of this man’s reply?
I personally think the remark was reprehensible and the man’s comment brilliant and heartfelt. I await your opinion.
I suggest that it is perhaps your lack of response to the issues at hand on three threads that I know of, is the reason that I and others here attacked you. Are you really unable to see your own contribution to these attacks, or is it merely another mistaken case of: “Let’s stir up them Libruls”. Part of the reason I admittedly first attacked you here was that we’ve had through the years repeated instance of people beginning to comment here with the assumption that this is a “liberal” blog-site. It isn’t and never has been. For some though, not familiar with the range of Professor Turley’s critiques of people from all sides of the political spectrum, they see the defense of civil liberties in the majority of his posts and assume that is liberal. It is truly strange how the defense of civil liberties has become a liberal proposition in so many minds.
I looked at those videos above of the Coulter thing and my first comment is that they could lose the face shots and just show the legs. As for the name calling. Please Google : The Southern Strategy and Lee Atwater. You will se the story behind the new republiCon revolution under Nixon and Raygun, which was to appeal to the bigots amongst us and within us. You dont have to use the N word three times anymore, Lee Atwater advised. No use other words and characterize the Democrats as welfare cheats etc. Retard is just another word, with nothing much to lose. The kid did well with his letter. For now on though I refer to the leg lady as “Ann Retard Coulter”
How do you respond to the eloquency of Mr. John Franklin Stephens? There is so much I can say, but still I cannot match his articualte and refined words of wisdom.`
“No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.”
Ofcourse the Coulters, and the Justices (ON THE U.S SUPREME COURT) who give lip service to the Special Education statues they pretend to buy…i.e. the Winkleman Decision (and we know it is ONLY LIP SERVICE) because when mothers like me go after their rights, these guys (and gals) provide The Cover of destruction and nightmare: The porn and death-threats, jail-time and illegal removal of the child so that a School District attorney can be triumphant at the child and parent’s expense!
GOD IS WATCHING. AND HE WATCHES AS YOU QUIETLY SEND THE MURDERER TO KILL THE MOTHER …UNDER COVER TO THE NH STATE ATTORNEY!
The child that the parent (me) had hopes to over-come the in-born obstacles thus OVERCOMING! let’s hear the words again!
“No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/10/25/2012-voters-the-deepest-racial-split-since-88/ The deepest racial split since 1988…… I voted for Dukakis too. He was severely demonized by the repubs.