Rhetorical Analysis of "Spread the Word to End the Word" Blog

Rhetorical Situations of my blog "Spreading the Word to End the Word."

The context of this blog is very simple, its persuading people to simply just stop using a very derogatory word the disrespects and continually make the struggle for people with mental and physical disabilities even harder to have a normal life. People really need to look at their abilities and not their disabilities. When they were originally introduced, the terms “mental retardation” or “mentally retarded” were medical terms with a specifically clinical connotation; however, the pejorative forms, “retard” and “retarded” have been used widely in today’s society to degrade and insult people with intellectual disabilities. Additionally, when “retard” and “retarded” are used as synonyms for “dumb” or “stupid” by people without disabilities, it only reinforces painful stereotypes of people with intellectual disabilities being less valued members of humanity. 

The audience of this text, or blog isn't really defined as a specific audience as you could relate to in a normal rhetorical situation, but its directed and related to anybody that is uninformed or who blatantly use the r-word as a derogatory mark.

Below, is a little history of how all this campaign started, and in a rhetorical situation analysis this could be used as who is the writer, their background, what they are trying to write, and the social allegiances.

"2004
In response to Special Olympics athletes’ call for change, the Special Olympics International Board of Directors adopts a resolution to update the movement’s terminology from “mental retardation” to “intellectual disabilities.”

2008
Special Olympics launches the website www.r-word.org to combat the inappropriate use of the R-word in common usage.

August 14, 2008
Special Olympics, along with a coalition of national disability organizations, mobilizes a grass-roots campaign against "Tropic Thunder," a DreamWorks production. Special Olympics athletes joined protestors at demonstrations in Los Angeles, California, Washington D.C., New York City, Delaware, Massachusetts, Missouri and Texas. "Tropic Thunder," marketed as a satire about Hollywood actors and the movie industry in general, contains scenes promoting the idea that a "retard" is funny." ~ Retained from the website."

The writers(R-word campaigners) tone isn't to be being disrespectful of people not knowing the correct way to attribute an illness with somebody with a disability or even to people that unknowing use the r-word in a derogatory mark, but its more an an informative way to express knowledge to "any audience" that use the r-word. This is a strong movement in not allowing people to dehumanize people with verbal language of stupidity.