look yall, i don't really think this is hard. there are certain hard slurs that are going to get you the old suspension. everyone knows these. one of them: faggot, did not used to be bannable. as a matter of fact, i used it up until about 15 years ago (? somewhere around there? i dunno, i'm getting old) myself to express extreme displeasure at a person while driving. i rationalized it, of course, by saying things like "i don't mean that person is gay" or "i don't mean that being gay makes one a fucking terrible dumbass on the road" but the truth of it was i was using a hateful word in a hateful way. i had too many gay friends in my life to be doing such an immature thing. so i made a conscious decision to stop saying it. recently, i've made more conscious decisions to be more careful about gender language, like using the words bitch and the like. not everyone needs to do that, and i'm not trying to fish for compliments because fuck you, but it's a thing i'm working on.
i think "retarded" is such a word. i used it for years and years, up until recently, even. probably less than a decade ago i stopped. why? because i knew too many other parents with developmentally different kids.
it was the exposure and the personal connections that changed how i thought about that stuff. my dad was a racist with the known "good guys" caveat. he didn't mean nigger to mean all black people. just all the black people except the known good ones. and fuck the rest if they couldn't take a joke. that was his mindset.
that is not a healthy mindset. it's okay to change.
you don't have to resist all change. change can be good. you'll feel better if you stop using the word retard. i can't explain it, but it's true. i feel better trying not to say things like "stop being a little bitch." i don't always succeed, but i'm trying to be better.
and i think that's worth effort, being a little bit better each day, if we can. if someone tells you that you've offended them, you can immediately do one of two things: 1) tell them to go fuck themselves you'll say what you want, which is okay, or 2) think about it for a minute, take the person at face value that they are offended, and say "ok, sorry about that, i didn't know that was offensive, i won't use that word for that again." the first costs a ton of emotional energy, the second costs a little tiny bit of effort and no other real energy other than trying to be more mindful of people around you. THE HORROR.