Using the ‘R’-word is vulgar , hateful and immature behavior . It must stop .
It would have been about 57 years ago. I was a first-grader at Madison Elementary School in Wauwatosa. My mom would drop me off in the summer at Lindsay Park, just off Congress Avenue to play in the wading pool. There was an older boy in the pool, probably in eighth grade, who had Down syndrome. There was also a group of older boys on bikes hanging around the fence surrounding the pool.
At some point the kids on bikes began jeering at the boy with Down syndrome, laughing and yelling “retard” over and over. The boy in the pool laughed too as the group continued chanting the slur.
What happened at Wauwatosa wading pool haunts me to this day
I don’t know when, but he eventually got out of the pool and joined the older kids who were now off their bikes. Then there was a lot of commotion. It seemed like everyone jumped out of the pool at the same time and swarmed the group as the boys kept cheering as they lead the boy with Down syndrome into the bathroom…