it's an ableist slur that affects
autistic people and other learning disabilities, it's often used as a synonym for "stupid" which implies all
autistic/neurodivergent people are stupid. and no, they're very much not. albert einstein is theorised to be
autistic and many autistic people have average or above average iq. so using it as a synonym for "stupid" shows off just how uneducated those kinds of people really are! it used to be a medical term, but it has never been used in a positive way, this is the kind of slur that should not be reclaimed. (yes, i shouldn't be reclaiming it either, but i'm only making this since all the other definitions for this are so terrible and it hurts my autistic soul to
read them.)
i'm using retard for educational purposes only, as much as it is good to
spread this information around it sucks that i also have to
say the word for people to
understand this