Washington, DC - The Arc of the United States was invited to attend a meeting at the White House to discuss the recent controversy surrounding the Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel’s inappropriate use of the r-word as noted in a previous article posted on our website. Peter V. Berns, Chief Executive Officer, of The Arc will attended along with other disability advocates and self-advocates, including: Andy Imparato, American Association of People with Disabilities; Hannah Jacobs, parent; Julie Petty, self-advocate; Tim Shriver, Special Olympics; and Ricardo Thornton, self-advocate. As a result of the meeting, a joint statement was released by the named participants. The statement is posted in its entirety below:

Joint Statement of Disability Leaders 

We came here today (Feb. 3, 2010) to meet with Rahm Emanuel and share with him our view on the importance and impact of language. We wanted to invite Mr. Emanuel and all of America to understand the collective efforts of our community to remove the words "retard" and "retarded" from everyday speech.

We are happy that he will join more than 54,000 other Americans in pledging to end the use of the R-word at www.r-word.org, and that he committed that the administration would continue to look for ways to partner with us, including examining pending legislation in Congress to remove the R-word from federal law.

Our community has earned the right to be respected instead of ridiculed. We have suffered injustice for generations and we are demanding that it end.

This is another small step on the road to a country that accepts the gifts of all."

Julie Petty, Ricardo Thornton, Hannah Jacobs, Andy Imparato, Peter Berns, Tim Shriver