sdandrea1 Feels like the rabbit hole is enveloping us now...
In that context, I don't think many would be offended unless they did not know the word in that context. I think, phonetically, it even sounds different. The emphasis when "retard" is used as a verb is on the second syllable, and it sounds like rih-TARD. When the word is used as an offensive noun, it's usually RE-tard in my experience.
And given its common use over the last 25 years, in my experience, the noun/adjective/adverb is exclusively deragatory. "That's retarded," suggests whatever "that" is, is really bad and undesirable, or so stupid that only someone with compromised brain function would do it.
At this point, if you said "Jesse is a retard," people would probably think you were saying Jesse is a stupid, detestable person. But parents of special needs children (actual retards by original definition, I think?) would likely find the suggestion that their child is inherently detestable, or used as a way to illustrate how dumb someone else is, very hurtful.
The word "retard" itself was not offensive, it's just sound, but culture made it so. The syllables that compromise "nigger" aren't inherently evil either, but bad people used those syllables to devalue and cut down a group of other people for a long time, and turned it into something bad. "Nigger-rigged," for example, is a faulty, lousy repair that can't be counted on.
One might even say that letting someone "nigger-rig" your vehicle would be "retarded."
"Owner" isn't in the same universe as these terms, but I understand how a team of black players, who can often be TRADED at will by white owners to other white owners, would find the notion of referring to their white boss as their "owner" could feel... Not great.
I think the incident between Kyle Lowry and the minority owner (wow, what a term in this context!) of the warriors in the finals was real bad, too. Lowry falls into the crowd, this rich old white guy goes out of his way to push Lowry, Lowry is surprised and upset about it, the guy tells Lowry, "go fuck yourself."
Yikes. That's treating someone like property, for sure. The farther we can get away from any reference to people owning other people, the better, right?