So I was spreading my last story around to some forums that were primarily populated by people who saw Liza Long's post and ongoing media tour are "acts of courage." Every forum needs a few dissenting voices after all. I was surprised to get a such a rather scathing reaction. The forum is made up of whose leanings are "left of center" shall we say?
One of the posters said that I should just ignore the fact that this kid is having his darkest secrets aired on NBC without his consent because "it's not my decision" or right to criticize. Historically, this has been the exact same justification used by basically every child abuser. So I was a tad surprised to hear it coming from him.
| And in a technical sense he is right. However, it is my decision to stand up and show people that there's difference between "courage" and "dangerous recklessness." She wants to have the discussion on a lack of mental health services in this country. I say great! Let's have it. Just not at the expense of another, and say it with me now, human being. And I will now contribute my bit to the discussion. One of the biggest problems in this country is that in the public sphere we see the disabled, of all types and ages, as primarily extensions of their parents/guardians. Baggage. As a society, we're more concerned for families of people with disabilities than we are for those with disabilities themselves. Liza Long is just another example. Whenever some parent steps forward with their disabled child's private and very personal struggles, we get so focused on the parent's struggles that we conspicuously ignore that there's another person here who probably didn't want the notoriety they receive. Especially the kind that could be rather negative. I very much doubt the younger Long wanted the world to see his picture on a blog wherein he is compared to a guy who gunned down 27 people as well as every other person who went on a murder rampage in the last 16 years. And we reflexively call any attempt to bring up said fact an "attack" on the message. Even though it isn't. No one who is criticizing Long is attacking her message. We're calling into question the wisdom of using another person's photos and personal info to make the case. And we're attacked. Here's a question: In all of the press coverage that’s transpired on mental illness and violence the past few days, how many people with mental health diagnoses have we heard from? Outside of the disabilities corner of the blogosphere, zip. In her media tour, have we heard from the other Long? Nope. And I very much doubt it will get any better. Not when disclosing very sensitive (and easily dangerous in the wrong hands) information of people with disabilities on Huffington Post is seen as an act of "courage." I'm going to be blunt. As a society (note that phrase before hitting the comment section), we don't like acknowledging the fact that people, especially children, with disabilities are people. Just look at all the sheer hate for IDEA, the ADA and EEOC. As a society, we don't like people with disabilities and we don't like hearing their views (especially when it concerns what society is doing wrong). Sure we're much more polite about it. All the same, hearing someone say something like "that kid with autism is a person, not a cross to bear on TV," tends to bring negative reactions. We don't like it because disability makes us feel very uncomfortable for two reasons. 1. Disability doesn't discriminate. You can be a WASP in a gated community and you could still become disabled. Every able bodied person is one freak accident away from blindness, one car crash away from using a wheelchair, and one severe concussion away from a brain disorder of some type. A rich man is just as likely to have a kid with autism as a poor man. A white mom could have a doctor make a mistake that gives her newborn cerebral palsy just as easily as a black mom can. The sheer randomness of it makes us cringe so we don't like to think about it. 2. Acknowledging people with disabilities as people rather than extensions of their guardians, reminds them of the impact their decisions on the political or personal levels have. A mom violating her autistic son's privacy on a global scale, people with developmental issues being subject to violent electroshock therapies, people with trauma or emotional disturbances being kidnapped in the middle of the night and dragged out to a "school" in the wilderness run by a sociopath who pretends he was in a military, are all very easy pills to swallow when it happens to someone with the same legal status as a lawn chair. And when people such as myself, or any of these guys: http://www.disabilityandrepresentation.com/2012/12/16/no-you-are-not-adam-lanzas-mother/ http://mypoorgeneration.wordpress.com/ point out that this is a person that this stuff is happening to, we're told we're being insensitive to the parent's struggle or how it's their "right" and how we should just "deal with it." Note that it's all about the parent/guardian in these debates. They are simply too wrapped up in their "courage" or "struggle" to acknowledge that there is another person in these situations who might not like what happens and rightly so. Someone has to acknowledge it. Now, more than any other time in history, we need to acknowledge that people of any age with disabilities, be they physical, developmental, or psychiatric, are people. Not just property or some mother's cross to bear on NBC. Doing so would improve the mental health dialogue in this country and it might just help more than a few people who have disabilities to know that our society sees them as people rather than baggage. |
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