Tag Archives | society

How to go beyond prejudice and hate

By on June 14, 2013 in Autism

There are times when my faith in humanity is restored, as rare as they are, when someone might go out of their way to help someone they don’t know or when someone goes above and beyond to help charities or groups. Those are nice moments and I celebrate them. But it also saddens me because it also means two things: 1) my faith in humanity is lost most of the time and 2) I am celebrating what should be considered the average thing for people to do.

In this last week, I’ve had no reason to celebrate and my faith in humanity lowered even more, which I did not think possible.

First was a Cheerios commercial with a child pranking her father by putting cereal all over him while he was sleeping. Innocent enough and made for a funny cereal commercial. However, it sparked an uproar as many many haters came out from their shadows (often times very public political and journalistic shadows) to have their say in how evil this commercial was for the simple reason that the family in the commercial was of mixed race. Which I personally do not understand as ever person in it was clearly of the human race, but I digress.

Here is the commercial:

Cute right? If you hate it, feel free to not comment. No one wants to hear from you.

Next, we have an 11 year old child with more talent than most of us will ever dream of having, singing the national anthem at a basketball game. Now this kid, he didn’t just do well for an 11 year old, he did better than most adults I see attempting to do the same thing. And I say “attempting to do the same thing” because after this kid’s performance, I am reluctant to call what those other people did as singing the national anthem. He’s just that good.

His name is Sebastien De La Cruz and if his name doesn’t give enough reason to figure out where the hate originated with this one, perhaps the video will. Before you watch though, understand this… this child is American. And he’s awesome.

His crime, according to the haters? Not being white enough I guess. They say it’s because he’s from a family of immigrants but that can’t be it since all the people hating are also descended from immigrants. Also, I’d argue that if he was from any country at all anywhere, they wouldn’t have said anything if only he had been a white kid. But hey, let’s call it like it is. This kid is far more talented than they are, he was the one out there, asked to perform and receiving the standing ovation. I am jealous too! It’s just that I don’t use that as an excuse to hate him for anything I and everything I can no matter how petty.

Again, if you disagree with me and think it’s ok to hate this kid, feel free to comment… somewhere else. No one wants to read what you have to say.

Finally, we have the ultimate in hate, murder. Alex Spourdalakis, a teen aged boy with severe autism was bound to his bed in a hospital and eventually murdered by his mother and godmother as they claimed that caring for him was just too difficult. The truth there is that they simply hated him. They hated that he made them work. They hated that he tested them. They resented him.

The story here: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9136005

Now, some people try to say that it’s not the mother’s fault, that parenting is stressful and that having a child like Alex can push you to the extreme… fine. I can agree with that. It can be hard and it can push you. But murder is still murder. Hating someone for making your life difficult is still hate.

Because this child was not the child they had dreamed of, because this child needed more care and a more devoted and caring mother than what she was capable of, they felt it was ok to kill him. I suppose they felt they were doing him a favour, which is clearly a ridiculous notion.

Then, it happened. A knock at my door by a Jehova’s Witness. Who’s lesson he was attempting to share was that hate and prejudice are everywhere but that God is not that way nor did he intend it to be that way. Then, he asked me:

“Do you think people will ever move beyond prejudice and hate? Do you think God is prejudiced?”

I stood there, debating in my mind, whether to slam the door in his face or to let him know what I really think about hate, people and God.

I must have debated longer than I should have because he repeated the question.

I took a big breath and said this:

“No, people will not move beyond prejudice and hate so long as one person is different from another. Should we all eventually develop the same skin colour, we’ll simply find some other reason to hate them. like those with special needs, as an example. We can’t stop the prejudice as it’s something that is a part of us. We see each other for the first time and we instinctively put the pieces together in our minds no matter how hard we try not to. You dress nice, you take care of yourself, you talk to people about good things, you’re clearly a good person. I pre-judged you the moment I opened the door. The thing is, it doesn’t always have to be about hate. I judged you but in a good way. I can respect those that clearly are hard workers, good parents and that do good things even before I get a chance to know them because of my prejudice towards them.

The trick isn’t to stop judging each other but to stop thinking that we always have to do so in a negative way. We have to stop hating people for the differences we don’t approve of and start liking people for the differences we do approve of.

Do I think God is prejudiced? A bit of a trick question if prejudice is to mean “pre-judge before knowing” and God is supposed to know all. But otherwise, of course. But not in a negative way. Everyone is better or worse than someone else at something. To know that, even to assume that as a pre-judgement, is prejudice. To look at a couple in a park that is laughing with their child is to pre-judge them as good parents. They might not be. But it’s a positive prejudice that I might have.

Will we ever move beyond prejudice and hate? No. No we won’t. And right now, society has proven to me that it is anything but an open minded and positive force. But maybe someday. Somehow.”

With that, he closed his bible and said “That’s interesting. I never really thought of it like that”, shook my hand and said goodbye.

Man I hated him for showing up when he did and asking that question. Man I hated people in general and his timing just really enraged me so much.

But the answer that I gave him, it wasn’t what I thought I was going to say at all. As I thought about it after I got back to my desk, I kinda realized that maybe my faith in people isn’t completely lost.

At least, not yet.

humanity_ocean

 

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Autism Fears – Do you share these?

By on April 11, 2013 in Autism

fearAutism awareness, for many, only includes the facts and figures, the stories of heartache and the “struggle” that the media likes to talk about so much. It gives parents so much fear in their hearts that some just outright refuse to have children just to avoid the risk of having a child of their own with autism.

I have my own fears. After years of seeing this “awareness” thing breed more and more fear, I’ve come to develop my own fears as a direct result.

  1. I fear that doctors will continue looking for a prenatal screening method to start giving mothers the option to abort a child just because it has autism. There are already far too many beautiful lives not being lived just because parents decide not to conceive just due to the risk.
  2. I fear that, should my son find someone wonderful to love, and marry and have a life with… that she may fear the thought of having children with him. Autism is genetic after all. The risk is automatically amplified. I’d hate, hate, HATE, for someone to hesitate in giving my son a family of his own because of their own fears.
  3. I fear that, as the ratios get closer and closer to 1 in 2 (they’ll never be that but they’re getting there), one day people may see my son as “one of those people.” Awareness is nice and all but there can be awareness without acceptance. And if that happens, if there becomes a division within society rather than an inclusion, my son may find himself having a tougher battle than I ever had.
    An individual is great. People scare me. And society, thus far, hasn’t given me much reason to think that they can overcome their fears.
  4. I fear more and more people will continue to replace the risks with much bigger risks such as feeding bleach to their children or refusing to vaccinate. People are willing to try anything. And by anything, I mean anything. You can only try “anything” for so long before you start treading into unhealthy territory.

Each April, with the increase in awareness efforts, I worry. My own fears set in. I see people talk about how hard it is. How terrible it is. What the numbers are. What’s worse. What’s not right. What’s not funded. What’s not available. And I see people afraid.

At least once a week, I receive emails from people telling me that they fear the risks. If they already have a child with autism, the doctors tell them the risk increases with another child. If they’re expecting a boy, the risks increase. If they have autism in their family, the risks increase. Risk, risk, risk!!

One day, I fear, the playgrounds will be empty. The classrooms will be vacant. I fear the future.

I used to fear the future anyway, for what it would not do for autistics. Now I fear it for what it might do. If the fear continues to grow.

My child already has the deck stacked against him. I’m afraid to think how much harder it can get by good people thinking they’re doing good things but not recognizing the fear they feed.

Awareness is good. Awareness is necessary. But awareness without education, without explanation, without acceptance… that’s what I fear.

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If 1 in 88 did NOT have autism

By on March 18, 2013 in Autism

Let’s pretend a study just came out that found out that 1 in 88 people did not have autism. What would the media reports look like? What would be some of the early signs and symptoms?

I imagine it would look something like this:

What to look for

  • exhibits a tendency to push cars back and forth rather than perform basic geometry
  • eats everything
  • places blocks with no regard to shape or color
  • babbles incoherently at very early age
  • shows no real interest in any one specific topic, spreading attention all over
  • sleeps for excessively long periods at a time, sometimes 8 hours straight
  • smiles for strangers and has no problems with large crowds

Media reports would include:

  • Epidemic proportions as more and more children are being diagnosed as lacking autism
  • Government ill prepared, provides little funding and lack of services for those without autism
  • Company finds great community support as it has seems to have no problem hiring people without autism
  • Children without autism have trouble fitting in at school, constant disruptive need for socializing leading to lower grades
  • New medication being tested to help children be less “different” than those with autism
  • Brain scans show overload of electrical activity in those without autism
  • Parents insist that insurance covers therapy to help children regain focus and stop being such social seekers

Think about it

If everyone learned what they want to learn, and focused on it, and sacrificed social conventions to indulge their desire to immerse themselves in the fields and subjects they love… those who did not do that would seem quite bizarre. Even, outcasts. Some people would want them medicated.

Just consider, if a class of 30 children had one child that just kept talking while the rest felt a build up of anxiety and unease because of it, that child would be removed and put into a “special” class where they could be with other social seekers.

If a group of 87 people focused so intently on their subject of interest that they became experts in their field, the 1 remaining person that could never decide, that could never focus and could simply never give themselves 100% to one subject… that person would be considered a misfit, a failure and not functional in society.

Another way to look at it

A company seemingly comes out of nowhere actively looking for these “different” people. They need social people that can provide the customer service or sales expertis. And the management have made accommodations for them by setting up social areas for them go that would not disturb other workers. By allowing them breaks and leaves of absence if they really need it since they aren’t as dedicated and focused on their work as everyone else.

That company would be in the news and heralded… a bright light in an otherwise impossible society of ill equipped corporations that neither accommodate nor want anyone that doesn’t fit their mold.

On the internet, there would pictures of people around a water cooler, smiling and talking with inspiring captions about how they just do what they love, no matter what anyone thinks, no matter how much they don’t fit in, because we love them, no matter how society sees them. We’d be asking for people to just accept our children no matter how foreign they seem, no matter how bizarre they may look standing on the street talking away and waving at people for no apparent reason.

Role reversal

love hate reflectionAll of this and it’s only because there is 87 and then there is 1.

But if you are reading this and nodding your head, or any single piece of any of this has you chuckling or thinking “that’s true”, you have to realize that all it took to do that was reversing the numbers.

So let me ask you… what really is the meaning of “normal?”

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The subjective relativity with which we define “normal”

By on April 17, 2012 in Autism

Normal… that peculiar notion of fitting in with those around us. Not with society… but with those around us. In highschool, some people felt it was normal to be with the cool kids, others with the nerds and so on. At work, for me, the designers tend to fit in with other designers more so than programmers and programmers tend to fit in with other programmers better than designers.

For parents, we want our children to be normal in the sense that they feel comfortable fitting in with other children that are good influences. If they tend to fall in with “the wrong crowd”…. then perhaps normal to them is something that we (the parents) won’t be too comfortable with.

For those of us with special needs children, we think of normal in an entirely different context.

Normal is much more abstract than all of that.

Normal is a conflicting array of all that we could ever wish for and the last thing we’d ever want.

not normalWhen our child is born

A funny thing happens when we have a child. I like to call it “their life flashing before your eyes.” They’re born, you flash a glimpse of their entire life… in contrast to when you are dying and you flash a glimpse of your own entire life.

Essentially, we see a fresh new start with limitless possibilities and all of the ways our child’s life can be so much better than our own was.

With that comes a very strong desire for our child to be anything but normal.

We see them standing against the crowd, standing up to bullies, being able to think differently and creatively… all of the wonderful qualities that makes an innovator, trail blazer and leader.

The last thing we want for our child is to be… mediocre… average… normal.

Growing up normal

The whole problem with the dream of bringing a child into the world that will be anything but normal is that we teach them from day one to be exactly that… normal.

Do as your told, eat all your food, say please & thank you, respect your elders and on and on and on… they’re all good things for people to know and do. But without really putting much thought into it, you are setting your child on the path to being normal.

We send our child to day care, school, play dates, the park… all in an effort to make friends like everyone else. To go to birthday parties like everyone else. To just fit in.

Oh, we still want for them to be great… to be smarter than the other kids, to get straight A’s in school and to be the cool kid that others want to hang out with.

But we sort of want them to do it the ‘normal’ way.

Then comes the diagnosis

Chances are, if your child has autism, you knew before the diagnosis that something wasn’t… dare I say it… normal.

But receiving the official word from the doctor is usually the moment that it truly sinks in for us and our notion of just what was and wasn’t normal is completely changed.

It’s pretty much at that point where all of the optimistic dreams of limitless possibilities leave us and we look at our child wishing for exactly the one thing that we didn’t want for them… to be normal.

The talking comes later, if at all, the toilet training comes later, if at all, the friend making comes later, if at all… and each step of the way, you’re thinking “not normal”, “not normal”, “not normal.”

But then…

Hopefully, if we learn how to help our child, where to get help, what works best and what doesn’t and we figure out what our child is truly capable of… we start to realize that all of this time, through all of these dreams and doubts… we got exactly what we wanted.

Our child is not normal.

We wanted it from the start, we dreamt of it and we wished for it… we just didn’t picture it this way.

But that shouldn’t get us down. Our child is beautiful and wonderful and amazing!

We find ourselves taking great appreciation in the nuances of speech, our senses, the patterns around us, the finer details, the strengths and weaknesses in others and ourselves, the world around us and in the power of unconditional love.

Our children continue to grow and show us just how much we’ve been missing in our lives. Just how much we were completely unaware of all around us.

We missed it… because we’re normal.

Our children are not.

Thank goodness.

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This is the problem with awareness

By on April 3, 2012 in Autism

Actually, there’s several issues with awareness but for the sake of this being just a simple blog post, let’s stick with the main problem, as I see it:

Awareness breeds fear.

Childhood Awareness

So what happens when a child becomes aware that there are monsters in the world? Real or fictional doesn’t matter, they’re children.

When a child become aware that monsters exist in tales and bed time stories… they fear them. Can you blame them? They’re monsters. But not all monsters are created equal. It could simply be a “bad man” in the story.

They don’t know what the monsters look like, sound like, feel like…  they just know to be scared.

When a child becomes aware of thunder and lightning, quite often, they will fear it. They don’t know what is making that noise but they know to be scared… because they’re aware.

When a child becomes aware of an aunt that has a mustache… well, you get the idea.

The point is, it’s an instinct that usually doesn’t need to be taught or developed… people fear what they are aware of, but do not understand.

Adult Awareness

The proof speaks for itself through out history with differences in races, sexuality… even geography!

If you were to take all of the movies/stories based on aliens and work out the numbers, I would wager that the ones where aliens are evil and want to kill us all far out weigh the stories where the aliens are friendly and all is good in the universe.

Granted, the evil killing aliens makes for a better story and will earn more money but still, the point is, we fear alien invasion because we’re aware but do not understand.

Some adults learn inner peace and work on just being understanding and accepting before the fact… to practice acceptance before awareness. But the people that can do that are very very rare.

Disability Awareness

It’s funny how far understanding can go really. Do we live in fear of cancer or AIDS? Well, sort of but I wouldn’t say we look down on anyone that we meet that has them. Why is that? They’re deadly diseases. We’re certainly aware of them.

Thanks to some very prominent and effective information campaigns over the years, most people have a pretty basic understanding of them. Cancer is not contagious, it happens or it doesn’t. You get regular checks and do checks yourself and if you catch it early enough, and depending on the type, you could be fine.

AIDS, sexual contagion, use protection… yatta yatta yatta. I won’t bore you. You know this stuff.

Now, take stuff that isn’t a disease. That isn’t deadly. That is… mostly unknown.

This is the stuff that shouldn’t scare anyone. But it does. And why? Because it’s not understood.

Whether it’s Down Syndrome, Autism, ADHD… why would these things cause others to fear the person that has them?

Well, it’s because people are aware of Autism, but they don’t have a clue what it is, what it does or how to recognize it. It’s just… out there. They know it’s out there. Thanks to awareness campaigns.

See the difference? Deadly diseases get information campaigns on the signs, who to talk to, how it affects people… neurological disorders get awareness campaigns. They just tell you it’s out there… the end.

Awareness -> Understanding -> Acceptance

curiosity
I like to think of awareness as the first step. You can’t understand something if you are not even aware of it.

Now that most people are aware of it’s existence, the next step, which is where most of us struggle, is the understanding.

I think it’s time that people moved beyond awareness and stopped being afraid.

The thing is, a lot of people want for society to move straight on to acceptance of those with down syndrome, autism or any other disability and in a perfect world, this would be the ideal.

However, there is a natural path to these things.

First comes awareness, then there is understanding and finally, acceptance.

People are funny creatures like that.

People will fear what they do not understand (but are aware of) and they only accept a situation once they understand it.

That leaves us with the problem… how do we help society to understand?

Because I can assure you that until we figure that out, all this awareness will only result in fear and will only make moving on to acceptance that much more difficult.

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