Words Matter

Hello there!  Apologies for the six month hiatus, but I've been unemployed.  It's taken more time and energy to find a job than it does to actually work :0P  Anyhow, happy to be at a new job, and happy to have the energy to be back here.

This post has been three months in the making.  For a long time, I couldn't decide if it truly mattered as much as I thought it did, or if I was being oversensitive.  At the time I also couldn't figure out how to tell this story without directly pointing a finger at someone who meant no harm.  The worst he's guilty of is ignorance and thoughtlessness.  However, two things have occurred over the last few days to convince me that ignorance and thoughtlessness need to be pointed out (one of which I won't be discussing here.)  In the end, words matter.

If you're familiar with the autism community, then you've probably already heard about rapper J.Cole, the song "Jodeci Freestyle", the incredibly insensitive lyrics (and yes, I'm aware the whole song can be construed as offensive, but we're talking autism here), and J.Cole's apology.  If you aren't familiar, you can read the apology here: http://www.dreamvillain.net/autismspeaks/.  The short version is that he hurls the word autistic in his lyrics as a slur, a put down.

The original incident that's been living in my head occurred in April.  Autism awareness month, which made it even more painful.  Add to it that it's a class I attend and cherish for the fact that it's so "other" that it allows me to get outside my head and be something other than mother, wife, employee, something without predetermined parameters for a full two hours almost every week.

We were working on recreating a well known movie fight.  At full speed, it looks fantastic.  At slow speed, one of the characters makes a move that makes absolutely no sense, but if you don't let it happen, you can't get on with the rest of the fight as it's been choreographed.  Two of the guys were demonstrating.  At the point in the fight where that move needs to be made, one of them stopped and said something to the effect of "Yeah, just hold out your arm like that and pretend to be a little autistic."  It was said complete with faces and sound effects.  You know the type.  The type a thoughtless kid would make to denote a mentally incapacitated person, and not in a kind, gentle sort of way.  The first time he said it, I looked at my partner.  She looked back at me, knowing my blood was boiling.  I inhaled.  Exhaled.  Chose to let it pass.  Except then they demonstrated again.  And he made the same comments, and faces, again.  I looked at my partner, and said something to the effect of "If he does that again, I'm going to kill him.  With witnesses.  And I don't care."  And then we both turned around and called him out on it.  He immediately apologized.  

The irony?  I came to this class via a performance they did as a fundraiser for Autism Speaks.  

He apologized again after class.  He was sincere, but also dismissive...he likened it to be called a nickname that he doesn't particularly like.  I let it go, because I knew then that he just wasn't going to get it.  It's not the same, at all.

You see, he doesn't have to justify himself, justify his place in the world, every day.  No one hurls his nickname as an insult or a slur.  His nickname isn't used as a reason for isolation or exclusion.  It's never been used to incite fear.  

It also really got to me that there was this underlying assumption of what autism looks like.  I'm here to tell you folks that autism doesn't automatically "look" like anything in particular.  There are those that are more challenged and need more support.  There are those who are less challenged and need few supports at all. What none of them needs is the preconceived notions of the thoughtless and ignorant, who think that a developmental disability is something it's OK to make derogatory remarks about if it comes from a place of "just kidding."  

Language is powerful.  Words matter.