Monday, October 27, 2014

Are you on Team Disability or not?



Are you on Team Disability?

Here's how you qualify:

• You have a child with disability
• You are a person with disability
• You know a kid or an adult with disability
• You don't know anyone in particular with disability but you get it 
• You respect people with disability, and do what you can to encourage that
• You include people with disability in activities or wherever, and do what you can to encourage that
• You care about breaking down barriers that prevent kids and adults with disabilities from fully participating in life

Not so hard, right? There's just one more qualification:

• You don't spread negative perceptions about kids with disabilities—or deride other parents' efforts to help their kids

Now, you would think that parents of kids with special needs would automatically be on Team Disability but, sadly, that's not the case. I was reminded of that over the weekend as I read through comments on Parents' Facebook page. I'd put up a post on the site about a petition started by a mom of a girl with Down syndrome to get Disney to create a character with DS because, the mom noted, "When I see her mesmerized by Disney princesses, it breaks my heart to know she has no role models like herself."

It seemed like a great wish. Ariel in the Little Mermaid wanted to be part of this world—exactly what kids with DS and other special needs deserve. Then I read the comments. And lo and behold, the one with the most likes (since erased by the woman who left it, who said she has a child with special needs) noted that she was against the idea because Disney characters are, after all, imaginary. As she wrote, "No, the world can't accommodate for everyone... Disney is unrealistic for a reason." (You can erase your comments, but Google doesn't.) When I pointed out that Disney creates characters who are racially diverse and that diversity should include people with disability, she responded with a virtual eyeball roll over being "politically correct."

Um, what?! Expecting inclusion for kids with special needs is being PC? There's no need for Disney movies, any whatsoever, to reflect the gorgeous array of people that exist in reality? Whoa.

Perhaps you think that Disney creating a character with disability wouldn't make any difference or you're concerned, as one mom noted, that it would be based on stereotypes. So be it. But when you air thoughts in a public forum that make children with special needs seem like a whole other species of human being, or push for non-inclusion, you set back progress the rest of us make for our kids.

Oh, yes: You do.

It's awful enough when people air their biases toward people with special needs or make clueless Facebook comments like, "Why do special needs kids need a special needs character to look up to?" It's doubly awful when biased comments come from parents who have a child with special needs. Not only are you not on Team Disability, you are playing opposition.

Divisions exist in the special needs community; divisions exist within diagnoses themselves. But it seems like there is one thing we should all be able to come together on: We need to do whatever we can to spread the word that kids and adults with disability deserve respect and recognition—and to be treated like any other people.

Our kids already face so much stigma. We have to try our best to purge it, in our real-life circles and in social media. Help people see the ability behind the disability. Help people understand that people with disabilities need parity, not pity. Tell it to the sweet lady at the dry cleaning counter who looks so sadly at your child. Tell it to your neighbors who keep their distance from your kid. Tell it to the person who won't accommodate your kid in an activity or program. Tell it to the world.

But if you are going to take a public stand against what the rest of us are advocating for—no, fighting for—well, then, parents like me are going to call you on your small-minded, backwards POV. And we are going to pity your children.

Team Disability: You in?

19 comments:

  1. I love it when you write like this. Thank you for taking that lady down: or more gently, enlightening her You are correct that within our parents' disability community, there are too many divisions. As you said, we all need to be on the same team. The team for our kids. Thanks you for getting my blood flowing this morning!

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    1. Thank you for saying that and, even better, for getting it.

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  2. As an autistic flutist, I find it important to push for inclusion. I want other people with disabilities to be able to find their passions with the necessary help and support. It does not take a degree to be inclusive and it's not a big undertaking to let people like me have a sense of pride in something we do.

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  3. The mom should tell her daughter about Andrea Fay Friedman, a very accomplished actress (one of my favorites) who just happens to have Down Syndrome
    A Down Syndrome Disney princess would be way cool and I bet they might just do it

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    1. I remember the brouhaha when she was a character on Family Guy, but haven't seen anything with her in it—I will check her out!

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  4. EXCELLENT!
    Christa Frantz

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  5. Yes! I need to sign that petition...

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  6. I'm glad you wrote about this here. Some opposition I think comes from people who hate any sort of "political correctness", even if they sort of support disability rights. But some parents just can't relate to a positive view of disability. To them disability is like cancer ... a disease to be fought. So they support their children while hating their children's disabilities. I think this difference in views is one of the major divideses that defines "Team Disability".... A great name by the way!

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    1. As always, you are so right—it's a knee-jerk reaction, for some, to be against anything that smacks of political correctness. That, I can understand, to some extent. But I truly cannot get how, even if you struggle with your child's disability, you can still refuse to at least let OTHERS make the world better for people with disability. That mindset is impossible to wrap my head around.

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  7. Yes Im in. Go Team Disability! I read some of the comments and was appalled. Why would people who have so much connecting them tear each other apart because of different diagnoses, different treatments or therapies, or different viewpoints. Our community wont be as strong if people cant not belittle others decisions and advocate for ALL people with disabilities, regardless of age, diagnoses, gender, therapies, race etc. Unity is needed and yes I think a special needs princess would be cool. For me as a kid it was finding kids with hearing loss in books that didn't use sign language and only had 1 hearing aid. I remember being excited about American Girl Doll's hearing aid for dolls before discovering it was only good for My American Girls not my beloved Kit.

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    1. YES. This. And if you can't advocate, like you said, at least don't belittle.

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  8. I am in team "disability". What a great idea hard to believe anyone would be against it.

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    1. I never cease to be astounded/scared by the voices you encounter in social media.

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  9. I read all the comments on that post and I was amazed and disappointed. People seemed more interested in preserving the 'purity' of the imaginative world of Disney than they did about creating role models for their children with disabilities in shows that their children actually watch. It was as if Disney is a religion. I have never been a fan of the company or the theme park (admittedly, we only went to EuroDisney in Paris and the weather was awful). But I like my kids to have a dose of cynicism in their education, or at least reality. And that includes seeing a mirror image of what the world IS and CAN BE - a world that includes THEM. Somehow, that attitude is an affront to Disney 'purists'. Like you, Ellen, I believe my son has a place in the imaginary world of public consciousness and I reposted the article on my facebook page, saying something like 'Let's see some characters in Disney who have different abilities!" I'm happy to say, people I know responded only with 'likes'.

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    1. Beautifully said (of course). I am a fan of Disney—I love the fantasy of the movies, and seeing the magic work on my kids when we've been to the parks/on the cruise. And I think there is plenty of room in a fantasy world for characters with disabilities.

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  10. I am deeply offended that you still use the outdated term disability! The correct term is differently-abled.

    This is just as horrid to me and many others as mentally retarded is to you. Shame on you!

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    1. Euphemistic terms like that are offensive to me because they downplay the reality of having a disability. It's like saying "___ challenged" because it implies that you have some compensating factor or just need to try harder/

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  11. You completely missed the point, but that is to be expected by ellen's fanatics.

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Thanks for sharing!