Small Talk

ink-and-daggers:

Please don’t ask me what I do unless you want to talk about it
And I mean really talk about it
This is not a question that elicits a short response from me
It will not lead to reciprocal small talk

“So what do you do?” comes the polite question
“I work with autistic children” I say
Sometimes it’s “autistic children”
Sometimes it’s “children with autism”
The difference is meaningful to me and to others
but is usually an irrelevant distinction to the person I’m saying it to
I’ve been in this field for a while now, and I’ve said it more times than I remember
When you say the same thing to a lot of different people, a funny thing happens
You find their responses are predictable

There is one response in particular that rattles me
Not because it’s particularly rude, in fact it’s supposed to be a compliment
But when I hear it, my first thought is how desperately I want to punch the speaker’s mouth
though maybe the lecture I launch into instead is worse

“Oh, I work with autistic children” I say
“Wow,” people reply
“That must be so hard!
I could never do that
You’re a really amazing person
I bet you already have your golden ticket straight to heaven”

I hate this idea that it “takes a special person to work with special people”
It’s a self fulfilling prophesy
And it’s a deadly one
Because the unspoken idea here is that people with disabilities don’t deserve interaction, patience or decency from “normal people”
When you say “I could never do that,” I don’t hear the intended compliment
All I hear is typical people are dangerous to those who fall outside the norm
And this is so perfectly ordinary that it can be delivered disguised as a compliment

Related to this is the assumption it makes about care providers, educators, and others who work with disabled folks
That we are kind, loving, patient, unselfish and saintly
When I say “I work with autistic kids” you know my job
But you don’t know anything about what I do
When I say “I work with autistic kids” I can mean a lot of things
Maybe I’m the bestest teacher person ever, Annie Sullivan reincarnated
Maybe all it means is that I play on my smart phone while ignoring the kid I’m providing glorified babysitting for
Or perhaps it means that I hurt children mercilessly in the name of therapy
Or even that I hurt them just because I can
Maybe it means all of these things depending on the context
Maybe it means something else entirely
But one shouldn’t assume anyone is anything good just because they work with a vulnerable and misunderstood demographic
particularly if their role is one of power

I often wish I kept a list of all the funny and cute things kids say and do while I am at work
There are so many, it’s impossible to remember them all
There is another list, one I keep in my mind, one I wish didn’t exist
Things my clients’ parents and colleagues say

A teacher was getting frustrated with my interfering
We had a student who has been having aggressive outbursts at the end of the school day
His behavior plan was to ignore his requests to talk about what was bothering him and redirect him to work
When this failed, which it always did, we were to take a spray bottle full of vinegar and administer a dose into his mouth
In radical behaviorism, this is called an “aversive” or a consequence
But it did not work for him, and would have been dehumanizing and unnecessary even if it did
Positive punishment, negative punishment, neither were right
So on my own time I researched alternatives I knew the school hadn’t tried
I showed this teacher a different program I found
She wouldn’t even look at it
“He just needs a different consequence”

A mother picked me up late
We were supposed to go skiing with her twins
They hated skiing, the day always ended with at least one meltdown
But she insisted it was an opportunity to learn a normal recreational life activity, so we went every winter weekend for two years
When she finally arrived, I saw she had been crying
I looked in the back seat and saw the boys had been crying too
Uncomfortable, awkward, unsafe feeling
I cautiously asked what’s wrong as she sped off
“They’re going to be like this forever,” she started, not caring the twins could hear her
“They’re going to be like this forever and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m going to put them in a group home and fucking kill myself”

A different teacher thinks I’m stupid and naive
One of our students had finally stopped running away from us in terror
I commented that it was nice he was finally trusting us
She seemed almost amused that I could project such a human emotion onto him
She picked up a toy and put it in a basket
“You know they just think of us as moving furniture”

Another mother interrupted my therapy session to tell me for the hundredth time how her husband left her
Her son hovered nearby, waiting as patiently as he could
Flapping his hands, spinning in circles, listening to every word
“I know he left because of *him*”

A former colleague and I went out to dinner
She told me about her new job, still working with autistic kids
Compliance is very important to her, and she told me a story highlighting this
Her student wouldn’t put a toy on a shelf
So she tried to force her to do it for several hours
The student was very stubborn, but so was she
“I didn’t care if her mom was out in the car crying,” she said
“I was going to make that little bitch do it”

A mother called me early on a chilly, but sunny February morning
The bright light from outside bounced cheerily off the floor of my dark bedroom
I was supposed to work with her son, Jordan, in a few hours
His stepfather regarded him as “retard” and “Jerry’s kid”
They made him sleep in a bathtub and devised other cruel punishments for when he was disobedient, wet the bed, or simply existed
Myself and neighbors reported them to child protective services several times
But he was never removed from the home
I said good morning and asked her what’s up
Pause
“Jordan died”

When I tell people about Jordan, their responses are also predictable
The one I hate to hear is that “he is in a better place now”
People tell me this to be nice
To help me get over it, to realize it’s actually better this way
I don’t believe in god or an afterlife
And even if I did, this sentiment only provokes anger in me
Jordan didn’t belong in an abusive home
But at fifteen, he also didn’t belong dead

In high school, I had an acquaintance who hung herself in the shed behind her apartment
She was beautiful, intelligent, and carried a presence that lit up a room when she entered
But she was depressed and alcoholic
Her family and boyfriend treated her like trash
When I tell people this, they don’t say “she’s in a better place now”
They say, “That’s so terrible and sad”
Even though she was completely miserable from a lifetime of abusive relationships
Even though she wanted so badly to be dead, she ended her own life

You know who wasn’t miserable?
Jordan
He loved fast food
He loved cartoons
He loved helping others
He loved his baby brother
He even loved his piece of shit abusive parents
Why is death his best option?

I wonder constantly why disability is so often skipped over in social justice conversations
I can tell a lot about a person’s politics from how they answer this simple question, “what do you think of disabled kids?”
The answer I hear a disappointing amount of times is “oh, I’ve never really thought about it”
You probably know the statistic about one in five American women being raped or sexually abused in their lifetime
But did you know that for women with developmental disabilities, it’s upwards of ninety percent?
You probably know something about police brutality
When you get home, Google “black and autistic” and see what comes up
Our culture obsesses over mental illness and violence
When we talk about gun control, very often it’s framed as simply “keeping guns away from those crazy people”
Though if you look at the data
Being classified as mentally ill puts you at extraordinary risk for violence from so called “normal” people, not so much the other way around
With Americans with disabilities three to ten times more likely to experience violent crime than their peers
And some statistics indicating up to seventy percent of disabled children are abused by their supposed caregivers

Jordan died under mysterious circumstances
There was speculation that he died due to his parents neglect, perhaps even murder
In the end they were cleared of wrongdoing, but I will always wonder
After his funeral, I started following news stories about disabled children murdered by their parents
Quickly noticing a disturbing pattern evident in the journalism and commentary
When a nondisabled child is murdered by their parents, there’s little empathy for the killers
The comment section will light up with passionate and creative fantasies about punishment, how the child was an innocent, perfect angel who didn’t deserve this most terrible of fates
Compare this to when a disabled child is murdered
Observe how quickly the conversation stops being centered around the victim and the parents wickedness
And instead focuses on “lack of services” and demands that “you need to walk in that parents shoes before you judge”

I know you don’t really want to know about my job
You’re only asking because it’s the socially appropriate thing to do
So that I ask you what your job is
And then we talk about something else
Like sports or art or important social justice issues
I wish that small talk weren’t so small
Because sometimes questions that are designed to get quick and simple answers provoke the enormous, daunting, and complicated
I know I’m dominating the conversation
I know I’m taking up too much space
I know you also likely have valid and important things to tell me
But many of the kids I talk about never get asked what they do
Because when they grow up, they are systematically denied jobs, an education, invitations to social events, and a space behind a microphone
Because Jordan is dead and can never tell you
So I’m not sorry
But I just can’t answer that question politely

llo-ro-na:

“[…] Many of my queer female peers who were also born in the 1950’s with talent and drive, made the decision to repress or marginalize the lesbian content of their work and point of view so that they could have viable careers. But I couldn’t do that because it was boring. People in struggle are the most fascinating people on earth. They produce new ideas and new formal strategies and transformative visions of social and artistic possibility that are the soul of new ideas in art and culture. We are living right now in a very sick society, currently in the throes of a national cataclysm, and so, among the other twisted logics of white supremacy, male power, and violent nationalism, we also have this constant false messaging that repetition of what is already known is good writing, and familiarity equals quality, when in fact it is the other way around: the most culturally valuable work is the invitation to question ourselves, how we think, and to vigorously question how we live. Someone once told me that Picasso said “The innovator makes it ugly and the derivator makes it beautiful” – meaning that the struggle to break through to a new place that has never been seen before is classified as “wrong” while watering down those discoveries and innovations until they are entirely palatable is what we are told to strive for. And this applies to LGBT work as well. Unfortunately there is absolutely no relationship between quality and reward. I say this as a person who has been rewarded and at other times eliminated. Most art that is rewarded in an unjust society is work that re-enforces that society’s operative values. And when you look at the LGBT work that has been canonized, much of it makes the dominant culture very self-satisfied. Occasionally something or someone that is actually of great value does get rewarded, but usually not because of their real accomplishment, it’s usually because the person or the work also fits the agenda of the gatekeepers’ need to see themselves as liberal or inclusive. It is important that we not be fooled by the allure of acceptance, as much as we all want it and should have it. For, too often the introduction of some queer person of great gifts into the reward system produces tokenism instead of cultural expansion, because that person’s individual success does not represent a paradigm shift, but actually enhances the gatekeepers’ power. The worst thing we can do to ourselves is to like something because it has official approval. We should always be asking each other what a work that is approved of is actually saying, what it actually means and stands for, and what it actually represents. Beware of LGBT work that is Too Big To Be Questioned. So, even though I sincerely hope that all of us who are creating art in the world that actually matters can become the kind of person who can get heard and seen, if success happens let us not confuse that integration with any illusion of actual superiority, because corporate praise itself is often just a kind of entertainment. The difference between Entertainment and Art is that entertainment tells us what we already know in the ways that we have been taught to think, and art expands how we think and feel and what we come to understand. The Chinese-American novelist Gish Jen once said to me about the straight, white domination of American letters, “We are the center of the culture, but they have the apparatus.” So how do these parameters express themselves today in the context of a completely corrupt America that is in a putrid state of long-term and on-going decline, fueled by racism? Obviously we see gay things everywhere in corporate culture. We see trans people on corporate television, we see mini-series about AIDS on corporate television, we see Ellen on corporate television, we see Pulitzer Prizes and MacArthurs and Tony Awards and Oscars going to gay things, some of those things that we actually love. And so it is confusing but necessary to parse how and why some of these gay things re-enforce the power of the already dominant, some are oppositional but still enhance the self-concept of the gatekeepers, and some are relegated to the margins because they would upend or destabilize the self-concept of those with the power of selection. There is a logic to inclusion and exclusion, but it takes some original thought to be able to understand it. Remember that when the NY Times looks at the brutal murder of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and calls it a “conflict” or “clash” instead of “a war crime”, that is the same machine that is telling us which are the year’s most notable books. The government that told us that Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, is the same machine that gives out NEA grants. From the perspective of people struggling for existence, mass murder is not a “conflict” just as corporate rehash of dominant cultural values is not the year’s most notable. But it thinks it is. Our challenge is to resist these false categorizations, which is emotionally very difficult because even if we have given up crass patriotism, we all still cling to the myth of the American dream of meritocracy, of being discovered, and making it – of breaking out, and being the next big thing, these wishes are branding and marketing techniques to keep us from fully refusing the falsity of the American façade. One of my heroes, Wilhelm Reich, said that while he could easily understand why a starving man steals a loaf of bread, he could never understand why a starving man did NOT steal a loaf of bread. And in America today the reason that writers whose basic rights – both civil and representational – don’t steal that loaf of bread is because they think that doing so might keep them from being Discovered, Breaking Out and Making It. So, the fantasy that we could be one of the tiny, tiny handful who end up well paid becomes justification for our intellectual and artistic servitude to the aesthetics of corporate power. But what made you become a writer in the first place?”

—

sarah schulman, in her acceptance speech for the 2018 bill whitehead award for lifetime achievement from the publishing triangle. read the full (incredible) speech here. 

schulman  articulated so many thoughts that have been stuck in my throat in these final months of grad school where many of my peers’ eyes are towards the What’s Next the Who Will Buy? the How Will I Come to Be Known the Who Should I Meet. It’s incredibly difficult as a young writer coming up within an academic institution to trust her gut and ignore the call of the industry, with its tantalizing promise of acceptance, of audience, of acclaim. I think only now, years after leaving new york, about to leave los angeles, that I am really understanding the calling and the practice to actually work from and for the margins. 

queernuck:

The idea that “fascism will be wrapped in a rainbow flag and holding a gender studies degree” is so horrifying to me that I’m actually taken aback by it

Anyone who follows me will have seen that I’ve engaged rather extensively with some rather nasty fuckers over the past few days. People who say shit to me that a year or so ago could’ve reduced me to tears. There’s a post above 200 notes that’s turned into a competition to figure out what’s the best way to call me a man

But I’m actually rather unsettled just by that comment, let alone the fact that it came off of a discussion started by WikiLeaks

The equation of fascism with “degeneracy” is rather common in right-liberal discourse, a look at free_republic.txt will rather shortly turn up accusations of how this or that fascist group is actually a homosexual menace. combined with the general notion of horseshoe theory, for many liberals the notion of what they perceive as a radical communist movement being simultaneously degenerate and jackbooted, with rainbow flags and gay bullets, makes perfect sense

The largest irony in all of this is how Reddit serves as a nursery for reactionary ideology, The Red Pill being one of the most famous and influential. Links between Reddit and the further reaches of the anarcho-capitalist movement are rather clear, and the overlap between tech geeks, crypto-fascists, and red pill nerds is rather large.

We’ve all seen this manifesting on tumblr, with the kinds of people who have anime art and popular text posts sandwiched between pictures of “Aryan Girls” and calls for returns to manufactured traditionalist societies

It is a politics with an aesthetic, but moreover in many ways a politic of aesthetics. It can range from your Death In June loving types, to your irreverent pot-smoking hyper-libertarians, to the hardcore punks who are as concerned with defending whiteness as they are with keeping edge. But all of these aesthetics are in some way or another co-opting a cultural touchstone and forming a fascist aesthetic around it, creating a hypothetical body of a neofascist that can be then used to spread, incubate, and breed ideological counterparts. 

The equating of Communism with Fascism is intentional, in order to cast off fields such as sociology, post-colonial studies, gender studies, anti-colonial histories, and other modes of knowledge outside of Serious STEM Ideology as a limiter of freedom. The traditionalist, the reactionary, presents itself as a body against this, against a beast of horseshoes, as the way to freedom. This can be seen in many different far-right aesthetics, but all with common ideologies.

This is why reactionaries are not to be taken lightly. This is why simply laughing at the absurdity of nywydracu or however the fuck you spell it isn’t enough. this is why actively combating fascism, ideologically and physically all at once, is a necessary step. 

Anti-fascist action is absolutely necessary for us to survive.

vaspider:

autismserenity:

wouldn’t it be cool if sylvia rivera or marsha p. johnson were still alive and you could see what kind of activism they were doing now, and support it, and follow them on social media?

“It sure would!”

Gosh, imaginary reader, I agree! And you know what?

MISS MAJOR IS *ALSO* A TRANS WOMAN OF COLOR WHO WAS AT STONEWALL, AND SHE’S STILL ALIVE AND AMAZING AND I ALMOST NEVER SEE ANYBODY MENTION HER

And yes, that’s her Instagram, @missmajor1. And yes, you can look her up on Facebook under Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and she even follows back 😮

Looks like she’s even on Twitter, @immissmajor.

From missmajor.net:

“Miss Major is a veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion and a survivor of Attica State Prison, a former sex worker, an elder, and a community leader and human rights activist.

Miss Major’s personal story and activism for transgender civil rights intersects LGBT struggles for justice and equality from the 1960s to today. At the center of her activism is her fierce advocacy for her girls, trans women of color who have survived police brutality and incarceration in men’s jails and prisons.

Miss Major is formerly the long-time executive director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), which advocates for trans women of color in and outside of prison. She is also the subject of a new documentary feature film currently showing around the country, MAJOR!”

She even has a GoFundMe, where people make one-time or recurring monthly donations to support this activist legend through her retirement:

https://www.gofundme.com/MsMajorRetirement

Since June and Pride commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, I thought it’d be a good time to boost her story. Happy Pride! 💖💜💙

Boost boost.