The Danger of the Polite Ableist
And Why Journalism, Education, and Media for Children need to be held responsible for their ableism.
It makes me sad and frightened that I live in Waterford, MI. One day on the way to Round One an Arcade at Great Lakes Crossing my Uncle Jeff remarked how many supporters of Trump there are in Waterford. Before I supported Tim Waltz after hearing the story of how his son was trolled for crying about his father becoming vice president and saying, “That’s my Dad!”. I even wrote to my hero Michel Moore about a pressing issue to discuss with him abolishing ABA therapy which has harmed so many people in the Autism community. And then AP revealed that Trump had won the popular vote, and because AP said Trump won every news outlet including NPR had to speed up the news. My family has always been an NPR family. I love Science Friday, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and many of the Weekend Programs. One person I respected was Diane Rehem, who interviewed Temple Grandin a person I was told to respect and read as a girl with Autism.
When I was diagnosed doctors told my Mom and Dad not to expect much at five years old. SO, my Mom who was smart bought every DSM update did Vestibular Movement exercises with me, and got every book about Asperger’s including Thinking in Pictures. She also was a part of the Autism Society of Michigan and worked with a lot of parents who were desperate people who heard nothing but doom, got screwed over by the school system, and were clueless about their own children’s strengths and weaknesses. You see, I was born in 1991 which means I’m a Zoomer and as I grew I read every book and sign all over the place, I also have echolalia which is a benefit to have in animation and as a musician. Much of Struwwelpeter’s voice is inspired by my Grandma Lill who kept her German and was rebellious, honest, and tough but also kind and a good storyteller. At this age range, I did not know that Belle in Beauty and the Beast is a very coded Autistic character along with my forbidden heroine Matilda.
Yet through the song, she is aggressed by everyone, including the librarian! She is called funny and a puzzle of a girl when she just wants to sit and read! Children need fantasy and fiction not only to escape but to also navigate relationships and situations that are hard. A child might not know what a genocide is but give them a work like The Dark Crystal and they will have much to learn, appreciate, and identify with. My Mom on the other hand was an overtly realistic parent who believed in natural consequences and consistency even if it was wrong and to her detriment. Polite Ableists are most likely to target the desperate parent’s woes and worries which is where Temple Grandin steps in not physically like Super Nanny, but mentally in ways that are destructive and hurt a lot of families including those who are undiagnosed like my Dad. In second grade I was pulled out and became a homeschooler but not for the reasons you think.
I have PDA which means your mind is constantly fighting against other people and things they want you to do even if they put you in terrible situations with horrid solutions. Color the Duck Yellow might seem simple to a neurotypical kid, but in the end, it hurts kids who crave creativity and want to color a duck turquoise. Play is important, but according to people like Alife Kohn and Heather Shumaker play is not a thing to be graded or assessed like a science experiment which for Autistic people happens more often, especially in an age of Mommy Bloggers with a wielding iPhone and tears over a child melting down or getting angry. Yet before the iPhone, there was the Video Camera I remember being filmed playing drums and doing Autistic play which was used as an analysis of intelligence and proof rather than, “This is my daughter having fun” which happens too much to many Autistic kids. Politeness is the hook of ABA therapy for the fishy parents who often do fishy things at the expense of making their child look successful when their success lies within. The problem with Fish Wishes is that there are always sharks that prey not on children but on parents as well.
No One Wants to Be A Fish.
One thing that screws over a lot of creative and deep-thinking children and even adults are sayings like, “Whishes are Fishes” often said by people who mean well but hurt them in the end. If Mr. Limpet wished he wanted to be a fish he could have been an Oceanographer, Aqua Culturalist, Marnie Biologist, or an Ichthyologist who does a lot of good work saving fish in real life like Lake Sturgeon from poachers and illegal trade in caviar. Yet the film had to make him a fish to teach him a lesson! Yet it’s bluntly obvious even for creative and thinking Autistics to know including myself that NO YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE A FISH! Just like no Autistic person should be forced to be a normal or ideal human when no person is perfect which is what neurodiversity and the infinity symbol mean. People who want themselves to be normal, ideal, or cure their Autism are the fishy people. Not people who see Autism like SpongeBob’s voice actor Tom Kenny as a superpower or like the X Men who themselves represent the disabled, neurodivergent, and LGBTQA community. If Magneto put all his ableism aside he would have saved everyone from being snapped out of exitance by Thanos and made him the biggest idiot in the Marvel Universe for making Infinity Stones into, a metal gauntlet…boy that was a good idea…!
Yet when Tom Kenny made SpongeBob a new ambassador to the Autism community along with Julia and her wonderful family on Sesame Street, and Carl the Collector, he was not welcomed but degraded by certain people in the Autism community who think they are cursed for life and that who they are is horrible and needs to be cured. Yet there are examples in SpongeBob of sometimes his Autism being his weakness, or has hard moments but then triumphs. Pickles is a great example of him being put under a situation of high stress by Bubble Bass and his massive order which is a nightmare for any chef.
He hides and is afraid of doing another Krabby Patty wrong until his friends intervene including Mister Crab. Then he gains back his memory and discovers Bubble Bass was hiding the pickles all along under his tongue!
What Bubble Bass does to SpongeBob happens a lot in many industries where Autistic people are told they will be included and accepted, when others including employees and customers treat them anything but the opposite. I noticed this happen in journalism, theater, music education, and in animation. Diane Rehem sadly in the NPR landscape has now become a token excuse to give NPR the illusion of inclusive voices in the disability and neurodivergent community. I even wrote an article to r/OntheMedia about how NPR fails when it comes to finding and hiring journalists, editors, writers, and artists who are just as talented as Diane Rehem. My proof was Here and Now’s coverage of Camp Jabberwocky and never was the father in the piece questioned about the ethics of writing about his disabled son and profiting off of it without his son’s consent or permission to do so!
Also, many talented and amazing people do and have lived lives bound to a wheelchair yet do science like Steven Hawking, and Christopher Reeves who played Superman and continues to be a Superman for many in the disability community. We even had a President bound to a wheelchair because of Polio and he created the New Deal, got people out of The Great Depression, wrote his famous Four Freedoms speech that inspired artist Norman Rockwell, and supported the vaccination of all children with Polio with no cost at all. His name is Franklin. D. Roosevelt.
When framed in this way, it makes people realize that the lives of disabled and neurodivergent people are not only wonderful but human and that we can have purpose in the world. Listen I love A Muppet Christmas Carrol, and it makes me cry, yet that story is the first account of Inspiration Porn, and with all human actors involved it can be very problematic even today with Trump as president. If you have lived all alone in a dark chamber like Scrooge, Inspiration Porn is when the death or life of a disabled or neurodivergent person is portrayed as inspiring people and is never ableist. When these people including Temple Grandin are seen as all intelligent and inspiring their ableism is never questioned, and all people who do question the ableism are scorned like Charlie Brown or Debbie Downer. Something that happened constantly when I tried to talk with neurotypical people about ableism that is not questioned or allowed passively in media for children and teens. You can call us snobs and downers all you want until the truth of a toxic environment, abuse, harassment, and discrimination is revealed in a favorite property like Glee, All That, Disney and Nick Sitcoms, South Park, Big Bang Theory, and recently Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Diary of an Ableist Bully
Yeah I agree with you when Greg Heffely said he was in a room full of morons that was an absolute rude move of his. I didn't like the character nor the book. Discord user and Friend @Zack194
I believe that your company has important social responsibilities for a book that makes fun of people who are different and reinforces stereotypes of people with intellectual disability, people of different backgrounds and generally people that are different. Laura 4 Inclusions Letter to the publishers of Diary of a Wimpy Kid
There are lots of books including comics and manga that address the issue of mental health and are also historical in the history of disabled and neurodivergent culture and open doors to discussions about the history of our communities. My inspiration for Struwwelkinder is not only Volksmusik and my family but also a story about a father who almost lost his psychology practice because of a Christmas gift for his two-year-old son. His frustration with the lack of books that were visually engaging and amusing for kids is what fueled Der Struwwelpeter. What is fun about adapting this book is that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered and that you can give each character a personality while also respecting their strengths and weaknesses from the neurodivergent perspective and a German American one.
Back in the 1800’s many German boys were taught too many manners (uh, Maskierung?) that did not respect their autonomy and lessons in both English and Latin, and how to use silly utensils, but also how to sing. Struwwelpeter is not only Uncombable Hair Syndrome he is very PDA, he also loves opera because it’s extreme, emotional, and dramatic. His Fach is Dramatic Soprano meaning his voice can be emotional or tear you to shreds like Mozart’s famous aria Der Holle Rache which is a favorite among boy sopranos. He’ll explain it better than me…
Da Queen of Die Nacht is verruck’d im the Second Act of Die Zauberflotte dat herr tochter Pamina has not komm back to her! So one night, while Pamina slaffs on a bett of roses, she wakes her up…“WO IST TAMINO! WARM are you heir mitt Sarastro!” “Tamino and Papageno hab zu du the trials of Sarastro!” aber our Queen excepts NO Excuses and hands Pamina a dagger vanting her to kill Sarastro or be cursed foreber!
Struwwelpeter himself explaining Der Holle Rache.
Children need violent play and gross humor with certain boundaries in mind, those boundaries are very important for all children to understand and respect. This is also why Calvin and Hobbs and Captain Underpants are not only popular with disabled and neurodivergent kids, but Bill Waterson and Dav Pilkey are both neurodivergent themselves. In Heather Shumaker’s book It’s OK NOT to Share, she advocates for fantasy, power, and character play, even fake weapons like swords, axes, lightsabers, and space guns that are brightly colored. Yet a line is crossed when the play becomes ableist, hurtful, or abusive which happens a lot in Diary of a Wimpy Kid and is even excused by Jeff Kinney as Greg being a 12-year-old kid. According to P.A.C.E.R data, special ed students are more times as likely to be bullied two to three times more than their neurotypical and able-bodied peers.
Yet when kids have books like Flowers for Algernon, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or The Secret Garden in school curriculums and don’t question the ableist bullying and abuse Greg does, or why medications are demonized in Flowers for Algernon, or why the antagonist in The Secret Garden is all of a sudden walking out of his wheelchair? If kids don’t pay attention to dangerous or harmful tropes in their literary cannons where is the room for imagining and creating or fighting back these ideas at all?
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Thank you for this. First youtube clip says 'video not available.'
https://classautonomy.info/the-danger-of-the-polite-ableist/