Canary in the Coal Mine
This entire abominable race towards chromosomal and developmental perfection has got me worried…does it remind anyone else of a little social experiment that went totally off the rails in Germany in the 1940′s? The creeping resurgence of institutional thinking, segregated settings, old ideas dressed up with new language, all combine to make me wonder if any of this sounds familiar to anyone else?
Worse still is the co-opting of our language. You know… “Inclusive Classrooms” where kids are included during gym, art, and maybe lunch, but spend the rest of the day in a totally segregated classroom. “Work Experience Placements” – which in reality, results in people with disabilities volunteering to do the same work that their co-workers are getting paid real money for. “Respite” homes that end up being long term and not ideal living situations for folks.
What really scares is the message that all these efforts (which sound well meaning and appropriate) are sending to the general public people who might not know or love someone with a disability.
I’m left with an unease that borders on terror.
It’s hard to imagine a time when great populations of learned and civilized citizens could be convinced that Jews where the root of all economic and civic hardships, and that that these learned doctors, scientists and community members could set out to systemically eliminate an entire population of people…
It’s impossible that there was a period in recent history where an entire nation (perceived to be the most powerful in the world) could determine that citizens of African/Caribbean descent were “sub human” enough to require separate schools, separate neighborhoods, and even separate drinking fountains…
We could never be convinced that the best methodology to social assimilation would be to remove aboriginal children from their families, separate them from loving and culturally rich communities in order to teach them to be less native.
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have recommended that all pregnant women be offered prenatal testing regardless of maternal age. Information is powerful and important for perspective mothers and families. However, information without consideration and respect for the quintessential humanness and important contributions of citizens with disabilities is not progress, it’s bias. Families who welcome babies with disabilities report that information given to them prenatally has been outdated, inaccurate, profoundly dark, and filled with coercive messaging so powerful that strangers have the audacity to ask them … “Didn’t you know-your baby was going to have Down syndrome?”
Even if you don’t love someone with disability – you ought to care about this. Disability is the canary in the coal mine. We will all manifest some trait or characteristic that will be considered socially undesirably – even socially costly-at some point in our lives.
If you think this obscene race toward perfection will not affect you – You are wrong. As Pastor Martin Niemöller said… “And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
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