The harder fallacy

I keep thinking about something my friend said after we watched Precious and I was talking about how the portrayal of the child with Down Syndrome was offensive. (I'm going to refer to the character as Quishay, which is the name of the little girl who played her.) My friend kept saying, "Well, it IS harder to raise a kid with Down Syndrome." I said "Do you actually know any people with Down Syndrome, because if you did, I think you'd feel differently." My friend was like, "What do you mean, do you think I wouldn't think it's harder to have Down Syndrome? It's a DISABILITY. It's not a good thing. Are you saying it's not harder?"

I'm probably caricaturing this in my mind because it was a while ago and also it made me really mad. When I quote people who made me mad I tend to repeat the things they say in this particular voice that's both monotonous and overdramatic. I know this is a problem. I should be mature enough to disagree with people without being shitty about it. But it's really hard not to be shitty about it! Plus I hate the "it's harder" strawman even more than I hate the "but bad things will happen to you if you don't pass!!" strawman (#3 in the linked post).

So, I will just say what I wanted to say to my friend, but couldn't get out very clearly. Here are two facts about disability:

1. For whatever reason, nondisabled people tend to get grossed out or uncomfortable around disabled people.

2. By definition, all things being equal, it is harder to be disabled than it is to be nondisabled. Also, it's harder to be the guardian of a kid who is disabled because it often costs more money and the kid might have to live at home longer, or forever. Also, it's sometimes harder to be close to a disabled person (as a friend/significant other, as part of your job, or as a family member) because you are used to relating to people in a particular way that doesn't work with this person, or because you had built them up in your head as a person without a disability.

Some parts of #2 are not inherent aspects of disability. For example it isn't fair that it costs more money to raise a kid with a disability. That shouldn't be the case. But the fact that it's not inherent doesn't make it less real for the people for whom it's real. If a person is spending all their money so that their disabled kid can go to school, because public school does not do what the kid needs, it IS harder for them. So, yes. I'm saying it is harder to raise a disabled child.

But that's not the only thing in the world that is hard. And hard is not the same thing as repulsive or tragic.

In Precious, Precious has two kids. She is a young teenager. Her kids are the product of nonconsensual incest. Having kids as a young teenager is really hard. Getting raped by your father isn't just "hard," it is horrible, evil, and tragic. There aren't enough words to describe what it is. It's a lot worse than having a kid with Down Syndrome or any disability.

Now I guess it sounds like I'm on a track of saying Down Syndrome is okay because being raped by your father is worse. That's not my intent. What I'm saying is, Precious has two kids. The second kid she has, who has no disabilities, changes her life. She loves him tremendously, right away, and her love for him gives her the strength to fight back against her abusive mother and seek help. There are other factors that give Precious this motivation; it's not just the baby, it's that she has gotten support from her teacher and classmates. But still, this thing that is very difficult--a baby born to a single teenage mother--ends up being AMAZING. This exact thing happens to girls in real life, sometimes. Situations that are objectively really hard are experienced as wonderful and joyful.

So, harder doesn't equal bad or gross. And I would say that the portrayal of Precious's older child is as something bad and gross. It is totally unrealistic for Precious to have a baby with Down Syndrome. Down Syndrome isn't an inherited condition, it's a genetic mutation, so incest doesn't increase its likelihood. An older mother increases its likelihood, and Precious is very young. I believe that this plot development, which belongs in a sci-fi movie, is just meant to add to the atmosphere of tragedy and gloom around Precious's life so far. She's physically abused! She's sexually abused! She can't read! She's poor! She had a baby and is pregnant again...AND, her kid has DOWN SYNDROME. WORST THING EVER. Quishay is not shown smiling or interacting with Precious and is not filmed in the loving way that her second child, Abdul, is filmed. (It's true that Quishay doesn't live with Precious for most of the movie, but number one, no one forced the writers to write the story that way; and, number two, we could have had shots emphasizing Quishay's cuteness and lovability when Precious gets her back at the end of the movie.)

The movie Precious is hateful to people with Down Syndrome because it uses Down Syndrome as a shortcut to say "Precious's life is horrible." At the beginning of this post I listed two facts about disability. This movie exploits fact #1, nondisabled people's discomfort and revulsion about disability. That is an immoral thing to do. It is incredibly disingenuous to claim that the portrayal of Quishay is somehow legitimate because "it's harder to raise a kid with Down Syndrome." This isn't about difficulty, it's about prejudice and using a disabled child as a horror-movie monster.

I am so tired of this. I call it "the harder fallacy." It sucks because when you're trying to point out that someone is being prejudiced, you get totally knocked off balance by a bogus argument about whether the victim of the prejudice, or their parents, has a hard time. But it's not about that. They're two totally different things.

eta: I'm pretty bad at science, I apologize. Apparently it's not as unlikely as I thought for a teenager to have a baby with Down Syndrome. However, my points about the portrayal of Quishay still stand, and would stand no matter what disability she had.

Is Kevin Girardi a jerk?

I slept really badly last night and for some reason I started thinking about Joan of Arcadia, which is a sort of sappy TV show that I loved way too much last year. Anna at FWD/Forward has made several posts about the show's treatment of disability, which is really good.

To sum up: Joan's brother Kevin was a really conventionally masculine, popular teenager who was going to get a basketball scholarship, but was in a car accident in his senior year of high school and became paraplegic. The show starts a year or two after that and Kevin has been depressed for a while, but during the course of the show he gets a job at the local newspaper, discovers he's a talented writer, starts dating again, etc. He's sad that his old plans for his life aren't feasible anymore, but it's obvious there are still a lot of things he can accomplish and get excited about.

Yeah, so anyway, there's one scene in the first season where Kevin is dating a girl he works with at the newspaper. They're lying on the floor making out, and he says, "wait," and flips them over so he's on top, and they continue kissing.

Someone--I think the Television Without Pity recapper for the show--reacted to this scene by thinking that this was a creepy and sexist thing for Kevin to do. When I read this I was surprised, because my reaction to the scene was "Go Kevin." I thought that if Kevin really liked being on top before his accident, he shouldn't just acquiesce to not being on top because that's the expected/more convenient position for someone who's paraplegic.

This reminded me of a comment I read on the Internet Movie Database board for the documentary Murderball. IIRC (I have to go really soon, and shouldn't even be posting right now), the comment said that viewers of the movie are willing to cut the subjects a lot of slack for their sexist and generally unpleasant behavior, because they're wheelchair users, and it seems cool to see them acting like any other guys.

So, I don't know. I shouldn't have started this post because I don't have time to finish it. People with disabilities should be able to be individuals and shouldn't be held to a higher standard than non-disabled people and be expected to be saints. Guys with disabilities shouldn't be expected to be extra sensitive and feminist. On the other hand--that's not really true, all guys should be expected to be feminist.

I don't think it's ever jerky for someone to want to be on top, in real life. But given how Kevin is portrayed on the show in general as someone who is mourning the loss of a ton of stereotypically-masculine-guy privilege, I don't know if that scene was supposed to be about him being sexist, or about him being himself. I mean, if people are sexist, then I guess we shouldn't want them to be themselves.

the joy of speakerphone

roommate's 10-year-old brother (on speakerphone): Amanda, have you figured out that Laura's a nerd yet?
Amanda: Yeah, I...actually, the other day, she said she wanted to start a band about robots, so yeah.
roommate's 10-year-old brother: Are you serious? That Battlestar Galactica thing? That's kind of a new low, even for her.
Amanda: Yeah, I know, it's really sad. I hope you're nice to Laura when she's home, you know she has a rough time at school.
roommate: Stop talking about me like that to John! He's going to think I'm a loser. I have so many friends, John. I have a lot of friends.
Amanda: No, you don't, you have, like, one and a half friends, and Lee Adama doesn't count.

(I want to adopt this kid, he's magic. Also when Laura was talking to her mom on the phone, her mom said something that Laura thought was really obvious, and Laura said, "I don't live under a rock, Mom. I'm not Patrick Star.")

WWAND

So, in November I was seized with conviction: Oberlin needs an Autistic Self-Advocacy Network chapter! Or, to be more specific, I would like an ASAN chapter, but I don't know how many ASD kids go to Oberlin, if any. Or, to be even more specific, I've encountered two, and one just graduated--so I know there are two ASD kids at Oberlin. Hardly enough. I also don't know if the other ASD kid would be into this; he's really nice but I don't know whether he's interested in disability rights.

I needed to figure out how many interested ASD students there were, and find out who they were, and contact them. Not necessarily in that order. So I emailed the head of disability services asking if she could send out an email to all the students registered as disabled, so that anyone who was ASD and interested could get back to me.

She answered me like a month later saying that she'd needed time to let her thoughts "percolate" and that we should get an autism rights speaker at Oberlin, and she also sent me the Tim Page freakshow New Yorker piece (I'm being a little harsh, but I would probably feel more positive about the piece if I hadn't had to spend like two weeks agonizing over how to tactfully answer her query about whether it should be linked on the Oberlin disability services page). I linked some pieces that I thought were better (a New York Times article about accommodating ASD students in college, and Changing People to Fit Jobs, or Finding Jobs to Fit People? by Dora Raymaker--which I just think is amazing, and applicable to so many areas of life). She said that she knew all the disability services people quoted in the NY Times article, which was cool, and that we should meet and talk about ASAN. We agreed that we would meet when I got back on campus.

Guess what didn't happen! Can you guess? I figured it was dumb for me to wait for her so I emailed her a week or two ago saying that I was on campus. CAN YOU GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THEN?

I should probably delete this because it's kind of bad to criticize someone when it's really obvious who they are. I'm sure she's a good person, I know some disabled kids at Oberlin really like her, and she must be really busy--but she's the one who decided we need to have a meeting, and there's no reason for us to have a meeting. It's just like, why do people always have to make stuff about "having a meeting" and "talking?" I don't have anything to say to her anyway. I just wanted her to send out the email. She's done it for other disability-related student groups. Why does everyone have to make everything needlessly complicated?

This post is called WWAND because I was hoping that Ari Ne'eman was reading my blog and could advise me, but he probably isn't because he's famous and has a real life. Someone else advise me instead. Why does everything have to be so hard all the time? Why can't people just do things that other people ask, if they aren't difficult and make sense? This kind of thing isn't especially easy for me, but I realized that if I keep waiting around for a really organized and socially adept ASD kid to come to Oberlin, I'll be waiting forever. It might as well be me. So why can't it just be me?

Resumes/CVs are the worst

I was going to say that they're inaccessible but I think that while resumes make me especially anxious as a person with ASD, they probably kind of suck for everyone, and it's not necessary for me to frame it as an ASD thing. They're just a bad idea.

It is better to have an application that's a form all the way through. It can ask for "previous jobs" and "experience in this field" and all the information you're supposed to put on a resume. There seems to be no reason to ask for a resume instead and a resume is a bad idea for several reasons:

1. It is just more work to type up and format a resume in a word processor and then save it and attach it to your application, or print it and attach it if your application is a physical one.

2. It seems like the employer can get better information by asking exactly what they want to know. The applicant might not have the same ideas as the employer about what is relevant information.

3. It is a lot harder to figure out from scratch what you are supposed to say than it is to follow a form. I tend to think of this as an ASD thing, but it's hard for me to imagine that figuring out things from scratch is an activity even normal people enjoy. To write a resume, you have to figure out what you have done that's relevant, how to organize it, and how to describe the experience and its value. When you're answering questions on a form, you just have to describe it.

I do think it's harder for me than it is for normal people (this stuff is always difficult for me to judge, I'm not inside their heads and frequently I think I'm just a big faker--at the same time I can get pretty nervous and exhausted, so I guess I'm real). I didn't get a job last summer and while part of this was the recession, I would have applied to more jobs earlier in the year if I didn't find job applications to be incredibly overwhelming. First they ask you to find a lot of information like the phone numbers of previous employers--which is perfectly understandable, even though it involves me feeling incredibly anxious about having to ask people for references, which is dumb because they usually don't even check your references, I think. Actually what is the point of references, then? Well, anyway. Just as soon as you have yourself in fact-finding gear, they make you switch to a gear where you describe your previous experience. Okay, that's easy, I like my experiences. But then you have to switch into the terrible gear where you're supposed to talk about your emotions and why you want the job and would be good at it.

So, here's the thing: presumably I'm a good writer. But I'm not good at writing the way I'm supposed to. I remember my parents and guidance counselor making me rewrite my college essay a million times because the writing style was "too young" (obviously I am "too young"--that's what DD means, and lots of people who meet me think I'm four or five years younger than I am--but it wasn't okay for me to be visibly "too young" because apparently that said something negative about me). Also, I dreaded essay questions on tests until the middle of high school because, invariably, just answering the question wasn't enough. As a younger person I was constantly being coached and corrected after I sent emails or made phone calls, because I supposedly didn't say enough.

So, you can imagine why "Explain why you should have this job" or "How did you become interested in [whatever disability population I'm applying to work with]?" makes me feel very...oh, boy, I'll finish this next week. Or next millennium. It's not because I'm not qualified for the job or because I don't have a lot of genuine and sincere interest in it. It's because I don't know all the other stuff that is required, besides telling the truth--and being a 21-year-old, I tend to want to squander my spoons on a trip to the burrito store or a movie with someone who makes me nervous. Not admirable, but pretty average, I think.

Actually, given my areas of interest, I have to figure out if the truth is even called for. Last year I basically lied on my job applications and in my interviews, which made the whole process a lot more difficult. It's hard to explain how you got interested in disabilities or why you think you are good with DD people if you can't explain that you have a developmental disability yourself. I guess I thought they would think I was a serial killer, or at least a bad role model. Instead I must have just seemed like someone who had a very hard time answering simple questions.

By this point, I feel that it's not worth it; I'm a college student with parents who don't especially care if I have a paying job, so even though it would upset me to not have a job, it's not the end of the world if I don't get hired because I'm honest about my ASD. Next year when I'm looking for a more permanent situation, I may have to break out some fake backstory about an ASD cousin or something, just to be safe--but for the time being, if my disability is part of a relevant, truthful answer to a question, I'm not going to hide it.

So that makes things better. But to make things worse, there's still the resume. And people who don't answer your emails and you have to email them again feeling like you're going to barf because you know YOU ARE BOTHERING THEM. YOU'RE SO OBNOXIOUS. But regular people are obnoxious and they just don't think about it. And that's why they have jobs.

I am gay

My roommate is watching Bones and this British guy's voice sounded familiar but I can't see the screen. First I thought it was Anthony Stewart Head but I realized it wasn't and then I felt bad about myself but then I figured out it was Moneypenny from Mad Men!

Also apparently the Giles miniseries is actually happening THIS YEAR! Probably not. But. If it did that would be awesome.

Villain

I'm such a dork, this is like a Magnetic Fields song if the Magnetic Fields weren't good.



(the entire inspiration for this song is that I like the word "villains," I guess you can kind of tell that from the fact that it has no actual lyrical content)