Boycott The Movie Tropic Thunder

The following disability groups (and nearly a dozen more) are calling for a boycott of the new movie Tropic Thunder which negatively portraits a man with cognitive disabilities, including orginally using the line, "once upon a time there was a 'retard'".

• the Special Olympics
• the ARC
• the National Down Syndrome Congress
• the American Association of People with Disabilities

The following websites can help you teach about ableism and stopping mistreatment and bullying of those with cognitive and other disabilities:

• Stop the R-word
• Don't Laugh at Me
• Kids on the Block
  

I happen to think that if we stop the R-word another word will just replace it unless we, as a community of people with disabilities and their allies, find a way to radically change how society perceives intellectual and other challenges. Just look at the history of the words we have used to label people with various cognitive disabilities - "feeble minded", "idiot", "moron", etc. If we start using the words, "developmentally delayed" how long will it be until the kids on the playground start calling each other "D.D.s."? My God daughter has Asperger's syndrome and in her middle school the big insult was to be called a "SPED". It isn't the R-word, but it needs to stop. Getting rid of the R-word isn't going to stop the "short bus" joke either. I wouldn't be surprised if "on the spectrum" becomes a school yard slam in time.

That's because when we just change the word we haven't changed the perception. (Otherwise we wouldn't need to keep changing the word.) We need to think about bigger change than just vocabulary. We need to change the stigma of disability. We need to get rid of the stigma of disability. We need to change the idea of "normal". We need to expand "normal" to include every person of every kind of ability.

We need a movement. We need a revolution. It is time to expect society to do the right thing and stop the R-word and every former version of the R-word and every future version of the R-word, not because it is the R-word, but because people are people and the perception of disability as a negative has stopped being an insult.

Black Armbands and Ribbons with Hearts

CAN Do, a group that works towards abuse prevention and intervention for people with disabilities posted a notice today calling for people to wear black armbands in memory of Brent Martin. Brent Martin was a man with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities who was murdered for sport in Britain by a gang of teenage boys who wagered they could know him down with one punch and then proceeded to chase, corner and assault him. The trial of his murderers continues.



Another trial continues here in the USA, Katie McCarron's non-custodial mother is on trial for suffocating her with a plastic. Katie McCarron was a three year old who had autism. Autism Vox has been covering the McCarron trial and reports that pink ribbons with hearts are being distributed in memory of Katie.

Such murders are nothing new, for example there was the 1993 murder of 12 year old Tracy Latimer which created an international uproar.

Those Looks

by Stacey Ahern

Over and over
Everyday
I see it.
I see those looks
Like I disappoint them
I see it in their eyes.
They think I’m weird, strange.
I know I am.
I want to apologize.
I don’t want to be like this.
When I came to it was there.
No it wasn’t. I worked for it
Like a fish born into a pond
But forced to swim in the sea.
To be like this though?
To be stared at?
Like that fish floundering
On land.
Treated like I have
A contagious disease?
I don’t though and
They’re not bad people
By the way.
Just listen. Listen to
What we have to say.
Try to hear.
Hear through
Your own glare.
We might be okay.

Stacey Ahern is entering her senior year at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. She is a member of SLC's disability action group, Beyond Compliance. This poem is printed in their zine. She is a writer and an activist, who lives with brain injury. She is also my little sister and I am so proud of her.