The Normal Normals
"You seem to treat disability as if it's so ... normal." Thus begins an email to me from a parent of a child with Down Syndrome. I appreciate what she is saying in the email, it's quite complimentary, but this statement really stands out for me. I know we all chafe at the word normal when in fact most of us deeply fear that we are entirely normal. I remember going to a doctor with symptoms and being told that it was 'normal' for men 'of my age' to have these symptoms. Going in feeling different, coming out feeling mundane - didn't like it. Even so, the idea of disability as a normal state of being seems odd to many.
Not to me.
I figure if it happens in nature, it's normal. It's the way it's supposed to be. I happened. I'm normal. Big deal.
Yesterday I sat chatting with a fellow who had recently quit his job as a teacher. He talked about teaching disabled kids in school. Kids kept separate from others, from the 'normal' population. I was astounded at how easy it was to trim normal, to make it mean 'like me' rather than 'like us.' I wondered about those kids in the segregated class room. What were they learning from being there? Forget the curriculum. What where they learning from being behind a special door, in a special room? Were they learning that their humanity had been curtailled and they didn't belong. Weren't part of it all. Not wanted on the voyage?
The 'normals' who walked the hallways, glancing with unease at the door to the special room. Fearing and being titilated by the sheer smallness of the barrier between different and acceptable. Giving gentle thanks to a God that made them better, better, best. Wondering at the cruelty of a God who could make other, other, bad.
I don't fear the word 'normal' because I am it. What I fear is those who define the word in their head in a manner that excludes me. This isn't a problem with the word 'normal', this is a problem with bigotry and bias and prejudice. This is a problem with exclusion. With the idea of 'us' meaning 'not you'.
I wrote Mom back and told her that while having Down Syndrome was normal. It was also normal to exclude, to be cruel, so normal isn't necessarily what it's cracked up to be. It is the normal normals that one has to fear. I suggested that she needed to ensure that her child understood that he was made with the same care as everyone else. That his world was his world, that his humanity was all humanity, to not give up ground to bigots.
We've done that for too long.
It hasn't worked.
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"I wondered about those kids in the segregated class room. What were they learning from being there? Forget the curriculum. What where they learning from being behind a special door, in a special room? Were they learning that their humanity had been curtailled and they didn't belong. Weren't part of it all. Not wanted on the voyage?"
Imagine being in a school full of Disabled kids, with landscaped man-made hills to save the local residents from having to look at the "freaks". That's MY experience of "special" education.