The Word “Weird” Is Harmful to Disabled People
A master rebranding that was bound to backfire.
When Tim Walz rebranded the Trump campaign and his entire apparatus as “weird,” it gelled and sizzled among the populace. The word caught on so much that it helped Walz partially solidify his nomination for Vice President of the United States. Democrats have been having a field day with it ever since.
I get why Walz would choose this particular word. It definitely fits. It’s very relatable. It passes the “beer test” with ease. A third grader can understand the word “weird” because it is a schoolyard insult. However, a third grader probably cannot grasp in an abstract or concrete sense what it means to be a threat to democracy.
There’s no question that the shoe fits here. The question is, should Walz have deployed this word?
Should we use the word ‘weird’?
It did not take Nostradamus to predict that the Trump campaign and the far right would repurpose and reappropriate the word “weird” against Harris and Walz at what they considered to be a suitable time. What was more unpredictable, however, was that the far right would use this word against Walz’s son.
Most people probably saw Gus Walz’s outpouring of love and support when Tim Walz took to the stage at the United Center in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. The majority of us with beating hearts who do not have ice-cold veins felt this was a special moment. Gus went against the stereotype of the stoic teenager, and his love and pride in his father was emotionally moving for most of us.
Unfortunately, the far right had other plans. They saw this as the time to repurpose the word “weird” onto a teenager for no other reason than because the word has been (correctly) used to label them. Queenish troll Ann Coulter was quick to use the word, along with right wing talk show hosts, authors, and much of the MAGAverse online. What many of these trolls probably did not realize — and the rest did not care, is that Gus Walz is neurodiverse. He has a Nonverbal Learning Disability, high anxiety, and ADHD. Like yours truly, Gus grew up feeling different from others, but his parents raised him to utilize his disabilities as his “secret power.”
Some people might argue that autistics should reclaim the mantle of the word “weird.” That we should repurpose it and not be ashamed of our differences. After all, it’s not as bad as the “r” word. I would disagree. The word comes with too much baggage. I grew up being called weird more times than I can count. It has left scars. Anyone with a disability has heard this word. There is a sordid history where this kind of language has been weaponized against individuals with disabilities. If we’re being honest, it’s ableist. Consider this quote about the “research” Bruno Bettleheim did:
In 1959 Bruno Bettelheim argued that what had been called feral children were actually children suffering from autism, whose strange, often animal-like behaviour had led observers to concoct fanciful accounts of their upbringing in the wild. He concluded that ‘feral children seem to be produced not when wolves behave like mothers but when mothers behave like wolves’ (1959: 467).
Or this quote from a 1954 academic article:
It is one thing for a child to spin out a daydream in which he sets himself apart from the world, and another thing for an adult to push the motif to its weird and sinister limits.
Consider that Eugene Bleuler’s original definition of autism in 1908 was that we had a “morbid self-admiration.” This seems to describe Donald Trump to a tee, and it may even be what makes him so “weird,” but it certainly does not represent the vast majority of autistic people I have met.
Walz’s misstep
Walz probably should have anticipated that the word weird would be repurposed and used against his son. If he hadn’t made this connection before deciding to rebrand the Trump campaign as weird, he should have.
Again, some autistics would quarrel with me and say we need to reclaim the mantle of weirdness. But tell that to a 5-year-old autistic kid who has been called weird by his classmates day after day. Tell that to an autistic co-worker who knows she is out of place in the corporate environment and knows everyone at his job thinks she is weird.
If weird meant “different,” “offbeat,” “eccentric”, or a little “funky,” I would be ok with it. But it doesn’t. It has a pejorative meaning. There may be other people who want to reclaim the mantle of a word meant to harm others, and they have that prerogative. I choose to reject such language because it IS harmful. It leads to bullying, especially when people use it to “punch down” instead of taking someone down a peg.
Fortunately, when things like this happen, they produce some positive consequences. There is usually greater awareness of neurodiverse conditions in the aftermath of such an episode. But it shouldn’t take a seventeen-year-old kid bearing the brunt of obnoxious sophomoric insults to bring about such awareness. We do not need sacrificial lambs to advance the causes of justice, fairness, and equity.
I like what Harris said about Trump instead. She said he is an “unserious man”. Perfect! It’s a descriptor that fits the man to a tee without any of the ableism.
