We Are All the Same
A Quick Look at the Worst Case of Discrimination Since Slavery
Photo Credit: Jeremy Longchamp
An Epiphany
My junior year of high school, I was walking through the hallways when I ran into a severely autistic student, Ashlyn. She ran up to me and bear hugged me and just kept saying “I love you. I love you. Are you mad at me?” That moment, I had an epiphany that changed my life forever. Before, I would walk around school throwing out the word “retard” like it was just any other word, using it for a synonym for stupid, not caring who I was hurting.
It was that moment that I realized that the people I was hurting by saying it did not have the capability to hate.
That moment changed my life forever, and I vowed to make a difference however I could. That very day, I marched down to the Guidance department in my high school and signed up for Unified Physical Education — a course where students with intellectual disabilities participate in a gym class working with students who do not suffer from intellectual disabilities — and changed my life forever.
Ashlyn
Senior year rolled around, and I was ecstatic to participate and help students who have been shunned from society for so long succeed at something that has provided me and so many of their classmates with joy. I took the “challange” of working with Ashlyn, and loved every second of it. Students struggle to work with her due to the communication barrier and her physcial size and strength.
I learned very quickly, though, how to master something James Paul Gee refers to as a “Discourse” (5), in “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” A Discourse is any group of people who have their own jargon and their own sets of values and beliefs. Gee defines Discourses as “ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes…a sort of ‘identity kit’”(6–7).
Doing What’s Right
In this case, I had to master the Discourse of partner not only for Ashlyn, but also the other students with special needs who viewed me as a role model. I had to learn what to do with each student, what to say, how to successfully deal with different situations, and so much more. I dedicated myself to her and to them and devoted my time to ensuring that they developed physically and mentally, and that they had fun participating in the society that had shunned and discriminated against them for so long.
The R-Word Speech
In a speech given at Fremd High School, entitled “R-Word Speech,” in Illinois in February 2007, Senior Soeren Palumbo addresses an issue that is plaguing American society and must be addressed and cured. He states,
“In such an era of political correctness, why is it that retard is still ok? Why do we allow it? Why don’t we stop?” (Palumbo).
Ever since the fortunate day that I bumped into Ashlyn, the same question has been bothering me as well.
When trying to address the issue, Americans become offended. I have tried a countless number of times to high school students, to teammates on the soccer field, to friends, to adults; It doesn't matter how many times I try to inform them that using “retard” as a synonym for “stupid” is hurtful and affects people, they never listen. People I respect and who respect me, my peers, my friends, my teammates, shrug me off and tell me not to tread upon their freedom of speech.
While individuals are free to say whatever they wish, when they use the word “retard” as a synonym for “stupid”, they are discriminating and hating the only people around them without the ability to defend themselves.
Our Most Innocent are the Most Hated
I try to stand up for them because they can not stand up for themselves. Even though we are discussing a group of people who will always love unconditionally, who will never turn their back on you, and who WILL NEVER HATE, they seem to be the group of people most hated and discriminated against in our society. Just because they talk differently than we talk, or look differently than we look, or learn differently than we learn, does not mean that they are any different from us. Inside, we are all the same, and, quite frankly, they are in many ways stronger because they do not know how to hate.
We Must Stand Up For What’s Right
This unfair treatment of society’s most innocent must stop. Now. It starts with our generation. We must stand up for our classmates who are not capable of standing up for themselves to show that we are strong enough to end this plague, this curse, this bane that has stricken America for far too long. As a great unknown person once said:
I don’t think the worst thing that could happen to me is raising a child with special needs. I think the worst thing is to raise a child who is cruel to those with special needs.
