Tag Archives: eugenics

Citizen’s Vulnerabilities and the Rights of All in this Society – Part 2 of 3

A Collage of my family life cycle: Hope you enjoy the picture!
Image Description: On the Top Left, Brandon's long term relationship, Jessie, next to it is Scarlett Arrow painting in Colorado with finters, next is my mother in Aruba, next is Scarlett smiling in the camera over the summer with purple flowers, Center is my parents smiling in the camera at dinner in Aruba, next to the left is Brandon being himself at a microphone at Eric and Merrill's day before the wedding party in Denver, below Brandon on the left is a solo picture of my Father, below my father is a picture of Eric, Merrill, Mom, and Dad at Scarlett Arrow's baby shower before she was born, next to that is Me, Brandon, and Eric while Eric is a proud new Father at Scarlett Arrow's birth, next to that is me riding Molly last year (my next lesson is Thursday).
There is a light blue border, there is a yellow background and some water seen in some parts of the image as well..
A collage of my family and I with my niece Scarlett, my sister in law Merrill and my brother Brandon’s long term relationship, Jessie

Our society created the mindset of the perfect mind and body back when Francis Galton created the word eugenics and the world decided that between Darwin’s evolutionary theory his creation of the word eugenics, that everyone became instantly obsessed with the human genome. To perfect the body and mind is to deny disability and separate from the imperfect human body to create a monster master race of the human genome that everyone will strive to be. This monster master race that everyone has been striving for since the late 19th Century, created the thinking that Hitler wanted to first exterminate people with varying degrees of impairments to eventually exterminating certain races, religions, and other peoples in the Holocaust who he thought society could do away with. I am sorry to say, but the world, created the way Hitler would eventually think about how the human genome, race, and religion. We couldn’t control how some people would interpret this thinking even today. However, this is not the only thing we need to take responsibility for, we also need to take responsibility for many other things throughout history both in our private lives and in the public.

Everyone seems to not understand that trying to perfect a human genome is trying to perfect something that is constantly changing, and constantly moving around in our bodies just like the universe is constantly moving. We are human beings so I understand why many people are obsessed with perfecting (and perfected) bodies and minds. However, perfecting a body and mind, is a very fine line between what we think is autonomy and what we think we need to depend on others for. As we are Human beings who live in this world, we are connected to each other regardless of the way we identify through race, religion, sexuality, gender, or disability cultures. The way we represent ourselves is independent of being human because being human really means that we need to support one another regardless since we all go through the same trials, tribulations, and rewards in life.

Supporting decisions and the way we as individuals experience life is important. The person centered approach most are beginning to learn now, is something that is a part of human nature since the beginning of time. Yet, we have in the past, and in some ways still do, only respect the decisions some people make while others we feel could not make decisions at all and could not think on their own. We need to give everyone the tools to decide and think about what they want  on their own. This thinking convinced many people that their decisions are illogical and not right. Making decisions for one’s life depends on the kinds of decisions we are making. Some decisions we can decide on our own, but many other decisions we need support from people who can help.  In the end, the final decision is ours.

Whenever I make a decision, it not only affects myself, but it also affects everyone around me in society and that’s when difficult conversations persist. These decisions affect us individually in many different ways. If a child rebels against their parents decision to change who they are, then the child and parents must take responsibility for their actions. Deciding on changing the way a person is, also changes the way everyone else feels about themselves. It is important to attribute every decision I make to the way I think about others and life. When I think about who we are as a people, I think about where we came from, and the people in our life that affect what we think. What we think sometimes can hurt who we are and/or other people.

Citizen’s Vulnerabilities and the Rights of All in this Society – Part 1 of 3

J siitting on a rock as he is wearing a blue tee shirt which reads “I have special needs. I keep in the a box and under my bed and then feed them crickets. Today I just showed up with my regular needs just like anybody else.”

My support worker team from my self-directed services: Iona Northern edited this post with me.

Autistic people have rights the way everyone has rights .

Autistic people grow at different paces while others may just grow at the same pace as their physical age. Because of that we are often thought of as less than human, deviant from the norm, and due to our impairments many in society look down upon us thinking we do not have a mind of our own nor are we able to make logical decisions about the life we want. 

Autistic people are vulnerable, and depending on the impairments, that can determine how vulnerable the individual will be. It does not matter if the person is less impaired, they can be more vulnerable. Many think that way because Autistic people feel so many emotions at once, so that at times we either do not know how to use our emotions, we scale inward. or we use our emotions too much. This is considered to be over-emotional, rageful, and illogical. Whichever way Autistic people are, we are misunderstood by society as a whole.

From all of this misunderstandings and misguided ideas of a perception that someone with cognitive and sensory impairments is not capable, not competent, causes one to pause and be grateful that some in society are finally learning  how wrong they have been. The tragedy of this kind of thinking has created a disconnect and unmet need between Autistic people and the rest of society. There are a lot of people who need to take responsibility for causing this rift.

Unfortunately, the mass media has contributed to this by conforming to the ideas of this subjective interpretation. Many people are suffering from a society that lacks understanding. This war against Autistic people is really a war against humanity and human nature. The battle to fight for either correcting the genome from disability to embracing the genome and realizing cognitive disabilities like the way Autistic culture is, is something that needs to be accepted just as many other neurodivergences need to be accepted.

How far do we go to changing the human genome? Is it our right to change the genome that mutates and changes randomly over time? Who gets to say which parts of the genome are bad or not? And, is the human genome really a bad thing as many medical researchers are trying to correct it to make a perfected flawless human being? Is eugenics or genetic counseling really needed?

My feelings as a person who is Neurodivergent from outside the norms of society and as an Autistic person leads me to believe that I often feel like pushing to be who I am while getting push back from society to make me the same as others. The fine line between autonomy and being who we are versus depending on others to conform to the standards of society is enormously thick, yet we need to pull one way and push another to be included in the community. Autism Speaks as an organization has been through a rough war because many people feel their misguided thinking for almost 13 years has been too hurtful to many who feel they want to embrace who they are regardless. This makes me feel that everyone needs to re-think what we have done in the past.

Hope everyone enjoyed this 3 part series of articles. The next 2 parts will be coming soon.

Be around to see the next part!

TheamazinJ

A Poem Called “Autistic Rage”

Autistic Rage,

(Written after reading the article Blind Rage, in response to Helen Keller, by Georgina Kleege)
(This poem is something that is in the works for a poetry anthology I am doing for class for my masters program at CUNY. I am working on doing annotations for each part of this poem that requires an annotation which is why there is numbers associated with certain lines as well as 4 other poems I chose to annotate as well. I also used gender neutral pronouns so as to not identify. Since my natural tendency in writing is short bursts of words rather than longer sentences from my own Autistic language which is my own Autistic Poetics and my professor likes that. And, I will be filming this poem this week for my non-credit film class.)

by theamazinJ

My feelings of disability 1
come from the distinction of an honor,
but to many a tragedy,
from the way we see people generally,
to the way we converse,
from Kanner’s views of autism,2
to Asperger’s views of psychopathology, 3
to the beauty of movement
from the ideas of Tourette’s4
spilling out my gut,
without my insincere moment,
from the way Elephant Man5
physically felt stigmatized
and ostracized to the
way my moment of
my life lives.
To the way I fill the moment
of my influence,
to the moment of
how the intersection of
autism and Tourette’s
go hand in hand
even with dyslexia6
with the acts of disability
in American culture.7
My life is good,
stop and wonder,
my life is good,
I don’t care what you say,
I hurt,
I pain,
from your misunderstandings,
from your lack of empathy,
of your arrogance,
of your immaturity,
of your future of me one day,
when I surpass you.
I hurt,
I pain, I forgive,
I forget,
I argue,
I say,
Get Out,
Get Real,
Get images,
Get going,
I am me,
So get the hell out.

My disability of autism
is interesting.
My disability of anxiety 8
is a swirl of energy and rage
to be controlled.
My disability of movement
makes me move differently
than I am and you are.
I move with ease.
I move with fluttering hands and feet.
I fly my hands in the sky with flapping,
I shadow my feeling in the darkness.
I crawl into a hole.
My disability is discomforting.
My disability is not accepted.
I feel over anxious from
the already anxiety I feel
from society.
I feel I don’t love who I am
because I am not accepted
under this social standard, 9
this social construction society created, 10
and under every one telling me without
supporting me.
And, if I don’t want to be told,
that I am not supported by anything.
It’s control.
It’s life giving me serene beauty without
touching the beauty.
I love things, I love animals,
I always and sometimes love people.
I feel conglomerated
by society by the people
around me.
I need to be forgiven for I am,
yet, everyone wants
to change me for who I am right now.
I am, right now.
I cannot just be
I cannot just do
I cannot just say
I want to say
I want to do,
but in reality
i am unforgiven.
I am forgettable,
i am not working
like the way
They is worthy, 11
or
They thinks is worthy,12
or
They thinks they is the Queen,13
or
They
notes them and with pride,14
or
Them
exacerbates who they is
in a low key manner,15
or
They seems better
but really is not,16
or
They moves in to build peace
but cannot really17
or
They talks about sex
but takes it too far18
or
They passes with ease
causing more pain,19
or
the way Them projects who they are,20
or
Them uses their anger to shell out to others,21
or
They thinks the world revolves around them,22
or
how they thinks they can speak with AAC
even saying how proud they are of autism,23
or
even the way they takes on
how others feel and does not know their own,24
or even the way they attempts to
say Autistic men are more likely to be pedophiles
from an article from 2013,25
or how they thinks they can find causes
which they thinks can take away the pain
and cure autism even though that just
causes more pain in order to pass
and not be real,26
or even the way the anti-vaccine movement
thinks they knows everything, but knows nothing.27
or how every Autistic leaders feel,28
or autism researchers think about Autistics,29
because Autistic or not, I feel
humanity is real,
but humanity sucks
from the way we are all judged,
but humanity is not normal,30
and normal is done,
normal is succinct,
normal is seemingly joyous but
with eagerness to feel pain,
to feel suffering, to feel like less than,
but most importantly
feeling jerky,
feeling like a marshmallow,
feeling geeky,
feeling like I don’t belong
and everyone can move me
in the direction they want,
and my anxiety soars everyday,
every night,
and cannot stop
because everyone tells me and
no one wants to be told
and no one supports, but support is
good is better and helps a person
achieve self-determination,
achieving identity of largeness in my hands,
my long legs ache, my arms are in pain,
and I just feel like embarking on something special
as every other human being
is special, is unique,
and not more, not less,
and a part of the life
we live today.
It’s the way Neurotribes was written31
and even with In A Different Key,32
because Autistic history is real33
when it is really
the history of the Human race.34

(Happy Autism Acceptance Month 2017!)

The poems in order will be :

1) Autistic Rage poem
2) I am not retarded poem
3) I open at the close poem
4) Tyrant and Martyr poem
5) Poem of Apologies

(Now each poem will have annotations based on the readings I read this semester with other readings (books, articles) I have too.)

A Poem Called “Nothing About Us”

Nothing About Us,

by theamazinJ

Everywhere we go,
everywhere we look,
We see destruction,
we see walls being built,
we see the development of institutions,
we see the lack of community building,
everywhere we go we see Donald Trump’s face
in place of the faces from the 1930’s,
where in 1927, Oliver Wendell Holmes
from the U.S. Supreme Court
finished what was started in America
where the dark history of America
helped stir the pot in Germany back then,
where even today
many people still keep in mind
what American History is really about,
keeping the rich richer,
and about building a fascist state of mind,
while The U.S. Supreme Court in 1927
from Buck Vs. Bell
secured a statement
that is still in everyone’s minds today
stirring the message over and over in their heads.
The message was clear, the message was disturbing,
and the message was concrete,
when Holmes said “Three Generations of Imbeciles were enough…”
It allowed the preconceived notion
that the medical model of disability will dominate,
it also allowed Americans
to build a war against each others
against society
and against disability
while at the same time
trying to prevent disability
and not only that,
but eventually labeling
everyone ‘high’ functioning or ‘low’ functioning,
and even establishing medical charity organizations
to this day
to use this rhetoric from Buck vs. Bell
even more than they had done before
to establish a society of sameness,
a society of perfect bodies,
a society where there would be lethal forced euthanasia,
a society where there would be eradication of certain peoples,
and a society segregating people
by class, by gender, by race, by sexuality, by ability,
and by religion.
This is the society Donald Trump wants,
this is the society that Paul Ryan hopes for,
this the society Mitch McConnell strives for
and what Mike Pence asserts every day.
We need to stop this from happening,
we need to embrace every part of humanity
every day of our lives,
with supporting each other,
and encouraging everyone
while remembering
why we are here on this planet,
and how we can rely on each other everyday for support.
Society is interdependent,
we are not finches,
we cannot take Darwin literally when he said
it’s ‘Survival of the Fittest’,
because humanity is different,
humanity is supported,
we support one another,
we support other animals,
we support other kingdoms of taxonomy,
we support the climate of this great planet,
if someone is sought out to destroy this diversity
then we need to sought out justice to the people
wanting to harm and wanting to do this,
because we need to construct
a world of love for this planet
and everything and everybody that is on it,
no one can take that away
and no one can segregate or harm another,
in the end,
its our duty to take care of one another
regardless of who or what we are,
regardless of what kinds of supports
the person needs to achieve their own self-determination,
because we cannot be influenced by
Donald Trump’s establishment or Paul Ryan’s anger or Mitch McConnell’s fury,
or even Mike Pence’s ignorance,
To be truly United,
we need to include everyone,
we need to build community,
because disability is part of the human experience,
but is also part of living organisms,
and we need to remember,
Nothing about us, without us
is Nothing about US.
Everyone supporting one another, is not controlling anyone regardless,
that’s what democracy is really about.

A Poem Called “The Institution of ‘Trump'”

Trigger Warning: Please read with caution. Trump is created bad ideas and this poem may trigger many. Do please read with caution.

The Institution of ‘Trump’,

by theamazinJ

Trump, Trumponian Era is beginning soon,
the dark ages is beginning way too soon once again,
the ages of ignorance, the ages of backwards history,
an ages of no civil rights laws for everyone
is the beginning of Trumponian Era.
A scary time for me, a scary time for you,
and a scary time for everyone.
It’s going to be scary because
a age of ableism,
a age of racism,
a age of misogyny,
a age of heterosexism,
a age of transphobia,
a age of binary gender,
a age of anti-semitism,
a age of islamophobia,
a age of institutional thinking
for any one who is different than the status quo,
re-creating institutions for disabled people
from cognitive to learning to psychiatric to physical disabilities
to segregation without inclusion,
without The Americans with Disabilities Act and Universal Design
for everyone to live their life however they want to live,
a age of conversion therapies
to change everyone’s brains from the way an individual citizen thinks and feels
regardless how the person think and feel,
a age of creating clones of people,
a age of no creative thinking or inventive thought,
an age of being afraid to express ourselves the way we feel,
an age of black and white thinking and polarization.
we are about to enter an age of searching to create the perfect human being once again
who are white, anglo-saxon, heterosexual, non-disabled males,
where we are leaving behind an age where Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Ed Roberts,
and many other activists fought hard for women’s rights, the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s,
the Section 504 of Rehabilitation Act, where Free Appropriate Public Education Act for All was passed,
where the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed, where De-Institutionalization began over 40 years ago,
where the Sexual and Gender revolutions happened, where the Early Intervention Laws of the 1980’s began,
where the independent living movement got started,
where The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed,
where the Autism CARES Act was signed and passed,
and now Trumponian Era will try to erase all that and the history behind it,
Instead we need to support getting the Disability Integration Act started,
we need to ensure everyone is respected
regardless of gender, sexuality, disability, race, and religion.
We need to ensure human rights for all,
and we need to do this before it is too late.
We need to remember eugenics did not work,
we need to remember the word ‘genetics’ is similar to ‘eu-gen-i-(ti)cs’,
we need to remember what science means to all of us,
We need to remember to be open to everyone,
away from another age of binary thought,
away from a President-Elect who is too ignorant and too emotional
to think everything through as our soon to be President.
We need to pop the bubble Trumponian Era is trying to create,
we need to cure ourselves from the institution of Trump
who does not want to support disability and difference,
we cannot build walls around anyone,
we need to build bridges around the world,
to ensure we create the justice everyone always wanted,
to ensure everyone can live together,
to ensure everyone is included,
to ensure public education is free and appropriate for every child,
to keep the Affordable Care Act Obama signed,
to build supported decision-making for everyone,
to secure our minds to think the way we feel about inclusion,
to feel about whoever we love in this world,
to communicate our thoughts however we express ourselves
through our physical voice or through sign language or through assistative technology.
To ensure that human rights means disability is respected part of the human experience
because disability is a part of the human experience.
We need to secure self-determination and the choices everyone gets to make every day.
Everyone deserves the right to follow their hearts and follow whatever dreams they have,
because in the end,
we need to all march this week.
We need to march for our revolution,
we need to march for our freedoms that many past civil rights leaders and our founders created
with many of the current civil rights leaders in all of us,
and we need to march for justice!
That is all from a activist fighting with everyone!