Tag Archives: social construction

A Poem Called “Labels”

Labels,

by theamazinj

Labels are important,
they can be very powerful,
when one is called stupid
to when one is called crazy.
Labels are important,
they tell the kinds of things a person is.
Labels are powerful
when used
like when we are called Brilliant, Honest, or a Liar.
Labels can hurt or be very respectful
especially when using the words,
Racist, Ableist, Abuser, or even Loving.
Words can hurt, but they can also heal.
I love you. I hate you. I despise you. I am in awe of you.
Labels are NOT just for cans, they are for everything and everyone.
It’s why TAXONOMY exists, it’s why we always use them.
Labels are important.
I love you,
I hate you,
I filter you.
I am so in love.
I am so in anger.
I have anxiety for you.
Labels are important.
Labels are important.
Labels are important.
Labels help and can also hurt.
They hurt when we use the R word,
they hurt when we use the N word,
however, we spin a word around
and make it a different word with a different meaning
so easily.
Like for the R word, Rich,
and the N word, Neighborly.
When we think of words,
we need to think of the positive words
and the positive meanings
and when we want to criticize,
instead of saying,
Ableist or Racist or Misgyonist or Sexist or Heterosexist or even pervert,
we need to treat people with respect and positive their whole lives,
once we label a negative word to a person
it sticks with that person for life.
Life’s journey is saturated with labels,
it’s saturated with bigotry,
it’s saturated with misunderstandings and miscommunications,
So, does labels go on cans and people?
Of course they do, they do every day.
So, it’s labels important?
Yes, of course they are.
Labels were created because of TAXONOMY,
because of categorizing,
but we can label things giving people something to live up to,
or we can label things giving people a dark windy tunnel to run through
trying to find the light.
sometimes we have to realize,
Being disabled is a part of life and is not a bad word,
we have to realize being Autistic is a part of life too,
we have to remember being Neurodivergent is a part of life as well,
and that society’s so called ‘normal’ is derogatory
even when called ‘neurotypical’ now and even
the way everyone embraces that social construction of ‘normal’ or ‘neurotypical’.
TAXONOMY is important, and labels are so powerful,
Just think about the labels
and you can think about your life.
Labels that are given to and accepted by individual citizens
do in fact define a person,
so think about when you call a person crazy, stupid, insane, ugly, overemotional, or even irrational,
how much pain you may be causing someone,
and may be you may want to use more positive words about anyone,
like intelligent, creative, loving, caring, and even beautiful.
Words matter, labels matter, labels mean everything.
The social construction of ‘normal’ is important, but not very logical.
Just remember being disabled or being neurodivergent is a thing
everyone experiences.

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 “I am just like you “

I am just like you,

(Initially this poem was entitled a different name, but I changed the poem title. I changed the title of the poem because as a disabled person myself, I need to be careful with my own internalized ableism as all of us disabled people have internalized ableism to deal with all the time. The original title was using my own internalized ableism to try to use a word that society uses toward disabled people like myself all the time, but and say I am not that. Society uses disabled people to accept internalized ableism so that disabled people can accept the ableism of society. This is an issue most of us in the disability community have to battle with in societies including the western societies. Thank you for reading this site and enjoying reading my poems.)

by theamazinJ

I can think for myself,
I have a mind of my own,
I am a master of myself,
I am a filmmaker,
I am an artist,
I am a poet,
I am a person,
I am not less than what you think,
I am an independent citizen,
I need support like everyone else,
I am capable even though I am disabled,
disability does not mean I am hidden from society,
disability does not mean I cannot say “I am disabled and proud”
disability does not mean my voice does not matter,
disability does not mean I can’t do anything,
disability means I need to structure my supports
and build a supported decision making agreement
between my supporters
as myself being the decision maker
like you and you and you in the world.
I disagree with people
as much as I agree,
I do not agree with you on some things,
but I agree on other things,
and that’s okay.
I can speak out on what I believe and feel
an that’s ok because it’s how I feel
and it does not mean
I am too easily influenced or ‘brainwashed’
because being ‘brainwashed’ is not even a thing,
it is a social construction, it is not even real,
and it is figure of speech of
someone’s imagination to make a person seem crazy,
to make a person feel disregarded as a person,
and to not allow a person to take responsibility for their choices
even if the person felt at the time
to choose something for their own self-care,
even if it was for their own way of
making meaning with the world,
my own way of growing and maturing
and doing things on my own,
to get to an understanding of what
I can do without the world telling me otherwise
as if I need to always be told
as if I am child and not the adult that I am.
Presuming competence is so important,
it is so liberating for everyone
because the social model of disability
is not about discrediting medicine,
it is about self-determination
it’s about de-stigmatizing what the medical model did,
so disabled people make their decisions
and using accommodations even it is from medicine
to help a person live their life,
even if they need other accessibilities
to do this as well,
even if many do not understand the
social model of disability,
that’s ok, but please don’t discredit it,
don’t discredit an individual’s right to make decisions
based on how they may feel at the time,
allow leeway in may be taking responsibility
for why the individual chose that decision at the time,
may be it wasn’t all about the individual’s behavior
maybe it could have been the way
the individual felt from the behavior
of the people around them.
Relationships are a two way street.
Everything that happens is never one sided,
it is never the fault of one person,
everyone can always take responsibility for
every decision that is made by an individual.
There is a reason why things happen,
and sometimes that reason needs to be known,
sometimes the reason is projected on the decision maker
because the other people don’t want to
feel bad or don’t want to know they might have done
something wrong.
There is never what someone did was wrong
like there is never what someone did was right.
Every decision we make is something we did
from how we felt at the time.
Everywhere we go, every decision we make,
are decisions that may have been
tough for us to make,
but it was decisions from our path
to help us grow,
to help us mature,
and to help us further our destiny
to live our life.
Every decision any individual makes
is by how we felt
and whoever was around the individual at that time
including the individual
who needs to take responsibility for that decision.
Take responsibility for yourself
and most importantly take responsibility
for every other person as a decision maker
regardless of who the person is or was
even if person is disabled or
even if the person is non-disabled.
It’s not all about you or them,
it’s all about the decision that was made.

A Poem Called “To Please Yourself is to not think of anyone else”

To Please Yourself is to not think of anyone else,

by theamazinJ

It’s my life,
and no one else’s,
it’s my life,
even when people disagree,
it’s my life,
even if anyone disagrees with me
my whole life too,
it’s my life,
I choose things in my life
for a reason,
as an activist,
as a person who is
committed to human rights,
disability justice,
self-determination,
and with the rights
everyone has of supported decision making.
As a person who
does not like
the way the world is today
from the many discriminations
and injustices that are serving
everyone living today.
From the ideas of
the way society uses
the medical model
to hurt so many people,
and the way
everyone hurts,
not everyone understanding each other,
that because of this
there is disability culture
separate from non-disability culture
and because of this
I saddened to know
that from the two different cultures
not understanding each other,
universal design is not realistic,
and too ideal,
because there are
too many non-disabled people
who think of only themselves
and there are
too many disabled people
that are angry about this,
that can this war over words
really end?
can this war over words really end?
The war over words,
eventually leads to violence,
eventually leads to a tougher life,
and eventually leads to
everyone learning the hard way.
Our lives are good,
as human beings
we have the ability to love,
we have the ability to understand each other,
we have what it takes to serve justice for all,
but many do not want justice,
many are too complacent,
too complicit,
and many just want to live in LaLaLand,
while many just want to think about the medical model
without considering life
and what living life really is like,
even when someone gets a diagnosis,
even when someone seeks surgeries
for that diagnosis,
or even alternative treatments.
Some of these treatments
are imperative and can be fatal if not treated,
while other treatments
are a choice from the person, the individual,
to live their life treated to
live under the current social construction
as who they are without seeking to pass,
or live their life different than who they are
choosing to seek treatment to
pass and please people in society.
Everyone has their choices to make,
the ultimate choice is,
please yourself or please others,
and whatever you please,
there are consequences and rewards,
you just have weigh in on
the choice that best fits your life,
but remember this,
even when you are anxious over this decision,
asking too many people what to do,
and not relaxing and letting things happen,
you still must please yourself regardless.

A Poem Called “Passing”

Passing,

by theamazinJ

It’s a struggle,
I pass or at least try to pass,
It’s a struggle,
I am from autistic culture,
my mind sees all sorts of things
in this world,
my body moves in all different ways,
my voice box is different and monolithic,
my speech is radiant and unique,
my words become silent from misunderstanding,
my life is a constant battle to pass in society.
My speech speaks with very few listeners,
my movements paint with very easy ease,
my life is a constant battle to please everyone to pass,
did Frederick Douglass want to pass for the white man?
did Rosa Parks want to pass for the white woman?
Did Mozart care about what others thought when making music?
Did Andy Warhol care about what others thought of his art?
Did Andy Kaufman care about what his critics thought of his comedy?
Does Bill Gates care about what others think of what he wants to do for the world?
Does Hillary Clinton really care what anyone thinks of her?
Autistic culture is different from non-autistic culture,
disability culture is different than living without disabilities in the able-bodied culture,
black culture is different from white culture,
jewish culture is different from christian culture,
muslim culture is different from jewish and christian culture,
witch culture and other polytheistic cultures are different than monotheism,
LGBT culture is different than heterosexual culture,
females are different than males which are both different than other genders,
the binary system is broader than one would actually think,
the binary gender, the binary able-bodied culture, the binary religion,
the monolithic sexuality, the way everyone thinks is black and white.
everyone feels, thinks, speaks, and moves differently,
we need to respect each other for who we are all born as,
and we need to respect the way we all move in the world.
Yet, black and white thinking is among us all,
it’s among everyone who feels everyone in the world needs to pass
rather than be the other, rather than be a person who is who they are,
It’s fighting for the rights of people with disabilities to live our life
the way we are and fighting for universal design for inclusion in the world,
It’s fighting for black culture, indigenous culture, other people of color, muslims, Jews, polytheistic religions, and women
to be able to live life experiencing whatever way they are and whatever way they see the world,
because universal design is not just for disability culture,
it’s for everyone to live inclusively together,
without the social construction created hundreds of years ago,
living life with a more different unique social construction embedded with individual human nature
and understanding of each other,
passing is difficult for many,
passing is difficult when we cannot be accepted and respected the way we are,
the broader human culture needs to understand each other,
the broader human culture needs to accept each other,
and the broader human culture is a part of neurodivergent culture
as well as part of the culture of the norm,
if we are truly going to live a neurodiverse culture
than we need to be accepting when someone chooses to pass for norm or chooses their neurodivergence,
choosing to be whoever and whatever their brain is like in speaking, moving, and thinking with their bodies,
we choose everything by and for ourselves, we choose what we want to accept, we choose what we even want to do everyday,
the most important thing is:
We choose how we feel about ourselves and what we think of ourselves
because in the end,
it’s our choices that create us,
it’s our choices that allow us to think binary or not,
it’s our choices to accept others or not,
it’s our choices to respect everyone or not,
it’s our choices to create a new social order or continue the binary social construction
that has been around for hundreds of years,
it’s our choices to move forward in evolution or just pass,
it’s our choice to live or to die,
and it’s our choice to be the person we are by fate or by destiny of who we individually strive for
with respecting everyone.