The Power Of Whose "Truth"? · 2005-07-17 22:44

Back in mid-June, plans for the “Power of Truth” rally began with the suggestion:

“So, what do you all say? Take our kids and have a big ‘melt-down’ at the Capital, united as ONE?????” 1

Now, a month later, we can expect upwards of 700 people to converge upon the Capitol on Wednesday, July 20. We can expect to see protesters bedecked with silver ribbon, carrying silver helium balloons, sporting signs with slogans like:

AUTISM
It’s the mercury, stupid.

Autism = mercury poisoning

1 in 10 kids is poisoned by mercury.
Is YOUR child next?

Vaccines are weapons of mass destruction!

We can expect to see photomontages of autistic children, with ‘before’ pictures of smiling babies, and ‘after’ pictures of toddlers in distress, or their attention focused in some other direction than towards the photographer.

We can expect well-meaning parent-advocates, and the celebrities, public relations professionals, journalists, lawyers and politicians they have enlisted in support of their mission, to implicitly broadcast to the autistic children and adults of the world,

‘You are autistic, therefore you are all poisoned.’

‘You are autistic, therefore you are all broken.’

‘You are autistic, and someone has to take the blame.’

We can also expect to see autistic children themselves—children carrying brightly colored signs reading, “Poisoned By Immunizations!!!” Children in t-shirts bedecked with skull-and-crossbones, bearing the legend, “Warning: Contains Mercury.” (Eventually, they may be very wet t-shirts, given the weather forecast of scattered showers and a high of 93 degrees Fahrenheit. Beware, all you hard-working Washingtonians; there are likely to be a few traffic tie-ups on Wednesday morning, what with 700 adults and children marching through the streets of our nation’s capital during what promises to be a particularly steamy weekday commute.)

Children singing songs and making speeches that reflect everything they’ve ever been taught about their disability are all part of the program.

Setting aside the question of whether the organizers of the Power of Truth rally are correct in their assertion that autism is a consequence of mercury poisoning, and that said poisoning is the consequence of reckless malfeasance on the part of countless individuals over many years, there remains the question of the appropriateness of employing children to symbolize an entire class of disabled people, when in fact the interests of the great majority of that class are not represented in the rally organizers’ agenda.

We can expect to see few if any autistic adults at the Power of Truth Rally. Why? Because it’s not about them. The rally is not so much about soliciting support for the needs of all autistic citizens as it is about gaining lay converts to theories of autism causation that have been largely dismissed by practicing scientists, attracting attention to “autism cures” that are being marketed based on those theories, and laying blame for disability at the feet of professionals charged with protecting children’s health.

Autistic children are part of the program. Autistic adults are not.

Consider this commentary on the granddaddy of old-fashioned disability awareness campaigns, the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. Substitute “rally” for “telethon,” “attention” for “money” (though only temporarily), and “National Autism Association” (or any of the other autism organizations committed to promoting the autism=poisoning gospel) for “Muscular Dystrophy Association,” for a fairly accurate description of the nature of contemporary “autism awareness campaigns”:

The telethon has one goal—to raise as much money as possible for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, or MDA. Conventional wisdom says that the most effective way to do this is to appeal directly to the emotions of viewers—to move people so strongly, with stories of tragic suffering, that they will want to help “save Jerry’s kids.” Money is tight these days; charitable solicitation is a competitive business. Invoking sympathy sufficient to pry open wallets is not an easy task. But those orchestrating the telethon have a foolproof, not-so-secret weapon: children. Never mind that two-thirds of MDA’s 1 million clients are adults—the telethon is not in the business of trying to represent the real lives of people with muscular dystrophy. That’s not the point. The point is to paint a picture of a victim so tragic, and at the same time so cute and appealing, that viewers will be compelled to call in a pledge. This victim must also appear helpless, utterly unable to help him/herself, so that the giver can gain a personal sense of virtue and superiority from the act of giving. Finally, the victim must display something called “courage,” which does not resemble the bold, active kind of courage most people aspire to or at least fantasize about, in which one takes one’s destiny into one’s own hands and, by exercising will and choice, affirms oneself and/or one’s place in the universe. No, the “courage” demanded in this instance is the willingness to deprecate oneself; to accept other people’s versions of one’s own reality; to reject one’s own identity in favor of an eagerly anticipated cure (this is also called “hope”); to tolerate and even encourage the assumption that life with a disability is a life scarcely worth carrying on with, except for the generosity of Jerry Lewis and everyone involved in the telethon.

The above passage is excerpted from Laura Hershey’s article, From Poster Child to Protester. In 1973, at the age of eleven, Hershey was a Poster Child for the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. In the years following, her attitude towards the MDA’s fundraising and attention-getting tactics changed drastically. Hershey writes of pity, the emotion so deliberately invoked during the Telethon:

Pity is a complex and deceptive emotion. It pretends to care, to have an interest in another human being. It seems to want to take away pain and suffering. But if you look at pity up close, you notice that it also wants to distance itself from its object. A woman calls in a pledge and boasts, “My two children are perfectly healthy, thank God!” Pity does not share another’s reality, only remark upon it.

Pity can be very hostile to the achievement of equality and respect. If you feel sorry for someone, you might pledge a donation, but you are not likely to offer them a good job, or approve of them dating your sister or brother. If emotions were to be grouped into families, pity has some rather unsavory kin. On this emotional family tree, pity is very close to—sometimes indistinguishable from—contempt and fear, which are uncomfortably near to hatred.

That might sound like a strong statement. But I would argue that any reaction which creates separation and inequality between people—which pity certainly does, however benevolent it might appear—is destructive. People cannot live together in community, recognizing and respecting each other as human beings, if one group feels superior to the other for any reason.

Hershey’s article is an eloquent deconstruction of the values represented by campaigns that feature disabled children in order to manipulate popular emotions, and addresses many issues that the “autism community” has barely begun to recognize. I recommend it highly to anyone whose attention might be drawn to the drama that is sure to unfold on Wednesday morning, and to anyone concerned with the real needs of citizens with disabilities.


1 This inspiration was followed by the idea of distributing “autism and vaccine flyers in trick-or-treat bags on Halloween.” Just what our kids all need—tracts alleging the poisoning of vast numbers of children, tossed into their hard-won collections of candy corn and bite-sized Snickers bars on a night that’s supposed to be all about having fun. Thanks but no thanks, neighbor!

Comments


  1. gack.

    So if there are thundershowers will the parents remove all the mylar festooning from their kids (and own) bodies’ before lightening starts striking nearby?

    They are going to haul autistic children (correction: mercury poisoned children) along a street in a mass of 700 people as they march to the capitol singing and chanting (nice touch), in miserable hot weather, with cars and buses driving by emitting exhaust…and all the regular city noises (that drive Autism Diva to distraction), blaring car horns, screeching bus brakes.

    Then they’ll stop and listen to a bunch of twits speechify and do a mini-Jerry’s kids telethon with the kids lined up in front for the cameras (that’s the plan) holding banners and their devoted, yet angry parents posing for shots behind the children (looking lost and ruined).

    The parents will maintain their middle class, white, entitled, angry but devoted parental faces until all the photographers disappear, then they can try to put the surviving children back together in one piece (after this horrific stress) and get them back to a strange hotel room, and soon haul them to a car or airplane for a long trip home.

    NICE.

    It’s worse exploitation that even the MDA could come up with.

    There was talk of them going naked and painting their faces silver, to get attention, too. But one supposes that that was a joke. We’ll see. One can only hope that at least one child will bite David Kirby.

    AD — Autism Diva    2005-07-18 18:39    #

  2. They are going to haul autistic children (correction: mercury poisoned children) along a street in a mass of 700 people as they march to the capitol singing and chanting (nice touch), in miserable hot weather, with cars and buses driving by emitting exhaust…and all the regular city noises (that drive Autism Diva to distraction), blaring car horns, screeching bus brakes.

    Almost makes you think they want their kids to be as stressed-out looking and badly behaved as possible in order to increase the pity factor. If so, it’s child abuse; CPS workers have screamed “Munchausen’s by proxy” for far less. — ebohlman    2005-07-29 01:22    #