I know what you are thinking.
The “n” word is a word that you can no longer say in public because
it could get you fired or harshly criticized.
However, this article is not about THAT “n’ word.
It’s about THIS one:
Neurodivergent - and it’s a word that none of us were familiar
with until this past week.
We watched nearly all of the DNC convention this past week,
and were amazed at how uplifting it was. In addition to the numerous entertainers,
we also heard some of the best political speeches that we have heard for a
long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_National_Convention
The “entertainers” were Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan, who tore off
his shirt.
Kamala Harris has been a successful prosecutor, a competent
senator, and a highly credible vice president. Tim Walz took a 0 and 27
football team to a state championship. In addition to that, he served 24 years
in the National Guard, and also served many years as a public education
teacher.
The top of the ticket on the other side is a convicted felon
and con man who never grew up (hence, all the name calling) and an inexperienced
young politician who claims to have had sex with a couch.
Lost in the shuffle was a moment that utterly defines what the
Democratic party is, a party that is committed to building up, and not tearing
down. It’s a party that proudly wears “compassionate” on its sleeve, and one
brief moment provided visual proof of that.
Tim and Gwen Walz struggled with fertility issues.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/20/politics/gwen-walz-fertility-struggles/index.html
Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz
clarified in a statement to CNN that she did not use in vitro
fertilization to conceive, sharing new details about her and Gov. Tim Walz’s
fertility struggles as the governor has highlighted their experience with
infertility on the campaign trail.
In her statement, Gwen Walz said they used a
different fertility treatment, intrauterine insemination.
In campaign speeches since joining the Democratic
ticket as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Walz has often
characterized the issue of access to IVF treatment as “personal” to him and his
family while sharing the story of his and his wife’s journey to conceiving
their two children.
“This one’s personal for me about IVF and
reproductive care,” Walz told supporters at a rally in Glendale, Arizona,
earlier this month. “When we wanted to have children, we went through years of
fertility treatment.”
And in an MSNBC interview in July, he continued
attacking Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance for his
opposition to a bill that would have guaranteed access to IVF
nationwide, while appearing to link the treatment to the birth of his
two children.
“Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful
children,” he said.
In a statement to CNN, Gwen Walz said that
they tried intrauterine insemination, a process
she described as “an incredibly personal and difficult experience.”
“Like so many who have experienced these challenges,
we kept it largely to ourselves at the time – not even sharing the details with
our wonderful and close family. The only person who knew in detail what we were
going through was our next-door neighbor,” she said in the statement.
“She was a nurse and helped me with the
shots I needed as part of the IUI process. I’d rush home from school and she
would give me the shots to ensure we stayed on track,” she continued.
Gus Walz has, according to his
parents, a nonverbal learning disorder, A.D.H.D. and an anxiety disorder, all
of which they regard not as a setback but as his
“secret power,” that makes him “brilliant” and “hyperaware.”
The sight at the Democratic
convention on Wednesday night of Tim Walz’s 17-year-old son leaping to his
feet, with streaming eyes, a hand to his chest with a cry of “That’s my dad”
was heart piercing.
There’s something of a trend at
the moment for certain businesses to say they encourage the hiring of people
who are neurodivergent. Sadly, it can be just virtue signaling. Employers like
to think that a person who is neurodivergent is some secretly brilliant
introvert who writes code in his apartment all day, not the more likely
candidate: an awkward kid with a gentle smile who takes time to get the hang of
things and talks too much about the same subjects.
The most painful thing for a
parent is to pick up on the scorn of strangers that her child often doesn’t
notice; the whispered insults or titter at the next table. Remember Donald
Trump Jr.’s sneer at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference? Referring
to Senator John Fetterman’s struggles to recover after his stroke, Mr. Trump
said that Pennsylvania had “managed to elect a vegetable.”
“I’d
love for John Fetterman to have, like, good gainful employment,” he continued.
“Maybe he could be, like, a bag guy at a grocery store.”
Is it
possible to go any lower than that?
Trump,
of course, has a long history of mocking just about everyone, as exemplified ty
the childless nicknames that he has used.
The
low point, of course, was in 2016, when he mocked the New York Times reporter,
Trump has
denied that he meant to mock the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who has
arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting the joints.
His
initial offense, in Trump's eyes, was denying the candidate's description of
Kovaleski's reporting on unsubstantiated allegations that
Muslims in New Jersey celebrated on 9/11.
As
recently as July 29, Trump insisted, “I didn’t know what he looked like. I
didn’t know he was disabled."
He has
maintained that his physical affect in imitation of Kovaleski was because
"He was groveling, grovel, grovel, grovel. That was the end of it. All of
a sudden, I get reports that I was imitating a reporter who was handicapped. I
would never do that."
The
Washington Post’s factchecker responded, “Much of what Trump says is
Four-Pinocchios false.”
Among
other falsehoods described by the Post, including the fact that the
"groveling" charge makes no sense in context, and Kovaleski, who now
works for the New York Times, has said, "Donald and I were on a first-name
basis for years."
The
poll was conducted before Trump sparked furor with a comment about "Second Amendment people"
that was interpreted by many as a veiled suggestion of violence against
Clinton.
Still,
given the lasting stigma around people with disabilities and the easiness with
which pop culture has mocked them over the years, the outraged reaction from
the public is striking.
"People
are starting to see people with disabilities for their abilities,” said
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of the advocacy group RespectAbility, citing
Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who has Attention Deficit Disorder, and Nyle
DiMarco, winner of America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars, who is
deaf.
“But
one thing they don’t want to see about people with disabilities is for us to be
bullied,” she added.
But how could Don Jr. be any different from his
father? The elder Donald Trump has never missed the chance to denigrate people
with disabilities, and already the MAGA crowd is mocking Gus Walz’s emotional
embrace with his dad. “Talk about weird …” the conservative media ghoul Ann
Coulter posted (and later deleted).
If the Harris-Walz ticket wins, will parents of
people who struggle with being different at last find a powerful advocate in
the White House? This voiceless community is in desperate need of a new, mighty
champion.
Coach
Walz, you who have been such an inspiring role model to kids all your life, and
were caring enough to offer your own credibility to the role of faculty adviser
of a new high school gay-straight alliance, please make this your cause.
No comments:
Post a Comment