Waging War on Disability

As thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people take in the message on the side of this Seattle streetcar, one must pause for a moment to make note of the implications. On some level, this is a slogan designed to “rev people up” to support research, to give money, maybe to raise awareness. For me, it raises deeply unsettling questions about what comprises human identity, what is disease, and, taking the wartime rhetoric of destruction, to what lengths would we go to eliminate dread afflictions like cancer, diabetes, and ….autism?

Cancer and diabetes are medical conditions that impact and affect people in terrible ways, and that cause great suffering. I get that. I bore witness as both my mom and my dad died of cancer. Some people talk about how experiencing these illnesses have brought some positive impact to their life, but, by and large, a diagnosis of cancer or diabetes probably implies bad news for most everyone, including those who love the person who has the disease.

Autism, though. In my mind come vivid images of the people I know in my life who are said to have autism. Like Christopher, a young man who I find intensely interesting, with a wicked cool sense of humor, who has ways of seeing the world that are unique and eye-opening to me. The label of autism means many things to many people – a movement disorder, a neurological difference, a genetic anomaly, a fact of identity, a rising and rapidly growing threat to our humankind. For me, I can’t help but think of individual people who I respect, admire, and who contribute to the world in big ways. In fact, the thought of a world without those particular people is one I don’t want to imagine.

What if the thing we seek to “wipe out” is an integral part of the human condition and identity? What if wiping out a ‘condition’ means that what is essentially Christopher is not welcome and should not be. Who would Chris be without what people perceive of as ‘Autism”, and what would the world be without him? Too often, defining characteristics that we devalue in association with the people who display those characteristics has led to many terrible acts, and slogans like this one on the streetcar make me fearful. In “wiping out” a characteristic, how far might we go? Is there a world hurtling towards us in which we might meet a person with Autism or Down Syndrome and say, “Wow, how did that one get through?” In the process, what might we lose as a society and as people?