"Awareness seeks to highlight how Other we are and emphasizes the differences and distance between our ways of being. Acceptance looks at commonalities we share and at the strength inherent in diversity."
"Awareness is simply realizing that someone has a challenge. Acceptance is engaging in a real conversation with them."
Last Sunday at church for International Autism Awareness month, the children blew "bubbles of kindness" to remind them that "although we may be unique, we all deserve kindness, love and acceptance".
For this Autism Awareness/Acceptance month, I want to focus on how much awareness had made a positive difference in the lives of those who are differently-abled, autistic and cognitively delayed as compared to the lives of these individuals from previous generations. Also, I want to emphasize how much the health of a loving, egalitarian and peaceful society lies in the presence and thriving of people with disabilities in it.
All over the world, throughout history, we have seen discrimination, harassment, lack of access to education and healthcare for people who are intellectually delayed and unfortunately, this trend still prevails today especially if the individual lacks strong advocates by way of parents or family in their lives. This group of individuals is the most discriminated in this country, if not the world. In the past, people with epilepsy were branded as devil possessed. In fact, the word "grand mal" which is the worst kind of seizure wherein the entire body shakes and violently gyrates is literally translated from Latin as "the great evil". People believed those who suffered seizures were possessed by an evil spirit and were subjected to the most awful and tortuous treatments such as leeching and electrocutions, and worse. In some Asian and African cultures, they were shunned by society as harboring bad luck and were not even permitted the opportunity to live. Even just as far back as 100 years ago, parents with children who were deemed intellectually retarded were advised by physicians to place them into institutions, forget about them, have more children and move on with their lives. The infamous Pennhurst State School and Hospital comes to mind where a sadistic physician used punishment as so-called treatment and therapies and left many traumatized and even dead at the swift stroke of a pen on fraudulent death certificates. In these sterile institutions, they were subjected to the worst form of abuse from doctors and caretakers with no one aware of their plight nor anyone to rescue them. People in society didn't seem to care (or were unaware of the atrocities) as they were treated as burden on society and expendable. Many of the perpetrators went unpunished. When the Nazis took power in Germany, the first people they exterminated were not the Jews but intellectually disabled children as they did not fit into their narrative of a perfect race of people they were trying to create or believed themselves to be. What did their lives mean to anyone? In the space and time these souls occupied it is hard to see the great work God was doing through them. They required so much care and resources to keep alive. Many never spoke. They had no control of their own bodily functions. How are they contributing to a better society?
100 years later, I can emphatically say their lives and their suffering means the world to me, my family, countless others living with various forms of disabilities and their families. All their suffering and pain were not in vain because my family has directly been helped and our lives made better by their experiences. Through the expose of abuse and violence (thank God for great journalism!), we now have doctors who no longer prescribe parents to abandon their children but rather, encourage them to nurture their children at home and advocate for equal access to education, medical treatment and therapies. Parents are able to send their children now to local schools to receive fair and appropriate education at their own school districts. Advances in adaptive behavior therapy allows for a more humane and effective ways to train behavior rather than by punishment. A Disability Act has made into law special accommodations for them to be integrated in a more inclusive society. Countries throughout the world envy and hope to emulate what the US has done on behalf of its disabled citizenry. The United Nations has deemed people with intellectual disabilities are entitled to basic human rights.
None of this would have been made possible without the advocacy of people who came before us. The children and adults who suffered at Pennhurst Institute are not forgotten. Their suffering, imperfections and weaknesses has made way for God's power to be made closer to being perfect.
This is how God works. Although we can't see how weakness can be used to do great works, all suffering can be transmuted to something that benefits others, if we are willing to take action and open our minds. And that may not be evident in the space and time we inhabit right now as we try to navigate ourselves through endless therapies, doctors' appointments, fights with insurance companies, trying to tame intractable seizures but, I have to believe that somewhere, somehow it is all making a positive difference.
People like Lucas have always been here and always will be here no matter how some people and ideologies will try to get rid of them. They are emissaries of God's presence and Light in a healthy, loving and well-functioning society. In their absence, you will find a dysfunctional society where wars, killings and chaos run rampant. If you look at a war-torn society, a society racked with confusion, hatred, distrust, the first ones that are absent are very special people like Lucas. They are the litmus test of a functional and healthy society.
What a long way this community has come to making a more equitable society for all!
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