3:08am February 16, 2015

Oh and by the way, people without cognitive disabilities?

I don’t have to hear you say the word ree-tard or tard or whatever variant is popular these days.

I can hear you think it. I can smell it trying to get out of your brain and into your mouth, and you trying to divert it somewhere else, like a misdirected fart. Only farts smell better.

I can see it in the way you look at me, the way your face moves, don’t ask me to describe it, I don’t have words. But I can see it.

So don’t act like you can get away with jjust not saying it, when you say it with every part of your body except your mouth. People with developmental disabilities may sometimes be a bit slow on the uptake in some areas, but we’re no more likely to be stupid than you are. Unless we’re too busy paying attention to something else, we know when we’re being patronized, which is more than a lot of you can say for us.

I took a sexuality and relatoinships class once, years ago, for people with developmental disabilities.

My case manager was one guy running the class. There was a woman teaching the class too. And she was very condescending, you know the kind that talk to you in forced-cheery smiley voice, but taking care to only use one- and two-syllable words.

True to my socially passive form, I just sit there reciting complex disability rights papers in my head (or writing some of my own, to pass the time). Another guy has a much bette idea.

He fixes her wth this stare, one layer innocent curiosity, the layer below it pure delighted mischief. "Are we going to learn about……. cunnilingus?“

Her response – she should’ve known better – was a cheery sing-song, "Oh my, that’s a very big word! Yes we can learn about that if you want to.”

Some people never know when every DD person in the room is laughing at them in our heads.

Notes: