Traveling Show

This week, I got an invitation to play at a school and meet students.  They want their kids on the spectrum exposed to autistic adults.  Meeting such children is great but slightly fraught.  Do they have expectations?  If so, what are they?  Do I measure up?  Did well-meaning adults drag them into an encounter they may not want yet?  Do they have it better than I did at the same age?  Are they more sheltered than I was?  Do they feel safe?

I hope so.  I came to the realization that I was different and discovered oppression around age three.  The oldest ones, young teens, need to know what they are up against.  I hope the kindergarteners do not.  Nurtured through their early years by adults who see nothing broken about them, will they be spared the PTSD etc. that plague my cohort, or will dealing with the real world be all the more jarring?  I hope they will be happier, less damaged, less angry than many of us.  I hope they will grow up feeling entitled to all the opportunity their allistic peers enjoy.

I thought hard about a brief set list for the occasion, came to the conclusion that two things have to be on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjRJvwpQTC4

This suits the tuba.  I like to play it fast for kids.  It sounds impressive enough to get them excited with improvised, jazz- and swing-style curlicues.  The lyrics, not that anyone will hear them, are clean.  They are dated in that “man” stands in for person, but the message is positive.  I hope they grow up feeling like all its ‘wants’ are within reach.

I also have to play this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VMSGrY-IlU

I respond to requests to help parents out of concern for autistic children.  I trust some, but, taking them at their word that a small percentage will harm kids without help, treating requests for support as life-and-death matters logically follows.  I never turn them down.  However, I deal with children directly for different reasons, in someone else’s memory.  Hundreds of miles away, before most of the kids I will meet were born, I listened to that song with an autistic adult who took an interest in me in a car that smelled like Camel cigarettes.  No one outside of my immediate circles needs that name.*  I never refuse a request to meet children because I felt something rare in that car: safe.  Before I had a word for what I was, I suspected that there was at least one more.  I thought I might not be alone.  I cram kids into my schedule because they deserve to be sure of what I half-believed.  I got by on that hope for years.  There is no telling what they can do if they know.

*I have shared most of my history with this cause.  The stakes are too high for anyone to hold potentially-useful story back.  That name is one of the few things I hold too sacred for the grubby hands of factions harassing each other online and IRL.  Someday, if I make money and other surviving loved ones approve, there will be a fitting tribute.  Until then, rare silence in the information age is the best I can do.

stfusexists:

iamthethunder:

Actually, it was not terrorism.  It was random violence.  He was not trying to terrorize people into doing or not doing something.  He did not have a cause.  It was an apolitical act.  Terrorism is a brutal way of making a statement, which he does not seem to be doing.  Whites have been terrorists.  Abortion clinic bombings are a perfect example.  The media should call that what it is.  However, this does not fit the definition.

“Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition.^[1][2] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for a religious, political or, ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety ofnon-combatants (civilians). Some definitions now include acts of unlawful violence and war. The use of similar tactics by criminal organizations for protection rackets or to enforce a code of silence is usually not labeled terrorism though these same actions may be labeled terrorism when done by a politically motivated group.”

It’s too soon to know what this man’s motivation was. But this was an unlawful, violent crime against civilians intended to create fear. This was pretty systematic, and clearly intended to provoke terror. We’ll know more in the coming weeks, but I think that colloquially, this can be considered terrorism - it certainly would be if this guy were not white.

It probably would be because of racism, but that would be inaccurate.  ‘Other people do it’ is not a reason to misuse language.  I plan to call out the next instance of verbal or written ableism I find.  If I assert that words have power in one situation, I am a hypocrite unless I agree they do in another.  The social justice idea that words have meaning is important here, too.  There may be a variety of definitions, but most people seem to think of terrorism as having political goals.  He has made no announcements, offered no motives, proffered no manifesto.  The fear is incidental.  If anything, his identification with the Joker suggests a completely nihilistic outlook.  He was not coercing anyone to any act.  “He just wanted to watch the world burn.”  If he had decided to randomly kill one person, would it be terrorism?  The fear seems incidental here.  In terrorism, it is the goal.  I will agree with you if he later states that he did this because he hates pro-choicers, pro-lifers, women, minorities, the gay community, etc.

(Source: CNN)

stfusexists:

“Oates said there was no evidence of a second gunman, and FBI spokesman Jason Pack said it did not appear the incident was related to terrorism.”

—

Gunman kills 12 in Colorado movie theater - CNN.com

it was just a white guy folks! packed up to the hilt with ammo, weapons and tear gas and shooting randomly into large crowds! never seen that before! no patterns here!

just a sad sad case of a sad sad person who was having a hard time!

(via mmmightymightypeople)

Real talk, I said to my mom “I know I sound like a broken record, but…uh…everyone’s trying to find a rationale because he’s white. They’re trying to save him.” And she was just like, “*sigh* Yep.”

(via note-a-bear)

Apparently you have to either kill over 100 people to be white and a terrorist in this country. I’m sure the Americans that were just gunned down in a movie theater would agree, had they not just been murdered by a domestic terrorist.

Honestly, this media narrative needs to stop.

(via stfusexists)

Okay, guys, I know you’re upset, but just because they’ve said these things does not mean they’re trying to cover him up as being just a white man. Well, it could, but it could also mean that they’re just trying to say ‘hey, we’re pretty sure it was a solo act and that there’s not another gunman or a group of gunmen out there who might go around trying to go on another killing spree, so you’re allowed to assume that you are safe another tragedy like this occurring’, which is what I’m hoping for more than anything right now. My thoughts and hopes going out to everyone involved.

(via geneticx)

Right, sure, make it clear that he’s the only gunman in this particular killing spree. But to say that he’s “not related to terrorism”? This incident IS terrorism. A white man went into a movie theater and killed 12 people and wounded 59 others - most of whom are/were people of color, btw. Oh, and he booby-trapped his apartment with enough explosives to destroy the entire apartment complex and three others.

That is an act of terrorism, and I guarantee you that if he were black or Mexican or had a Muslim-sounding name, they would be calling him a terrorist. Instead, he’s an isolated, presumed mentally-ill man. They may not be trying to “cover him up”, but both the police force and the media narrative thus far is giving him a lot more leeway than they would if he weren’t white.

Actually, it was not terrorism.  It was random violence.  He was not trying to terrorize people into doing or not doing something.  He did not have a cause.  It was an apolitical act.  Terrorism is a brutal way of making a statement, which he does not seem to be doing.  Whites have been terrorists.  Abortion clinic bombings are a perfect example.  The media should call that what it is.  However, this does not fit the definition.

Warren Hill is not a nice person.  I would not want him living in my neighborhood.  He is not in prison for one of the drug convictions that take too many, especially men of color living in poverty, from their communities.  He is there because he has shown a callous willingness to kill other human beings.  He murdered two brutally, his girlfriend with eleven gunshots, his cellmate with a nail-studded board.  No one wants his presence in society.  However, he does not deserve to die.

I read about his life.  He grew up poor.  He was abused.  At least one parent’s ability to raise him was limited by substance abuse and dependence.  His family failed him.  It was obvious to his teachers that he could not understand the material for his grade level.  He learned slower, more laboriously, than his schoolmates.  However, I saw no indication that he got so much as tutoring to maximize his academic potential and options in life.  He was born too early for special education.  The schools failed him. 

As an adult, Hill was in the military.  They took a man with less cognitive ability than  average who was raised with few examples of nonviolent interpersonal relationships and taught him violence.  Military training does not a murderer make.  Even combat veterans generally do not generally hurt civilians.  However, it does make one better at any violence one chooses to perform by definition.  The recruiter who likely came to know Hill’s limitations and something of his history but did not turn him away failed him.  So did his commanding officers.  He seems to have served in the Navy during peacetime.  It would have been no great loss to the armed forces to let one man out when it became apparent he should not have been there. 

In prison, he was not protected.  According to a Guardian article, he lived in a dormitory.  While the authorities did not recognize his vulnerability, other inmates did.  Physically and sexually, he was mistreated as too many prisoners are.  He may well have been lashing out at an abuser when he got his death sentence.

People with intellectual disabilities have moral culpability.  They must be given the dignity of responsibility for their actions.  Hill’s wrongdoing is ultimately on his own conscience, but society should recognize that its every institution failed him.  Murder is wrong, but Hill was set up for a bad end.  Then, his disability put him at a disadvantage in the courts.  From birth, the people partly or wholly responsible to him and for his well-being did not help him.  The arc of his life might have been diverted from this wretched course.  No one stepped up. 

Warren Hill is a murderer.  He should be punished.  Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is punishment enough.  That would protect society from him, penalize him for monstrous acts, recognize that some small share of fault falls on innumerable others, and preserve his chance to reform.  That would be justice.  Given safe space within a prison, a useful task to perform, a bit of compassion, and perhaps whatever educational materials he can understand, he could become better than he is.  It is a long shot, but society also has a debt to pay him.  We should take into account that he never received his birthright.  Every unwritten promise of the social contract went unfulfilled in his life.

I am especially leery of executing Warren Hill because I see intentionality in this.  I suspect someone might have recognized his disability sooner if not for certain racial stereotypes of intelligence.  I know poverty destroyed what little chance he had of getting help as a child in the 1960s.  His socioeconomic status worked against him in the courts.  I wonder if he would have received the death penalty if, all else equal, he had been white.  It is possible, but, if we could make a bet and peer into a parallel universe for the answer, my money would be on ‘no.’  My gut says he would be serving a life sentence if he did not call up a specter, a caricature of black, male violence that has long haunted the South.

These are not the only reasons his life should be spared.  Apart from the injustice of the situation, Georgia should not flout the law.  The U.S. Supreme Court has not take the case, but they have already ruled the execution of people with intellectual disabilities unconstitutional.  Whatever one’s opinion of the death penalty, there is nothing acceptable about this.  It is immoral, illegal, and embarrassing.  At favorite haunts in Boone, North Carolina this weekend, I may hide the car off the main drag.  I would rather pretend to be from somewhere else than be seen with Georgia plates.  If the Supreme Court does not intervene, if Governor Deal is silent, my adopted home will sink to a level of barbarism that will appall decent people the world over this coming Monday.  It has already cropped up in foreign media.  Georgia’s idea of justice is depriving a man who has hardly had anything of all he has left: his future, the opportunity to improve.  Now, everyone knows.

squidward-sheeran:

or…….get angry if you want. and be as angry as you want. because these murders, guys? they suck.  and you don’t have to shut up about it. not for allies, because our allies kill us. not for anything.

By definition, allies are not killing us.  The audacity of implying that I have not noticed or do not care about the murders is incredible.  When someone wants a list of our dead, I read it off my skin.  I am hesitant to use it as an argument.  I had it done because I wanted to force the world to remember them, carry the mark of the anguish I felt.  It is for my anger and grief, not volatile strangers.  I know we loose about twelve per year that make the news, usually more children than adults.  Most die at the hands of their families.  A few are killed by peer bullies or others.  I never suggested anyone shut up about the murders.  I never do.  I spend short-sleeve season answering questions about them.  I am also preparing to go to law school so that I can help disabled children get their due in education.  I will advocate for individual children.  I am getting a miserable, expensive degree to do grinding work.  If I did not care, I would do something easier and more lucrative.

I was suggesting that people on these tags stop fighting over whether to accept allies.  I insinuated that people of goodwill can agree to disagree.  Some of us are ally-friendly, others not.  That is a personal choice, not reason to bicker.  I offered the radical suggestion that two people can sometimes have different sensibilities without one being evil.  I wish you understood that.

(Source: iamthethunder)