Of course, things weren’t as perfect as my first estimate, and I started to see some of the people who must use the elevator instead of the stairs get called names and sometimes forced out of the elevator because kids who didn’t have medical conditions called them “lazy”. I approached the school officials about this, and while there are occasionally insults, I haven’t seen the more severe stuff.

So even though, on the whole, the school is much more accepting than any other place I’d been at, there are still enough students who hold certain prejudices and do injustice (though I find that it’s the school staff who tend to do the most damage) that it cannot be branded a utopia.

I liken it to the idea of comparing it to the United States. Sure, there are a lot more freedoms here than in many countries, but that doesn’t mean we should brand the country a utopia where nothing can go wrong and ignore injustices committed just because “it’s better than (insert place name).” After all, such “reasoning” unchecked would allow the state to deteriorate very rapidly.

http://community.livejournal.com/bsperger/2615.html#cutid1

“Barnards are a more recent find. We were here first so you should listen and follow what we’re doing and not pull everything into the Barnard type of thinking. You may think it’s ok identifying with Barnards but until it becomes more understood, would you mind calling yourself Collinses for now and not bring up all this Barnard stuff? Not everyone here is a Barnard you know.”.

A crucial phrase I think. These views amongst disabled people that you describe may be directly a result of a more generalised conservative approach to disability politics in general among such people. They want to have people like them included in existing society as it is today, but the idea of overturning the existing order, of tearing down the whole ideology of ‘disability’ and accomodating *everyone* is too much for them. Personally I don’t believe that there is any such thing as a ‘disabled person’. There are people who are systematically marginalised because they either lack certain basic abilities or are just different.

I have a few things to say about this, because I had a remarkably similar experience in a gifted program, including hearing the other kids who had graduated from that program talking about their “coming home” experience there, and how it had been such a haven for everyone who was different, how intellectually encouraging it had been, how *no* bullying or exclusion ever went on. If you Google on the name of that place (I won’t repeat it here), you can find testimonies of former students talking about what a wonderful place it was and how anyone with a gifted child ought to send their child there.

The funny thing was that for quite a few years, I was repeating those lines like a good little drone. “(name of place) was an incredible opportunity for me; I got a much better education than other kids my age; it really prepared me for higher education. I’m so grateful that I got to go there.” Or even just “It was a place full of cool fun weird people where everyone understood you.” It wasn’t that I had forgotten or suppressed the specific abusive incidents; it was a sort of dual mindset, where I could both be intellectually aware that they had happened, and still claim that I’d had a completely wonderful experience there. There really were a couple of ‘cool fun weird people’ whom I met there, but they were outweighed by the number of people who left me with a far less positive impression.

Part of it was that my parents had paid a lot of money for it and I felt I had to be grateful; I was constantly being reminded of the sacrifices they were making to give me a good education. I repeated those lines until I believed them. The fact of the matter was that socially, it was exactly as you have described here– a variety of people who had formerly been in the position of outcasts, thought that because of it they were morally superior and could do no wrong, and now had a chance to establish their own hierarchy and put themselves at the top of it. In that mindset, they were incapable of seeing their own behavior as discriminatory or bullying. Almost everyone, from the students to the teachers to the administration, fervently denied that any bullying went on, despite the fact that it often took place in full view of the staff while they did nothing.

Many of the bullies came from wealthy families, and the administration did little to stop them because they were afraid of losing the funding from their parents. (More often it was the targeted students who got punished– I knew someone who was kicked out due to his ‘behavior problems,’ which, as far as I could tell, amounted to getting upset and fighting back when he was bullied. But of course he didn’t come from a wealthy family, so they had no vested interest in keeping him there. Sometimes they kicked people out because the other students didn’t like them.) There were a lot of abusive teachers at this program, also. Some of them would actually slam you around, but most of them seemed to prefer verbal abuse or mind games.

To my everlasting shame and regret, I was among those who turned against other students from time to time– helping certain people push others to the bottom of the pecking order so I wouldn’t have to be there; I considered myself ‘lucky’ when I got the chance to establish myself in the hierarchy above someone on any given day, rather than being the one who was on the lowest rung. I do not think I will ever stop regretting it, but at the same time, it was instructive in that I now know better than to ever think myself incapable of discriminatory or ganging-up behavior. To believe otherwise of oneself puts one in the same position as those who believe they can do no wrong because they are helping the poor benighted people, or because they are holy and devout, or because they’re the doctor and know best– all the while that they’re committing blatant acts of abuse. I see the “but we autistics are categorically incapable of forming hierarchies or discriminating against those who are different!” line often enough that I just sigh and roll my eyes every time it comes up now. I rarely try to argue with the people who hold that belief, because they’re often determined to hold to it at all costs.

I’ve also seen a lot of in-community discrimination within the online multiple community. There perpetually seems to be a tendency to establish one’s own acceptability and sanity by pointing to the ones who are just a bit more ‘different,’ who are ‘weirder,’ who have ‘strange’ spiritual beliefs about the nature of their own multiplicity, and saying “I’m not like them. They’re the crazies. Not me.” Countless times, I have seen various people in the multiple community debunk the idea that schizophrenia and multiplicity are synonymous, only to turn around and repeat all the worst myths about schizophrenia and what needs to be done with “those people.” (And I’ve told you some of our experience of trying to get involved in an activism group, and being told repeatedly that we would destroy the group and the cause with our divisiveness and negativity when we brought up questions and objections.)

Thank you for this BADD contribution.

Lady Bracknell