Originally published on Autism Women's Network
[Content warning: use of the R-word and murders of
disabled people.]
(Please, read this post. What I write here is inspired – not in an inspiration porn way – by K’s post).
Every time a disabled person is murdered by a parent or
caregiver, the media, and lots, lots of people sympathize with the murderers.
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| Image reads: I will not try on the shoes of people who see themselves as heroes, and who see me, and people who look a lot like me as tragic, burdensome and hopeless. (Image description: back ground is mottled in red black and white with the outline of a pair of flat dress shoes embossed in the background.) autismwomensnetwork.org |
The perception, which is based on false assumptions, is
that our lives are miserable moment after miserable moment, that we have no
hopes, dreams, or “real” feelings.
The idea that we would prefer death to living disabled is
fed by ableist, and ignorant views on disabilities.
As an excuse for the attempt to erasing our value as
human beings, people take the side of the murderers and martyrize them.
The expression used to justify the murderers is:
“You have never walked on their shoes”.
No, I haven’t. I will not try on the shoes of people who
see themselves as heroes, and who see me, and people who look a lot like me as
tragic, burdensome and hopeless.
I will say this:
I wish you had seen the shoes I was wearing when teachers
called me retarded and laughed about it. I was 9 years old. Would you have
tried my shoes on back then?
How about the shoes I was wearing when I was 15 years
old? That’s when a doctor told a group of people that I did not have human
dignity, agreeing with previous doctors who told my parents that the only hope
they should allow themselves was for a “good institution” where I could be
taken care of. They also said I would never be able to learn anything of value.
Where were you when some people said that I “don’t feel
pain” because my face doesn’t always show how I feel? That’s when I fell on a
bunch of ember and had second-degree burns on my arm. I had to listen to them
saying: “It’s her fault, she wasn’t looking. Besides, look at her, she doesn’t
feel anything” – because I wasn’t screaming. They could have tried on the shoes
that almost went into the fire, that stopped just before going into the fire.
Why haven’t you told people to put themselves in my shoes
as a non-speaking person who needs access to a device to communicate, when they
were verbally abusing me, and denying me access to my chosen method of
communication? They saw a smile on my face, the smile I sometimes use as a last
attempt to make people see me as someone who can feel. See me as a person. As a
person with shoes.
Why is it so easy for you to forget that we are human
beings, while moving so fast to “walk” in our abusers’ shoes?
Why do you only see the shoes of non-disabled victims,
while disabled ones are treated as the cause of our own murder?
I am still alive, obviously.
My tormentors were not my parents or people who stayed in
my life for too long – but long enough to cause deep wounds, now deep scars.
Nobody thought about wearing my shoes at those sad,
horrible, scary and lonely moments.
I don’t hear anybody talking about the disabled victims
shoes, how the victims felt wearing the shoes for the last time before someone
who they were supposed to trust murdered them.
What I hear are people erasing our experiences and
demanding that we understand why murderers HAVE to murder disabled people like
us. They say we need to have more sympathy for murderers.
No, I will not walk in murderers’ shoes.
I will hold my shoes, while hurting for the victims.
I will try to remind the world that the victims were
human beings.
I will do that by reminding the world about the victim’s’
shoes.
