I'm A Marginal Person

I live on the margins. I’m a marginal, a shadow creature, one of those who most people don’t even know exist, or are only vaguely aware of. I identify with all the other marginal – and marginalised - beings, who inhabit the world that lies beyond the harsh glare of nine-to-five, two-point-five mortgages, two-point-five kids and the house in the burbs. You know – the ‘normal’ world, inhabited by the straight white, cis, hetero, able-bodied, neurotypical, married, everyday people. Like you see on TV, in ads and programs and movies and so on. Normal people.

Please understand, I have nothing against them, I don’t dislike them or anything, in fact I find many of them fine people. I just don’t identify with them, and I can barely comprehend what it might be like to be them. And I guess they don’t really understand people like me either.

Us, that is. The not-so-normal ones. The socially rejected or scorned or ignored. The outsiders and the strangers and the simply ‘strange’. The autistics, the ADHDers, the dyslexic and the dyspraxic and the whole shebang of neurological ‘difference’. The gays and the dykes, the bis and the pans, the trans men and women, the aces and the aros and the happy-to-be-singles, the demis and greys and enbies and queers and all the rest. Or, for that matter, those who are not whiter than whitey-white, the immigrants, the disabled and chronically ill, the poor, the welfare beneficiaries, the homeless, the addicts and the mentally ill, not to mention the writers and artists and musicians and other creative types, and hell, even the hippies and nomads and rebels of all stripes, in fact pretty much anyone who finds their reality is not included in this supposedly wonderful ‘Norm’.

I don’t mean that I, personally, am all of these things (though I am quite a few of them), or that I know what it’s like to be all of these things. I mean that I most emphatically know the experience of being ‘not mainstream’, of being outside that norm, and so I empathise far more with these groups, collectively, than I do with the ‘normals’.

I also understand that many fall outside the norm in only one way, and wouldn’t consider themselves ‘marginal’ or even perhaps ‘marginalised’, and possibly are fighting to be included in the mainstream. How much any given individual feels marginalised tends to vary according to how many non-mainstream attributes you have. One, and you may reject any idea of being ‘marginal’. Lots, and you’ve usually given up on normal. Some don’t even care about it anymore, and some positively relish their marginal status. While if you have just a few attributes, you could be anywhere in-between. It’s a very individual thing, and no-one has the right to tell another how they should see themselves, or who they should identify with, or how they should live their life.

But all of us on the margins - beyond the boundaries of ‘normal’, in one way or another, and sometimes in multiple ways, being pushed further and further out beyond the back of beyond, in the eyes of ‘normals’ anyway - we inhabit our own universe. In that universe (or perhaps it’s a variety of different universes?), we connect, sometimes, with each other, and fail to at other times. We network, and fight, and disagree, and fall apart, and carry on anyway.

And our lives, our universes, are all too often invisible to the ‘normals’.  If they do encounter us, they sometimes refuse to acknowledge that our lives are actually different to theirs. “But everyone feels like that sometimes.” “Aren’t we all a little bit autistic?” “What do you mean, you don’t like sex/romance? Everybody wants a partner!” “I’d kill myself if I had your life.” “He/she’s just making a joke, it’s not really racism/sexism/homophobia.” “Non-binary? That’s not even a thing!” “But you’re in our country now, you should speak English.” And so on, and so forth.

But we know. We know our own truths. We live them. We know our day to day struggles are real – everything from wheelchair access to sensory overwhelm to pain management, from the lack of services to the lack of acceptance to the many micro-aggressions. And sometimes not-so-micro aggressions. We know it. Does it make us better people? Maybe. Sometimes. And sometimes not. All too many of us are simply left bitter, angry, hurt, sad and reeling away from the world. And even if we are stronger for it, I think most of us would still rather go without all the stuff we went through to get there.

Because we’re stressed out. It’s not fun to feel excluded, to never or rarely see our lives depicted in movies or on TV or in books or even just in a damn ad. (And why are so many movies and TV shows, even now, about The White Male Experience, especially the whole white-male-saving-the-day thing? I could write a whole book on this one, and no doubt someone already has. But do the movie and TV people ever think that even many of those who are white, might like to see something, y’know, different?)

Anyway, all this feeling invisible, ignored, overlooked, not valued or recognised, being the recipient of all sorts of bad treatment - prejudice, stereotypes, belittling, rejection, misunderstanding, mocking, ridicule or even outright violence – none of it is fun. But it happens. And it happens so often, and even if we complain about it, it’s obvious that the ‘normals’ don’t much care, really.

And that’s what cuts.

It’s not being different that’s the problem. It’s how others respond to us. We are what we are. Whether we hate it, love it, simply accept it or just wish we weren’t in a particular category, we are these things. And can’t be anything else. So why shouldn’t we feel pride in what we are? Why shouldn’t there be gay pride, indigenous rights movements, multi-cultural celebrations, autistic pride? Why should we not campaign for recognition, for human rights, for acceptance, and so on?

And what’s wrong with being different? Why are so many insistent we all be the same? What’s so great about being all alike? Why do the normals get to decide what we should aspire to, and why do they think they’re so wonderful that we should all be copying them anyhow? Did it ever occur to them that we just wanna be our own goddam selves, and not copies of them?

And I can’t help wondering, in the midst of this Covid crisis, whether it’s going to change anything for us. For most of my life, when I’ve looked around, I’ve seen a world increasingly skewed towards the superficial, the self-serving, the frenetically materialistic, and all too often the simply nonsensical. But this crisis has forced a change in many (apart from the usual idiots of course), it might even be that some serious changes will happen.

Our Prime Minister, Jacinda of international fame, has repeatedly urged us to ‘be kind’. And certainly there has been a surge of public-spiritedness evident, along with the Zoom conferences, the gee-we-can-work-efficiently-from-home-after-all, the endless hand washing and the social-distance-at-the-supermarket thing. But has this kindness been extended to real understanding and support for us marginal people? (Was it ever really anyway, except as patronising acts of inspo-porn, or other ‘feel-good’ exercises?) Will there be a wholesale change in how we’re seen? Or will this new-found public milk of human kindness vanish along with the need for hand sanitiser?

Who knows?

But whatever shape the future takes, one thing is certain – that I’m a marginal person, and always will be. The marginalised are my people, my tribe, and I’m happy with that, even if I’m not happy with how we’re treated.

How do you identify?

Privilege and disability

I’ve been thinking lately about privilege. Most people think of privilege as something they have or had – “ancient rights and privileges”, “I had the privilege of meeting so-and-so last year…” etc.

But privilege, in the political sense, also has another meaning. It’s about what you don’t have to deal with, what doesn’t happen to you, because of your race, gender, religion, sexuality, neurology, or whatever. It’s what you take for granted as so normal that you don’t give it a second thought – unless for some reason you suddenly get deprived of it, or become aware of what those without it suffer. Though even if an individual is made aware of their privilege, they usually want to deny it even exists. As one person in a Facebook conversation about this said – “The thing with privilege is that those with it …are unaware of it. And many do not want to see it because it rocks the foundation of who they feel they are.”

I first became aware of privilege in this sense when I was in the feminist and anti-racism movements, back in the 80s. I of course don’t have male privilege, or heterosexual, or even able-bodied, now. But I do have the privilege that goes with my white skin and European ancestry.

So I know that as a white person, I can, say, walk down a street in a high-income area without having people think I’m there either to clean a house or to rob it. I’ve never had anyone assume that I got a job because of my skin colour, not my abilities. I’ve never been sneered at or hassled by shop staff because of my race, nor feared being arrested because of it. And if I read a history book, people of my race are almost certain to feature prominently, and usually positively, in it.

Similarly, no man walking into a boardroom for the first time is likely to have people assume he’s there either to make the tea or take notes. (Yes, even now that still happens.) They never have to think about glass ceilings or equal pay. They can fearlessly walk alone late at night, and sleep around without fear someone will think them a slut. Date rape is not a worry for them. And so on. (And this is just in Western countries. Imagine the male privilege in non-Western ones.)

And then there’s heterosexual privilege – your average straight person never has to worry about being denied a marriage license, or being allowed to adopt or foster children, or even to retain custody of their own children. Yet until fairly recently, all these have been routinely denied gays and lesbians, and still are in many countries. In fact in some countries, gays and lesbians still live in fear for their lives. And they aren’t all Third World countries either. Russia has a particularly bad track record of this, and it’s getting worse.

So what does privilege mean for the non-disabled, and/or non-autistic?

For the non-disabled, it means things like never having to worry whether you can physically enter a building, or easily get to where you need to be if you do get in.

It means you don’t have to think about whether you can find housing you can access, or whether you’ll be allowed on to a bus or train or plane, or denied a safe place to put yourself when you do get on.

You don’t have to worry that you will be talked to as if you’re stupid, or have others ignore your wishes and make decisions about your life against your will, based solely on your physical abilities and needs.

You’re never expected to be the ‘token’ person of your ability levels, or be constantly told how ‘inspirational’ you are, just for doing normal, everyday things.

If you’re not autistic, if you get bullied, it’s unlikely anyone will tell you your neurology is to blame, and that if only you acted more like others, it would stop.

You don’t have to plan your day around the fear of inducing sensory overload, and you can change plans if need be without risking panic and meltdowns.

You needn’t fear that people will ignore what you’re saying because of your neurology, or consider you a ‘burden’ because of it, or decide that any and all problems you have, even medical ones, are due to it.

You’ll never have to fear being attacked because of your neurology, or that police officers will take your normal body movements the wrong way, and arrest or even shoot you because of it.

Perhaps most chillingly of all, if you are murdered by your parents or caregivers, no-one will say that “you’re better off dead”, and offer sympathy to your killer/s, based on your neurological style or physical ability levels. Yes, this does happen, and all too frequently, alas.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the privileges of all the above groups. For more information about privileges, check out the following websites :

http://www.sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/able_bodied_privilege.pdf

https://exposingableism.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/the-invisible-backpack-of-able-bodied-privilege-checklist/

http://thatcrazycrippledchick.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/able-privilege-checklist.html

http://www.autistichoya.com/2012/08/privilege-and-myth-of-independence.html

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/neurotypical-privilege/: http://www.unholyamerican.com/2013/11/privelege-checklist.html

http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.co.nz/2009/08/checklist-of-neurotypical-privilege-new.html

http://davehingsburger.blogspot.co.nz/2016/04/conversatons.html?spref=fb

And yes, many of the above privileges, or lack of them, intersect. You can have, or not have, more than one sort of privilege. Imagine how they begin to stack up, and you see why some people’s lives are much easier, while some others almost don’t stand a chance.

And here’s the thing about privilege – there’s no point in either denial or guilt. Back in the 80s, I was in the New Zealand anti-racism and feminist movements. I realised then that guilt is a useless emotion, as it changes nothing. You’re not a bad person for being born white, male, straight, able-bodied, or whatever, anymore than others of us are bad for not being any or all of these things. What’s needed is to acknowledge your privilege as a simple fact – and then, hopefully, do whatever you can to ensure that those without it also gain it. I’m not saying that’s easy, or that all of us have to be hotshot activists, but we can always find some little thing to do to change things.

But start with simple acknowledgement. Just facing the truth can go a long way.

We Are The Last Group That Will Be Liberated

We are the last group that will be liberated. The last ones that will have their oppression lifted, their plight seen for the travesty of justice it is, their status as fully equal human beings asserted. The last two centuries have seen just about every other group or minority move out from ‘sub-human’ status and into being redefined as within the range of ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’. Now it must be our turn.

Once upon a time, the ‘norm’ was defined, at least in the Western world, as white, male, middle-class, heterosexual and of course sane, able-bodied and of normal intelligence. The attributes of this group were the standard against which all others were measured, the yardstick ‘everyone’ should ‘naturally’ aspire to, the best that any human could be. And if you weren’t all of these, you were somehow inferior. To a large degree this wasn’t even discussed, but simply assumed. It was the ideal pattern, the superior state, and that was that. In English-speaking countries, you could add ‘Protestant, of Northern European, preferably English, ancestry’ to that list, or, as the Americans call it, a ‘WASP’.

And then the challenges started. Women got uppity, demanding the vote and a decent education and all the rest. The lower classes formed unions and agitated for change and ‘one man, one vote’. Even ‘coloured’ people, once the shackles of slavery had been removed, began to slowly organise and strive for something better for themselves. And as the twentieth century moved on, the agitation only increased. Socialists came to power in some countries, or formed Labour Parties and got into Parliament in others. Formerly subject peoples threw off their colonial masters, and began to govern themselves. Those ‘coloured’ people started calling themselves Black, or African-American, and refused to sit in the back of the bus and accept second-class citizenship anymore. Women soon followed their example, for a second round of ‘uppity’ behaviour, and in the late sixties gays and lesbians began their own revolution.

The result is that over the last thirty to forty years, there has been a change in how such groups are regarded, with a consequent change to the common idea of the human ‘norm’. Publicly ‘out’ gay figures, mothers working full-time, women and dark-skinned people in prominent and powerful positions - even President of the US - are no longer seen as unusual or something to automatically reject even the idea of. In New Zealand we have gay civil unions, and have had two female Prime Ministers, one female Governor-General and two who are of non-white ancestry. And the sky hasn’t fallen yet.

And along with all this, there have been changes for other formerly powerless groups. Patients now have the right to be consulted and to choose their health care, where once they were simply passive recipients of ‘treatment’ from the Doctor Gods On High. Mental health patients have undergone a similar empowerment. The blind, the deaf and the intellectually handicapped, once powerless and marginalised into institutions, now enjoy a much better position and quality of life. The physically handicapped have also acquired ‘rights’, to accommodations such as disabled toilets and to being seen as fully human, even if in practise they are sometimes still treated as ‘not all there’. Nonetheless, it’s seen as ‘not nice’ to refer to ‘crips’, to laugh at someone because they can’t walk properly, or to talk down to/ignore someone just because they’re in a wheelchair – any more than it’s socially acceptable in most circles to call non-whites ‘niggers’, ‘chinks’ or ‘wops’, or to tell women they can’t do a particular job just because they’re female, or to say that lower-class or Black American accents are not acceptable on mainstream television.

That’s not to say that racism, sexism, homophobia, classism or even ableism, have all been eliminated. Far from it. But my point is that the idea of what constitutes the ‘norm’ has changed. All these groups are now seen as having fully human status, as being worthy of being treated well, even if they sometimes aren’t.

We are not.

It’s still okay for people to say in our hearing that we are ‘mistakes’ that should never have been born, or ‘thieves’ that have stolen away people’s ‘real’ children, or tragedies and burdens that have destroyed our parents’ lives.

It’s still okay – even commended – for people to say in our hearing that they ‘hate’ the autism that is the very core of who we are, without regard to the psychological damage that might do us.

It’s still okay for media to portray us almost entirely in a negative, patronising or pitying light, and to report unopposed the views of those who say that murdering us is ‘understandable’ and a ‘mercy killing’.

It’s still okay to force us into ‘treatments’, therapies or ‘restraints’ that can do us real harm, while denying us the support that actually could help us.

It’s still okay to refer to us as ‘retards’, ‘losers’, ‘geeks’, ‘nerds’ or ‘ass-burgers’.

it’s still okay to exclude us, reject us, laugh and jeer at us, bully us even as adults, deny us employment, and generally dis-empower us.

It’s still okay to demand that we suppress and deny our true selves and natural behaviours such as stims, even if they aren’t hurting ourselves or anyone else.

And it’s still okay to take it as a given that our ways of being are automatically inferior to those of neurotypical ways, and any difference between us is a ‘defect’ on our part.

Most of all, it’s still okay to see us as ‘not fully human’, as somehow lesser than the ‘normal’ people, as Not Good Enough to have rights just like any other human.

Because we are not seen as fully human, and we have no rights.

I’m not wanting to minimise any group’s struggle here, but it’s nonetheless true that even the blind, deaf, intellectually and physically handicapped, and those with mental health issues, are seen as more ‘normal’ than us. Unless they are also on the spectrum, there’s a shared outlook, a body of shared assumptions and attitudes, a natural facility with all the things we so struggle with, that they all have in common.

We don’t share it.

We are the ultimate ‘other’. The furthest ‘out there’ group, the last frontier of what it means to be human. Having spent time in the feminist and anti-racism movements of the eighties,  I believe our struggle will prove to be the hardest, the longest, the loneliest and the most complex of all.

None of which means we shouldn’t try – rather, it means it becomes all the more imperative, all the more needed, all the more necessary, that we do. And when we consider all the above treatments we are on the receiving end of, and the damage they are doing, all the more urgent. We have to do it. We have no choice. Because we are human, and it’s time to step forth and declare it, and take our place in the world.