Saturday, May 9, 2015

Special Needs and Human Identity

So, a little bird told me about a moment in which a few humans engaged in an interaction. And I found myself inspired to write this very soon after. It poses rhetorical questions. Though it violates the rules of rhetoric, feel free to answer them:

What's wrong with being special needs? Why does the fact that you have special needs make you subhuman or inferior in the eyes of those around you? Why do people become diminutive if their bodily condition gives them more challenges to overcome? Just because someone needs different help and attention than the “average” person in this world, or has to expend more energy and fight to function as is expected or "normal,” doesn't make them incapable or characteristically incapacitated. Nor does it mean that they need to be coddled or always attended to. That sort of patronization is just as bad as derogatory words and gestures. It’s just a nicer face to the beast at the root.
That beast is superiority. That beast is hubris. That beast is condescension. That beast is hateful because that beast is disrespect. And that beast needs to die.

There is nothing fundamentally different between human beings. Not one person on this planet lacks a soul or spirit. Not one lacks love. God creates every person in His image and loves each unabashedly. Every. Last. One.

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