The Bigotry of “Anti-Vaxx” Rhetoric
“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” –Aldous Huxley
We were never open with the news when Charlie got his diagnosis. We didn’t make a big announcement. In a lot of ways, it brought a kind of awkwardness to our social engagements that we learned was better to avoid as long as we could. It seemed that once people learned Charlie had autism they would spend more time observing him than they would engaging him, as though he were now some object of scientific curiosity, and not the smiling happy boy they knew before he had been given the label. The worst reactions came when I would tell a friend, “Charlie has autism” and they would respond, “Was he vaccinated?” The first time I heard this it was like having the wind knocked out of me.
To start, I’m not going to get into the science of the vaccination-autism link. It’s been debunked, thoroughly and in numerous publications of prestige, via hundreds of independent studies and investigations. Its basis was a hoax, and at this point the only advice I can provide those who still want to argue this flawed, ignorant perspective is to please listen to why it’s so goddamn offensive to the group you’re supposedly trying to help.
“Injured”, “diseased”, “lost”, “broken”, and even “murdered”. These are words I see commonly used to describe children with autism by anti-vaccination advocates. If you were to ask them point-blank whether it’s wrong to have autism, they would answer “of course not” yet continue to demonize a generation of children with adjectives that are demeaning and false. I will not pretend that within some of these words are stories apt to the struggles our children face in managing their diagnosis. A child with autism who suffers gross motor skill impairments may require the same therapy as an “injured” athlete, but in the child’s case it’s a matter of ‘how’ they learn to grow those skills from birth, not an identity of who they are as a person.
The malice in how these words are applied to children with autism as a means of propaganda is no different than the kind of sensationalism and paranoia spread during the 1950s and 1960s against other minority groups (and sadly, still used today). The APA once considered homosexuality as a mental disorder without any evidence. Subsequently, “gay warning” PSA’s served to inform the public of the widespread “threat” that gays imposed. They used terms like “perverse” and “depraved” to describe homosexuals, claimed the number of homosexuals was growing, and that this group would eventually swallow the youth of America whole if this “illness” was not treated. Does any of this sound vaguely familiar?
The sexism inherent in the way in which those who promote anti-vaccination rhetoric attempt to “mom shame” mothers by promoting the notion that their recklessness could be the cause for their child potentially having autism should be alarming as well. Setting aside the fact that “dad” is conspicuous by his absence in the collateral used to perpetuate this fear, the “reckless modern mother endangers her child’s well-being” cautionary tale has been the basis of numerous campaigns throughout modern history designed to use maternal fear to get women to step in line. (Note: there’s a whole separate aspect of the ‘bad mom = autism’ ignorance that exists regardless of the vaccination controversy, but I’ll save it for another post).
Celebrities have been empowered to make children like my son the subject of a campaign rooted in bigotry and misinformation. Imagine the backlash that would occur against a celebrity if they publicly declared that, based upon a few discredited studies, a child who was gay or transgender was an “injury” and not a diversity. Regardless of whether or not you support the “science” surrounding the vaccines-cause-autism claim, this kind of hostility and disparagement toward a large portion of the population should be met with outrage instead of neutrality.
My son is 4 years old. He has autism. He can count to 50, knows every number, shape, color, and can even do simple math. He’s been to dozens of sporting events, numerous zoos & museums, watches wrestling and detests my lame dad jokes. He lives a rich life. The life of a human being. Not some broken object. Not a person “lost” in a void. He is a person, not a wraith to be used in some fear-based propaganda campaign. If you really want to help children with autism, treat them with acceptance for the person they were born as.
