Okay, deep breath. This one has been a long-time coming, and it was hard to control my rage long enough to write it.
I know you guys kind of love it when I rip a book to shreds, so today, I have something special for you:
The one book I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE, HATE, HATE the most. I hate this book so much I can’t think straight.
It’s hard to discuss this rage without spitting and smashing things, so let’s start with the story of how I ended up in a vehement public argument with my partner in our picturesque town square outside an innocuous hippy-dippy toy store, inspired by a mere glimpse of this bullshit book.
But first…
Insidious because of it’s sweetness,
Untouchable because it’s made by a Black illustrator famous for his civil-rights picture books (also known for his bigoted depiction of Asians. Shane Evans we need to have some WORDS),
Empowered by a Celebrity-Has-Been Autism Warrior Parent (TM), bestowed with expertise on disability from 5 seasons on ‘Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper,’
And endorsed by the anti-Autism hate group Autism Speaks,
‘My Brother Charlie’ embodies the condescension, supremacy, and condoned abuse that decimates autistic lives.
So we’re killing time on a Sunday in our neighborhood crunchy-granola-hippy toy store.
We’re surrounded by wood trains that cost more than our grocery budget, and baskets of organic hemp stuffies. Mozart or something is playing softly in the background. I am in public, the day is bright and the world is noisy, but I am fine. The store is empty except for us, and the clerk can’t tell we can’t afford anything, so I feel pretty safe here.
There is a small bookshelf with the standard vanilla-multicultural picture books that good liberal grandmas and rich yoga moms like showing off on nursery bookshelves.
Smack-dab, at my son’s eye level (in between ‘Double Trouble for Anna Hibiscus!’ and, I dunno, ‘On The Day You Were Born’ or some fluff) face-out, prominently displayed in pride of place, is THIS GODDAMN BOOK.
My kids are messing with the train display, my partner is absorbed in his phone, and I’m trying not to have a meltdown.
What if my kid sees it and wants to flip through it and internalizes how the world sees us?
What if ANY kid sees it and learns that this behavior is okay?
What if an unsuspecting allistic parent brings it into a home where an autistic kid sees it, day after day, as a reminder that they are not, and never will be, good enough for the people who are supposed to love them?
Do I hide it on a high shelf?
Try to have a reasonable discussion with the clerk that could result in them calling child services and having our kids taken away?
Set everything on fire?
DECISIONS.
I’m sputtering, shuffling books in an attempt to hide it, muttering ‘HOW DARE!’ under my breath
And I’m probably mis-remembering this but it really did seem like my vision took on a red cast of rage.
My partner, an allistic white dude who does not care for books or understand the power of them, is like “Okay why are you freaking out?” He offers to talk to the clerk, to explain how harmful items like this, placed at eye level, can be.
He is used to acting as my translator for face-to-face social transactions, and he’s used to filtering my intense verbal info-dumping into something allistic people can comprehend.
I list reasons. He flips through the pages.
“I dunno. It doesn’t seem that bad.” He says. I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. It seems like a nice book."
It’s not bad to center a non-autistic person, and completely omit the voice (speaking or otherwise) of her autistic brother in a book ABOUT him, the brain that makes him who he is, and his existence?
It’s not bad to detail how HARD this girl’s life is because of her burdensome autistic brother?
It’s not bad that she goes on and on about the things she can do, and all the things he can’t do, like he’s defective, and how saaaad it makes her and her mother feel that he won’t say ‘I love you?’ (And how sad Evans depicts this family with the ‘trauma’ of realizing that Charlie is autistic?)
It’s not bad when Charlie’s sister insists that the only acceptable ways of having fun are the ways SHE has fun, not the ways he naturally plays?
It’s not bad that the ONLY things that she accepts and loves about her brother involve him contorting himself into unnatural, allistic-conforming behavior, looking into her eyes (a thing many autistic people find painful, but are forced by allistic people to do), plasters a smile on his face only for her benefit, and lets her touch him, regardless of how he feels?
It’s not bad that they talk about Charlie ‘having’ autism, like a cancer, separating it from him like an accessory, rather than the actual brain in his head that makes him who he is?
It’s not bad for Charlie (a real-life human being), and the hundreds of autistic siblings of self-pitying allistic children, to come upon this book that his sister and mother have written for public consumption, where he finds find the words “It’s hard to be Charlie’s sister.”
It’s not bad to perpetuate the false and harmful stereotype of a ‘locked in’ autistic mind, functional language, and triggering puzzle-piece imagery?
It’s not bad to list stereotypes about autistic people getting along with animals, memorizing trivia, and being musical savants?
DARLING – We have some work to do.
“Sure,” he says, “It might hurt an autistic kid’s feelings and do some harm there.
But what about the non-autistic siblings? Don’t they need some books for them, too?”
Oh, honey.
(As I mentioned before, my partner has not read many books. Also he is white. And cishet. And grew up with all the privileges most of us only dreamt of.)
Bringing this book into the home of an allistic sibling necessitates that we BRING IT INTO THE HOME OF AN AUTISTIC CHILD, TOO. (Despite many efforts, not all of us have been unwillingly institutionalized.)
Teaching allistic kids that an autistic sibling is only valuable and acceptable when they act allistic is not helpful. It harms us. It’s bigotry.
But what ABOUT the non-autistics, they are so underrepresented! Just like the menz, who are underrepresented in books about women’s history. And the white folks who are underrepresented in books about slavery. And the cisgender folks in the five books about gender spectrum! <-THIS IS SARCASM.
"LOOK AT THE COVER, I tell him. LOOK AT IT. Does Charlie want that hug?”
I’m whisper-shouting as I wave it in front of my partner’s face, because I don’t want my kids to see this book and ask me to read it.
“Oh. Huh. No.” He admits. “Actually – now that I’m looking at it – that’s pretty messed up.”
I leave the store, because I’m fuming, and I don’t want to say anything to the clerk that I’ll regret.
Mostly, I just feel a sense of loss, and a good dose of fear. We moved to this liberal mecca, this place of public-school inclusion, this city of anti-racists and NPR tote bags and sustainable toy stores so I could feel safe.
Within the most crunchy of toy stores, in one of the most educated of cities, in one of the bluest states, in my back yard, people still hate autism – and wish it didn’t exist. All this ‘awareness’ has gained us nothing but more haters. Autism is still not accepted.
Even here, people still hate us, and wish we didn’t exist. Even here, we are are not accepted.
Outside the store, my life-partner, my translator, and the man who is about to get a heated 30-minute 101 lesson on tone-policing, says, “But we’re going to need more than that if we want to argue that the bookstore shouldn’t carry it.”
“You should really calm down. No one is going to listen to you if you get all upset like this.”
And if you want a GOOD book that turns all this bullshit on it’s head, check out ‘
Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap: NT is Okay!‘ – offering invaluable insight for allistics on how it feels to be spoken about like we’re rejects.
Read with caution – it’s not a book I’d read to my allistic son, as it would make him feel like human garbage. (And no, reverse-ableism isn’t a thing.)
