Please, before reading this post, go here and at least read the letter that was sent to this family in Ontario.
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Where do I begin? I suppose, to her credit, I should point out that she did use the word retarded in the correct usage. Her neighbor’s grandson was born with slowed mental functions. She wasn’t using it to describe it anything but the child with the diagnosis. And please, please understand that I wrote that with the most bitter, sarcastic, and acerbic tone possible.
Moving on, I have to ask, what the hell is wrong with this woman that she feels the need to use no less than five exclamation points at any given time? Were she to read the letter out loud to her neighbor, then she would have to read it so loud, it would probably frighten her normal children.
Which brings me to her normal children. How sheltered are they that they cannot handle hearing a child playing outside? They’re scared of a little boy. Let that sink in for a minute. I’d be more concerned – in a country with a public health system – about those children that can’t handle being near children than a child with autism, who does have the benefit of a support system. Of course, the writer of the letter wouldn’t know that because she took no time to do research.
And maybe this is a terrible thing to admit, but that upsets me almost more than her general shitty attitude. I mean, if you’re going to write a painfully hateful letter to a neighbor, near whom you must live, regardless of your anonymous rants (coward!), then do your research! I mean this wholeheartedly. If she thinks that this child would be a drain on society, she’d damn well better prove it. I want numbers, and I want graphs.
I had a coworker tell me once that he understood the idea of euthanizing people who couldn’t contribute to society (he was talking about criminals in general, and people who can but don’t work), at which point I said “well some people would argue that my brother fits in that category, since he is disabled.” His response, “well…yeah.” I don’t speak to him anymore, so I never got to hear his evidence to support his claim.
But here’s the thing with these kinds of hateful rants; they are based in nothing be a knee-jerk reaction.
I want to hate this woman for writing this letter. I really do. And part of me does. But the other part of me looks at this and knows that she is not really a threat. I mean, really. If she were a threat, she would have evidence (real or imagined) to support her claims, and she sure as hell would not have remained anonymous.
For instance, the Westboro Baptist Church people are nuts. They hate everyone. But at least they have the decency to announce themselves, so you know who to avoid. I believe that they are wrong in soooo many ways, but in this case, I sadly have to give them credit for standing behind what they say. It takes a certain kind of courage – even if it is hateful and crazy – to maintain your stance, even when so many disagree.
I also can’t hate this woman because, in her clear ignorance, she has done nothing but rally the troops. Her pointless and ineffectual, but still despicably mean, letter has only served to bring the people of that neighborhood together to weed her out. And soon I imagine the crowd will make it impossible for her to selfishly live in a nice neighborhood setting like that.
Oh! Semantics, I realize, but how about her saying that the sound of incessant dog barking is normal, but then telling this woman to move to a “trailer park with that wild animal…” Really? Really. You can’t have it both ways, you psycho.
I feel sorry for her children, and I’ll go ahead and make a prediction right now. Let’s assume she has two of them. One of them, unable to live up to his/her mother’s expectations, will begin to spiral out, finding solace in meth and some former-biker (s/he lost his license in a series of DUIs). S/he will be in and out of rehab, on the Crown’s dime, mind you, until eventually they find him/her in a gutter somewhere, having soiled him/herself, and s/he will become Jane/John Doe at the local hospital.
The other one will be just as spiteful and hateful as her mother, blaming everyone else for their problems, and will simply die alone in a shitty apartment without even a pet because the thought of actually caring for a living thing is so repulsive.
Finally, my favorite part, copied verbatim: “I HATE people like you who believe, just because you have a special needs kid, you are entitled to special treatment!!!GOD!!!!”
What strikes me most are the two words she chose to put in all caps – “hate” and “God” – and how, sadly, those two are too often used in unison.
Second, seriously, woman? Special treatment? You mean, like, allowing your child to play outside on your own lawn? Yeah, geez, that is so shitty of this grandmother. How dare she use her private property in a way that suits her without first consulting you and your chicken-shit parasites children? GOD!!!!
*sigh*
Humor makes it easier to swallow, but in all honesty, I don’t know what to do about people like this. She is so blinded by hatred that no manner of reasonable, honest discourse could happen. I can only hope that, as the media and online communities take this and run with it, that she will at least feel ashamed at how terrible a person she is, and how, despite her claim that everyone is thinking it, she is alone in her own sea of awful.
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You say Polymath like it's a bad thing... 