By Angela Gonzalez, WSU Vancouver Neuroscience student
When we see how important “diversity” has become over the past decade or so in schools, communities, and businesses, we think of race, gender, or religion. These three majorly controversial topics are now the first thing that companies and schools pride themselves in. Many colleges now include images of a diverse group of individuals on their homepages, and often have a diversity link. Even now, as I googled a page promoting diversity is the first link I click on. WSU honors diversity, but the only kind of diversity the page points towards is race. Many of these images also include students of different ethnic backgrounds. However, I have yet to see a topic concerning disabilities of any sort, and this is a topic that is clearly concerning diversity. Neurodiversity seems to be a topic we bounce around.
Growing up, I had a cousin who had mental retardation, and I was always told not to stare, or even look at him. It was all hush hush and whispers. I never understood the reason, it was something I just did. Because of this, I never made the effort to try and socialize and consider him a real part of the family. This is so sad, I know. It wasn’t until a few years later that a computer was placed in front of him, and he was able to communicate. He understood everything we said, and even talked about family members avoiding him, or treating him differently.
Now, being a diverse individual myself, I find it that sometimes I am looked at differently- “It’s sad how she grew up”, and the worst, “School isn’t the best idea, you won’t get anywhere because you’re Mexican”. Being perfectly knowledgeable and a good student, I had teachers and even my own family members telling me these things. There was nothing wrong with who I was, I was just ethnically different than others. And because of this, I was treated differently.
Looking back on these experiences, I realize how terrible it is to be told your label is who you are.
Schools now tend to pride themselves on being diverse, women are being accepted into colleges more, and different ethnic backgrounds are considered seemingly almost higher than merit.
So why isn’t this change considering people with disabilities? We are so tied up in our own world to consider that diversity means so much more than race or gender. ‘Diverse’ literally means showing a great deal of variety- whether that is skin color, gender, or abilities. Yet, we chose not to notice that someone has different capabilities because they don’t generally speak out as other groups are doing.
Yet, there are some great success stories out there where people who are neurologically diverse are accepted into schools, or land great jobs. This should be more prevalent. We shouldn’t be avoiding conversation with someone who has difficulty socializing, or speaking. Despite the movement towards neurodiversity, even this has been selective. Neurodiversity tends to move towards Autistic individuals, “The neurodiversity movement represents the disability rights perspective within the Autistic community”, and is still selective on what is considered to be Neurodiversity. How can this be considered when they themselves who started the movement on being more accepting of individuals with disabilities are saying neurodiversity is a movement for Autism?
Diversity is a word our country has come to embrace, but its not a warm hug when we are still being selective when it comes to different individuals. We should be embracing the fact that there are many out there who want us to try to understand them. Though its not entirely possible to understand someone, acceptance of differences as being diverse can be a start. Advocacy for neurodiversity should not be selective on what can be considered diverse, and schools should continue priding themselves with being diverse, but considering diversity as differences among all of us.