Megaconference Special #3 of 6: Wherein Norman Kunc Rocks My World

categories: acceptance, Advocacy, social justice

Published June 26, 2009 @ 11:58PM PT

I hate getting up early. The preceding sentence is in fact an understatement. I have, on occasion, gone to extraordinary lengths in order to avoid getting up early. I have never worked a job that involved having to be somewhere before 11 AM because it simply isn't possible. But when I clicked on keynote speaker Norman Kunc's web site and skimmed through it I actually made a conscious decision to get up early and attend Kunc's keynote.

And I was not the least bit disappointed.

Kunc is a master at assumption busting. He is also an enormously entertaining speaker. And he also detailed four perspectives on disability that have given me a tidy new model and language for deep issues surrounding the interplay between society and disability. Individuals can view disability (or, substitute autism for the word disability, the model works just as well) as--

--deviance. The response to which is marginalization, segregation, ostracization, anger, and cruelty.

--deficiency. The response to which is an urgency to reform, remediate, assimilate, normalize.

--tragedy. The response to which is benevolence (yes, this means "charities" too), overburdened woe-is-me, patronization, and pity.

--diversity. The response to which is to value, respect, support, and reciprocity. To innovate instead of remediate.

(I'll take number 4 pls? k thx!)

I wish I could share the entirety of Kunc's presentation with y'all. I can't do that, but, via the marvels of this here Internet technology, I can share a part of what I saw this morning as the following video.

More versions of the video and additional Kunc videos on Kunc's web site.

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Author

Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.