Halloween: Targeting or Celebrating Difference

From the JFA Moderator:

This Halloween weekend, NPR has posted a piece by commentator, Ben Mattlin, where he describes feeling targeted as a person with difference by the festivities.  In conversations, I’ve had with friends and colleagues with disabilities, the idea has been put forward that Halloween is a time where difference is accepted and even celebrated.  What is your experience?  Are disabilities perceived differently around Halloween?  If so, how?

Read or listen to Ben Mattlin’s story “On Halloween, Celebrating Differences Of All Types” and post your thoughts below.

From NPR (10.28.10):

On Halloween, Celebrating Differences Of All Types

Commentator Ben Mattlin never looks forward to Halloween. He says having a highly visible disability can make the holiday feel odd and unsettling.

I never thought about a connection between disabilities and Halloween until I learned of the once-common fear of deformities — the limping, hunchbacked, hook-handed or one-eyed monsters of ancient fairy tales and old horror movies. Even the word "creepy" comes from the same word as the oldest term for folks like me, the politically incorrect "cripple."…

…Yet as an adult, I began to feel uneasy about the creepy exhibitionism of Halloween, the way it encourages staring at all things weird. I can't help wondering if Halloween doesn't promote ridiculing differences — even a kind of conformity. Yes, I know, for most people Halloween is an escape  from conformity, but for those of us who don't quite fit the norm, that's nothing special. In fact, demonstrating that you're not exactly what people expect is pretty much what disabled folks do every day…

>>> For the whole story

Comments

[Dee]

You know, I have an Ibot. I spend 95% of my time in it up in balance mode, as do most people who have one, and it causes stares everywhere, even after five years. I do a LOT of public education LOL.

Those of us with disabilities ARE different from the "normal" population, just as blondes are different from redheads who are different from brunettes. At some point you just have to let your skin get a little bit thicker, shrug your shoulders, and go on with your life. Sometimes we just have to be the bigger person in the equation, and Halloween is not going to change its theme no matte what we do. I'm a big fan of picking your fights, and this isn't one I think is worth the time, energy, or angst any of us would spend on it.