Full disclosure, I did not read all of this book. I thought it was going to be more of a memoir, but it ended up being more of a book about the origins of normalcy. Which was good, but not what I expected. So, I only read the first 100 pages.
“You need to know that normal has a history. You may assume this is history of discovery–that somewhere, at some point, someone found out what was normal for human beings. And normal, and normal people are often presented like that–as facts of the world. But that’s not true. That is a lie. It’s a lie that gives normal such power over our lives… Normal hasn’t always been normal.”
“When normal was first used it had nothing to do with people, or society, or human behavior. Norm and normal were Latin words used by mathematicians. Normal comes from the Latin word norma, which refers to a carpenter’s square, or T-square.”
“Every day, in every community, all around the world, people with differences are demeaned. Just look at the data. According to multiple research studies, including the UN World Report on disability, people with cognitive and physical differences have the worst life outcomes, as measured by employment, wages, and education achievement, of any minority group in the world.”
“Eventually Galton did come right out and began calling for the active improvement of the human race through the application of the emerging science of what we now call genetics. He called this eugenics, a combination of the Greek words for “well” and “born”.
“Carrie’s case was eventually taken to the US Supreme Court and is known as Buck vs. Bell. In the spring of 1927, the court ruled that Carrie buck’s sterilization was constitutional…The United States Supreme Court ruled that the state had the right to eliminate forms of difference through sterilization.”
“Killing defectives eventually went the way you knew it would: Hollywood. Yep, in 1917, the movement got its own movie called The Black Stork. This film is about eugenically mismatched couple who are told not to have children because they are likely to be defective. The couple ignores this warning, gives birth to a “defective child,” and then lets it die. The movie is based on the life and work of Harry J. Haiselden the chief surgeon at the German-American Hospital in Chicago, who killed infants of “eugenic” reasons.”
Eugenics was the reason why the Nazis killed disabled and handicapped people in gas chambers. The book goes on to say that Hitler’s idea for this came from American eugenic ideas. During the years of WWII, Hitler killed many handicapped people to cleanse the genepool. You did not have to be Jewish or gay to die in the gas chambers. They actually had some at hospitals to kill children who were disabled or for eugenic reasons.
In the US thousands of people were sterilized before the ruling by the Supreme Court was overruled. So, you know how people who are neuro divergent are so vocal about it? It is because they would have been killed or sterilized for being different throughout a lot of recent history.
Jonathan Mooney wrote this book because he grew up with learning disabilities in San Francisco during the 1980s. I grew up in the 1980s. And I am not “normal”. But I never thought of this stuff. I have never been normal and gave up seeking to be around middle school. Normal people aren’t good at the kinds of things I am good at. If you are in the middle of the bell curve you aren’t really good at anything. You are average. I was never average at anything. So, I never thought of normal as something to strive for. I saw it as something to stay away from. I never wanted to be average. But I suppose a lot of people do try to be normal and average.
On this revolution, I have said that I do want a normal and ordinary life. But that is because I want some of the things you all have that I have never been allowed to have. Like a house that isn’t designed to kill me, a career where I get to share my skills and gifts with the world, clean clothes that aren’t poisoned, a bed that is not designed to kill me, etc. There are countless things you people take foregranted everyday that I have never had. And have worked so hard to have. Even if I was allowed to earn a normal ordinary life nothing about me would ever be normal or ordinary, and this has nothing to do with my birthrights and everything to do with the person I am and the skills and gifts I have taken the time to cultivate.
I never thought normal was something that was a good thing. But I did want a more functional and healthy life and family my whole life. It is shocking that people like my family will call themselves normal because they are the ones who create the bell curves. And they will continue to kill people like me who are outliers because we threaten their ability to control the masses and dictate the narrative. Pretty scary and funny, huh? Talk about a mix of emotions.
They put a chip in my head because they wanted to use me like a computer because I am not normal. But yet they wanted me to pretend to be normal, when I have never been given anything normal ever. I will never pretend to be normal for my family, or for you all. But I will always be me. Because I really like me. And if I am not supposed to be me then who the hell am I supposed to be?!?
Normal Sucks. Be YOU!