Fear

So Tracy Morgan is at it again. Apparently he would not only murder his son in cold blood if his son turned out to be gay, but now he's bashing "retards" in his words... the mentally/intellectually disabled in my words. Because, I can only assume, when he was met with a wall of disdain, anger, and public outrage over his anti-gay, homophobic rant he switched over to the those that are the least able to defend themselves and stand up for their rights and unable to ask for respect and empathy. I mean... what could a bunch of "retards" mean anyway... I mean nobody actually LOVES "those" people right? I mean why not. Who's going to care about that?

So according to Mr. Morgan I have two sons that are not worthy of respect or love in his narrow world view. I mean... is it somehow is some alternate universe ironic that he has valued TWO of my beautiful, kind, loving, amazing sons as unworthy and trash. Really. I have to wonder what the odds are. I mean really. I would love to do a survey to find out how many women out there have among their children both a gay child and a disabled child. I figure while I am certainly NOT alone I doubt that there are a lot of us. KWIM?

I am livid about this. I am so angry I can't see straight. It infuriates me that while the gay slurs and ugly rhetoric this horrible man dared to utter out loud in a crowded were all over the media as people railed at him and his bigotry and hatred that NOBODY has said boo about his comments about "retards" (God I hate that word). I haven't seen one single media outlet bring this up or discuss it in the slightest. Maybe I'm not watching enough news now that summer has rolled around and I don't get to see the news every single morning. I'm still watching a little bit of news and perusing my news outlets online where I read most of my news and haven't seen anything. The few "special needs kids" blogs I frequent are of course discussing it but nothing in mainstream is dealing with this. Because you know... kids like Ben... they don't matter.

I'm also hurt. It scares me. It puts a fear in my heart that chokes me and makes it hard to breath sometimes. I have to send my two special boys out into this world. My oldest son is smart, crazy smart, and while his will not be the easiest road to travel I am confident that he will find his way... even among the haters and bigots. He is smarter then... well... pretty much anyone else I've ever met. He will have his struggles no doubt but he will figure it all out and he'll be fine. I know he will. It pains me to think of the hatred and ugliness he will have to face at points in his life but he's strong and self assured and knows that he is absolutely adored and he will get through. It won't be painless but he'll do it, with me loving him and telling him it's all good all the time standing next to him so proud of my and exactly who he is that my chest could burst from it. It do get scared for him. Bad things do happen. A young man at a university in NC was BRANDED last week by some overly religious nut job simply because he was gay. Bad things happen and they scare me. I do worry that something very bad could happen to him but then again very bad things happen to people every day in this country and I can't dwell on that. What terrifies me and keeps me awake at nights is Boo. He will always need us to take care of him. He will, most likely, not go and live on his own independently. He will not ever be like his peers. He may not ever talk like everyone else around him does, it's likely he will always struggle with his speech. He will, likely, always live at home and need his dad and I to take care of him. I hope he will find a job and be able to be out in the world and experience life on his own terms. I hope a world full of things for him that he may or may not get to experience. We really just don't know. We just know that we love him. We know that he will face ugliness and hatred and people that don't understand him. We have seen that there are people that will ridicule and tease him, use him as the butt of their jokes because they see him as somehow less valuable a human being because he has mental and developmental delays. We have already experienced the ugly side of people and their disdain for people like Boo. It's painful each and every time. I have often blamed myself for my utter inability to develop a thick skin when it comes to this but I'm stopping that now. It's not MY fault that other people are ignorant and cruel. It's not MY fault that other people chose to criticize and attack those people in our society that are the LEAST capable of defending themselves. It says a lot more about them then it does about me in the end. I still have fear in my heart for Boo and wonder how he's ever going to manage in this world we live in. I scares me more than pretty much anything else in my life.

I'm thinking of writing a letter to Mr. Morgan to express the fact that he has now said that TWO of my sons are unworthy of respect, love, or understanding. He has said, in short, that two of my sons don't deserve to live in his eyes because of his hatred, bigotry, and complete lack of heart. I don't fool myself that writing to him would make any difference at all in his life. I don't even fool myself that he would actually read that letter. However I do wonder if somehow writing to him civilly and calmly would make ME feel better somehow. At least I could say I tried.