RFK Jr is wrong, but not for the reasons you think
Now is not the time to demonstrate your or your Autistic kid's worth to capitalism. That's just ableism in a trench coat.
Note: I challenged myself to write every day this week. I didn’t think this is what I’d be writing about, and I didn’t think I’d be sharing more writing so soon, but I must shut down ableism when I notice it.
If you have access to the internet, you probably saw some snippet of RFK Jr discussing Autism this week (I’m not linking to it). If you have access to social media, you probably saw Autistic folks/parents of Autistic folks/allies arguing with him. If you’re going to take up argumentation against RFK Jr, please consider the impact of your rhetoric.
If you’re new to disability yourself or to being in community with disabled people, it is crucial to recognize that — while there are many diagnoses and stigmas — we all fall into the big category of “disabled.” When judgment about disability occurs, we all suffer. We don’t win respect, compassion, or understanding by siding with ableism and oppression. Certain “arguments” against this ableist rhetoric actually reinforce ableism.
During his speech, RFK Jr described Autism as an epidemic. I share a quote below that I will keep returning back to. He describes some Autistic children as:
“kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”
Merely identifying that this is a true lived experience for some people is not ableist. Some people cannot and will never do those things. But RFK Jr specifically highlighted what we call high support needs, in a derogatory way. In this quote, he talks about Autism in a way that is akin to functioning labels — high functioning versus low functioning — but this is a deficit-based framing that implies some value judgments. Instead of that framing, the disability community has moved to identifying support needs, which is a framing that focuses less on what individuals can’t do, and more about what supports help them in living their lives.
In RFK Jr’s monologue, he suggests that Autistic people with high support needs — those who can’t write a poem or go on a date or pay taxes — are not valuable members of our society. He is making an incredibly capitalistic argument, and capitalism does not care about individuals. Note: to my knowledge, he does not say that all Autistic people are incapable of these things. Importantly, again, it is true that some Autistic people can’t do those things.
If you are concerned that RFK Jr is peddling in stereotypes or outdated representations of Autism, you’re falling into his trap. He wants you to justify your existence. Why? Because when you justify your value by saying you pay taxes and you play baseball, you implicitly agree that people who can’t pay taxes and can’t play baseball lack value.
Today, those Autistic people with high support needs who can’t pay taxes or play baseball are on the chopping block. Do you think RFK Jr will stop there? Hell no! Next, he’ll come for the baseball players and tax payers who are a little too quirky. The people who don’t pass the office vibe test or the eye contact test. Eventually, he will make up a reason and you will be the next group under attack. Your degrees or your job or your poetry won’t protect you from the next attack, but it is making this all about you.
By making this about yourself/your low-support-needs Autistic kid, you’re decentering the people who are currently most at-risk. Why are you pivoting this conversation to center on yourself/your kid?
If you’re feeling stereotyped or stigmatized — like people who know that you have Autism will think poorly of you after RFK Jr’s screed — you’re experiencing what’s called internalized ableism. You grew up in a society that was built on ableism. You are worried that people will judge you. When you start levelling that judgment at other people, you’re engaging in lateral ableism (ableism from one disabled person to another). We have enough ableism from outside, we need to make sure the ableism isn’t coming from inside the house.
If we’re lobbing ableism at each other, we’re missing the bigger picture. RFK Jr wants Autism (a highly genetic disorder) to be “eliminated.” How do you eliminate a genetic disorder? By not allowing certain people to procreate. But how do you that when your party has a platform that is anti-birth control and anti-abortion? Sterilization. If you’re new to the horrors of the history of the United States, you might not know that people in the US have been forcibly sterilized. (Am I saying we’re jumping to forced sterilization tomorrow? No. But history certainly rhymes, and I don’t like how this consonance sounds.)
When we re-center this conversation about low-support-needs Autistic folks — the folks who hold jobs and have degrees and play baseball and participate in capitalism — we give into RFK Jr’s rhetoric. We demonstrate that the lives of those with high-support-needs are not valuable. In fact, when you make this about you, you’re implying you have so much more value than them that you can steal the spotlight from them. We need to give the spotlight back and say, “These people are valuable members of our society. I will not allow them to be denigrated, dehumanized, or eradicated.”
If you’re a low-support-needs Autistic person and you’re arguing that having a job is hard for you and that’s why you should talk about it, you’re missing the point. There are Autistic people who cannot and will not ever hold a job. It is not hard for them; it is impossible. No amount of support will give them the tools to pay taxes. That’s who we’re talking about right now. Not you. If you’re currently working or writing poems or playing baseball, we’re not talking about you.
If you’re an ally and you’re worried that you’re gonna say the wrong thing and step in it, stay worried, but act anyway. We — all of us, as a society — need to come together to explicitly reject these attacks on the humanity of our fellow human beings. This might mean you say something that isn’t perfect. Don’t worry, you’ll get corrected, and you’ll have a chance to say it again but better the next time. Don’t stay silent because this “isn’t my fight.” Kick up a fuss exactly because you’re not the one being directly targeted. That’s how you use your privilege.
At the very least, share this post when you see someone making the wrong argument. Remember, our goal is to hold the line: we don’t measure value of human beings based on their ability to pay taxes or write a poem or play baseball.
You should care about the dehumanization of people who are not you because they are humans being denigrated. But if you don’t care about other people, you should care because you’re next, your kid is next, we’re all next. They will keep slicing away at who counts as a person until our rights are all gone. There’s a really famous quote about this…
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
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