What's up with the negativity? Remember the autistic boy Jason McElwain, that saved his team's game? Yes, the one that warmed the bench during the season and then got EVERY shot in the hoop?!?! Watch the news clip from CBS News. Soon after this, rumors surfaced that a movie was in the works. I thought, "Great!" What movies do we really have to raise autism awareness...besides "Rainman". And We all know that Rainman is on the high functioning side of the spectrum?! I applaud people with any kind of disabilities that defeat the odds.
Guess what I came across. People whining about the proposal. "Hey", I commented...because I'm confrontational like that...."I have an autistic child and I would love to raise Autism Awareness. Hollywood is not a bad route. We could use some big name celebrities supporting research". Well, many people said ,"Oh! Like I want to sit through over an hour of that!" "Welcome to my life"! I replied. You know, I love true stories of people that overcome and triumph. This child deserves to have his story told and so do his parents. The parents that took him to every game and sadly watched as their son warmed the bench.... He endured months of warming a bench when all the time, he played better than the TEAM..
Then there are stories like Nancy Burpee. She has a degenerative disease that wasn't diagnosed until she turned 30! A world record breaking swimmer (she competes in the Paralympic Games), she was robbed of her opportunity to represent the American team in Athens. This woman has had 24 knee surgeries, broken several bones due to her condition and suffers severe pain in her joints. She sought legal counsel from simmons jannace & stagg (they represented her pro bono) and she still was kept from competing in the Paralympic Games. It has not stopped her from competing everywhere else. She'll be back at the World Championships soon-breaking world records I'm sure. The negativity by those that had hidden agendas and professional envy stopped her from her gaol-this time.
Instead of encouraging, inspiring and edifying those that face adversity and triumph, negative people try to drag them down. Jason McElwain and Nancy Burpee are people whose spirits soar, regardless of the limitations of their intellectual and physical hindrances. Let them soar and let us be the wind to lift them up even higher. All those negative people that like to murmur, listen up. Focus your negative energy into a goal you want to accompish. Then maybe you too can be like these exceptional people....
1 comments:
This is so bizzare, I was with a group of Special Ed teachers today during my teacher training and we were talking about this very subject. Jason, in particular.
I for one can't stand to listen to his story anymore. It really, REALLY bothers me. The first time I saw the clip I thought it was amazing - autism or not. The second time, I was amazed again, as I was the third, fourth and fifth time. BUT when CNN, ABC and everyone else and their grandmother started airing the piece non-stop over and over and over again it really started to bother me. Why? Because people with autism do spectacular things every day. Temple Grandin is a university professor and has a PhD. Susan Rubin is a profoundly autistic woman who now has a college degree and wrote a documentary. Taylor Cross is an 18-year-old with Autism who directed a movie. The list of great feats goes.
I'm in no way diminishing what Jason did. It was amazing and deserved the press coverage. But meeting the President????? A movie????? It bothers me immensly that people think that someone with autism doing something great is a fluke that deserves attention akin to that of a blind man in a coma performing neurosurgery.
And so I'm only speaking for myslef when I say that I'm not dissing Jason, I'm dissing the way it's been blown out of proportion as if nothing like this has ever happened before and will never happen again.
Sorry for the two cents - I think I gave you a whole quarter instead!.
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