cosmolinguist | How the Walz memes are going (Reply)

It took a matter of days for the Tim Walz "wholesome" memes to move on from "Tim Walz carries an extra ice scraper 'for situations like this' "-type stuff to start evolving.

Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Things got out of hand quickly.

There were a few I really don't like. (I saw about a dozen versions of the same photo of him idly petting a cat, captioned with "when you're famous they just let you do it" as if alluding to sexual violence against women like that, even if to say how far you are positioning yourself from it, is funny...it came off as smug and still misogynistic to me.) There were unsubtle digs at Trump and Vance.

There was the day of the trolls (just the one, as far as I can tell; I'm in awe of the admins and moderators of this open Facebook group!) where, when I called the trolls white men, I got told off by a white woman for being "negative" in a group that "is supposed to stay positive"; this is where I learned that "mentioning race and sex [sic] is never positive"!).

The trolling was really pathetic too. Apparently Tim Walz had a DUI once in the 90s! All they could do was throw out slurs that got deleted before I could report them and laugh-react at our comments -- which made me realize that, when when we were already laughing ourselves at posts like "Tim Walz thinks there's mustard in poteto salad," mockery can be difficult to do.

Last week I had to say that Tim Walz wouldn't let nostalgia for Garrison Keillor's radio show overcome the sexual harassment that led to the abrupt end of that show. I guess either a mod or (more likely) the person who left the gushing comment praising Garrison Keillor that I replied to has apparently deleted that comment, which deletes the whole thread so my comments disappeared too. I was very careful in my wording. I said people matter more than nostalgia and that Minnesota is the state that made Al Franken a senator and then stopped him being a senator and I was proud of that even though I voted for him.

Today I'm trying to tell the Tim Walz meme group that ableism isn't actually wholesome.

I was braced for this when I read the news this morning about Gus, Walz's teenage son who, when the cameras were on him last night when Walz called out to his wife and children during his speech, stood up and said through happy tears "That's my dad! That's my dad!"

A moment distillimg everything we've come to expect of Tim Walz, even displaying a kind of masculinity that's totally comfortable showing genuine emotions like joy and pride.

When I read that Gus has a nonverbal learning disorder and ADHD, my heart sank. I was immediately bracing for a barrage of cripspiration in the meme group. To their credit, I didn't find it as much as quickly as I'd feared. And when it did happen, it was in a post that just quotes the Walzes speaking about how they think of Gus as having "a secret superpower."

Now, I'd already read a great article that's actually pitched as encouraging other parents of neurodivergent children to emulate the Walzes, because they aren't trying to change Gus or pressure him to be "normal"...but it does also call out this one thing.

I still wouldn’t say the Walzes have been perfect in how they discuss their son’s disability. For example, when speaking about his disability, they’ve said that his “condition is not a setback — it’s his secret power.” This statement disregards the real accommodations that Gus will need if he is to go to college or enter the workforce. Similarly, many neurodivergent people chafe at the idea of having a “superpower” because of the implication that their worth is tied to their being superior than their counterparts at some tasks.

At the same time, it is still a step forward that the Walz family doesn’t see Gus as deficient and has instead focused on what is possible for him,

The other link there is word a read too, it's literally called "Neurodiversity is not a superpower":

I’ve also seen how harmful framing neurodiversity as this superhuman ability can be. Inadvertently perpetuating harmful stereotypes and unrealistic expectations, placing unnecessary pressure on neurodiverse individuals to perform at a level that may not be sustainable or realistic for them leading to burnout, while also marginalising those who don't fit the stereotype of the "genius savant" or "tech wizard."

I tried to call this out in a comment, quoting that part from the first link and promoting the second one. Someone told me "On behalf of Neurodivergent adults who are tired of explaining this every time it comes up, thanks friend." Someone else told me this is "nitpicking" and treated the article like a hit piece on Walz -- when it's headline calls him and his wife "nearly perfect" in how they talk about their neurodivergent son! So you can't win 'em all. No surprise this latter person turns out to have a child maybe roughly my age either born with disabilities or acquiring them young, turns out she just hates the word "disabled" because she has bad connotations with it.

I have sympathy -- of course my own parents probably still don't think of me as disabled -- but not too much.

It's just all about the abled people and their feelings. They are scared of disability because disabled people feel like a burden to them and that makes them feel like bad people but also they don't want to feel burdened because it's a bummer! Or they're scared because they know disability might happen to them some day. So they need to psychologically distance themselves from it. And they just don't have the range, to deal with those emotions in a healthy way. I'm so tired of being expected to do that work for them.

However. It's pretty fun to get to say stuff like "They're raising a neurodivergent son in a particular context, and the more the rest of us understand about that context the better neighbors we can be to all neurodiverse folks." I don't normally get to talk like this any more!

D says that weaponizing my Minnesota Nice in the cause of social justice is very me. Which may be the nicest thing I've been told in a while!