An Aspie vs. Pauline Hanson.

If you're not from Australia, this is Pauline Hanson. Since 1996 she has been a controversial poster-lady for the Australian far-right. In her maiden parliamentary speech, she claimed “I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians,” as the leader and co-founder of her party One Nation (now with as many original members as the ER cast circa 2009). Since then she has called homosexuality “unnatural,” frequently criticised Indigenous rights groups for invoking historical injustices against them and even gone to prison for fraud. What a sweetheart, huh?

Now, I already hated her for all those positions (though I must admit expressing such views today takes considerable guts), but this week my anger towards her has become very much personal. This week she has pushed for children with disabilities, particularly autism spectrum disorders, to be removed from mainstream education across Australia, citing the exhaustion of overworked teachers and other students apparently getting less attention than they otherwise would. Now, those two last groups do sincerely have my concern and sympathy. All teachers are just trying to do their jobs and all kids deserve the best possible education. But segregating schools nationally? How is that even clearsighted, let alone mutually compassionate? As somebody who knows full-well the hardship of growing up autistic (although I am trying hard to make this objective, I assure you), that won't make a fucking shred of difference. There's far more to schooling than academia anyway, and children, marginalised and non-marginalised alike, can learn from and grow with each other. This ableist bullshit proposal of Hanson's, which also perpetuates a false stereotype of autistics as unruly and cold, would veto that swiftly.

Honestly (although I may alienate a few people here), I believe we actually should abolish “special” education altogether. (In terms of culture or economics, don't we all really have “special needs”?) I'm not just saying that either because my otherwise terrific high school's SEU was fucking hopeless. And I know disabled kids (and adults, for that matter) often require greater facilities like wheelchair amenities et cetera. But I really think integrating childhood education, as much as possible, is the way to go. It may leave kids with disabilities more vulnerable to bullying, but they would surely have more social experience to help them after school. We can never consider just the present.

I'm ashamed to say I was born in Pauline Hanson's home town of Ipswich, Queensland. Pauline, I wish you would've stuck to selling fish and chips, but over the years you've been fried yourself many times and never with pity from me. Least of all now. It also speaks volumes how even Liberal Disability Minister Christian Porter, a fellow conservative, has repudiated your stance here. Finally, I attended primary school with a girl who was visually impaired. She later became the fucking dux of her high school, and not at all due to sentiment. Trust me, she was a genius.