El Jones: A poem on Neurodiversity

Spoken word poet El Jones admits she had biases about people with atypical cognition.

She says, "one day, I happened upon a Facebook thread about autism. These amazing advocates were explaining things like [how] being non-verbal doesn't mean you can't speak for yourself. They asked why being in a wheelchair was seen as worse than being dead? They argued they were more disabled by society than by their bodies. I hadn't thought that way before.

"And as they were making these great arguments, so many other people in the thread were ignoring or belittling them, or telling them they couldn't know about their own experiences. I realized I'd assumed many of the same things.I was unthinkingly participating in the same ableist culture. I knew I needed to do more work and learn more."

In this episode of Tapestry,Jonesexplores ideas ofableismand neurodiversityin conversations with a Prince Edward Island women with Down syndrome and an autistic woman from British Columbia.

She wrote this poem as a reflection on the themes that emerged from thoseconversations.

Click LISTEN to hear El's performance and scroll below to read a full transcript.

Hi, my name is "normal." I'm just here to invite you To measure yourself against some standards That I made for just a few I just don't like variety I thrive on people all alike So I'd like to put you in a box And tell you what's the right you And I've brought along some labels That I'd like to stick like glue And maybe you've already met this tool I call IQ Hey, if you don't fit this test That I devised There must be something wrong with you And this world just has no room for people who are like you And you know that throughout history I built institutions just to hide you And you might know me from the language That I still use to describe you. So if you don't qualify as me I'm afraid I'll have to strike through And I'm just waiting on a cure And then I might just wipe you out I'll size you up and deprive you Til you take it on inside you Until you hide who you are Or at the very least you try to And when I'm the only one who's telling stories Then we're only seeing life through The eyes of people without the knowledge But the power to define you And with only fictional portrayals And my labels here to guide you I'll silence all your voices And then say that I can't find you I'll categorize you as the problem Not the world that's not designed for you And there's a full range of being human That believing in me denies you I'm going to bring you stigma, But you still find your pride And then I see you up on Youtube Saying these are lines you drew And I'm tired of applying you So now I'm going choose to fight you You say I'm not a kitten on a poster Who's only here to inspire you And now you're saying you prefer A world of many bright hues And saying actually, human beings Are so much wider than you And normal's just a construct So I prefer my view So, normal, the world's a richer place When we just say goodbye to you.- El Jones