Jennifer C. Martin

Really proud to promote two great poetry books by David Gate and Anthony Thomas Lombardi. No matter how bad the news is, we still have poems. Link in comments.

While the world is burning down with glimmers of hope maybe around us, I decided not to write about anything and instead wrote about a cool scene I saw in a movie I liked as an unrepentant Wes Anderson fan and a friendly Christian communist! (Which is still VERY isolating even among progressive Christian communities -- whether it's polyamory or genuine revolutionary politics, I am always on the fringe... despite being a rather boring, normal person in real life?)

LINK IN COMMENTSSSSSSSSSSS

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this about people with autism, and it's just... really interesting eugenics, but many Christians jump to agree with this and say, without proof, that vaccines are to blame.

I remember in the '90s and '00s, pro-life Christians were behind a massive movement to say that kids with Down syndrome shouldn't be aborted; that they can go onto have deep, fulfilling lives and that their personhood matters. For the most part, I actually agree with them on this! I've been lucky to have three people with Down syndrome who have been important in my life. (While still recognizing, as a mom, that each individual person has a right to decide for themselves.)

But autism isn't detectable on an ultrasound. Conservative Christians love, love, love theoretical kids that they don't deal with personally; that they read stories about. They don't actually love real, human kids. That's why it's easy for them to harp on about hypothetical children in the womb, and not so easy for them to defend autistic children (or science) or immigrant children or gay children or poor children or trans children.

The grand majority of people with autism, by far, are not this severely restricted. They are not invalids. The prevalence of autism is likely far higher than we think, and IF environmental concerns are to blame -- this isn't scientifically established yet -- they are almost certainly byproducts of capitalism (toxins, pollutants, cancer-causing plastics, ultra-processed foods) and not of vaccines, which have been around for centuries at this point.

I'm neurodivergent as well (ADHD) and so is my entire family: both my family of origin and my kids and partners. I have so many neurodivergent friends with either ADHD or autism or both that I can't even count them all off the top of my head. It's literally no big deal. And it's only annoying in the sort of world we've been forced to be in: taxes and credit scores and jobs that make profits for other people and a million tasks we never get done and no relief or rest or relaxation in a true, meaningful sense -- the pursuit of capital for other people dictates how our entire lives look.

Maybe, just maybe, we should believe all living, alive human beings are worth taking care of. That their disabilities and diseases and disorders and syndromes don't define them.

Paid subscribers -- this is one of my rawest and most honest pieces, and honestly, it feels a little weird even talking about it to promote it here. Go to my Dirtbag Christian Substack.

Depression is real, it's miserable, and it's taking over my life. Trigger warning; but be assured that I am safe.

How are you doing out there?