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Even as kindness toward individuals with intellectual disabilities
has increased, encountering an individual and his or her family
whose lives revolve around the daily challenges that come with them
is atypical, or is experienced and narrated as such, particularly
by the media. Even when there is progress, making such a leap
provides rhetorical cover, or at least a distraction, while
intolerance regroups. And for some, it becomes less about showing
love and compassion than about being able to pat oneself on the
back when an interaction with a person like our son Neil is over.
But it's why they don't know, or are curious but reluctant to
engage, or just flat out lack empathy, that compelled us to write
this book. Contributing to their misimpressions and misanthropy are
portrayals of individuals with intellectual disabilities in the
mass media, scant though they are. We should always be skeptical of
those in my line of work who argue that the onslaught of
information we take in from a widened array of sources can
magically change our behavior - the so-called "hypodermic needle"
theory of media effects. But these messages do help us craft our
realities and develop and share our own narratives about folks with
intellectual disabilities. Holding Up the Sky Together is
admittedly a hybrid: part memoir, part academic analysis-a
professor with more than 30 published articles and four books, all
of which revolve around media analysis, looks inward. But our
fervent hope is to inject a bit more realism into the national
dialogue about intellectual disabilities. We are grateful for
increased awareness and tolerance, for Special Olympics, and for
shows like Born This Way. But there is so much more to be done.
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