On Friday night we celebrated the launch of Dwarfism Arts and Advocacy: Creating Our Own Positive Identity with an event here in Berlin. Our editor Dr. Erin Pritchard from Liverpool Hope University gave an excellent run-down of what she terms “midget entertainment” – any use of people with dwarfism for the sake of laughing at their bodies. The debate about midget entertainment is too often reduced to the defense from non-dwarf producers, “Well, what else are they going to do?”
Dr. Pritchard’s answer is that people with dwarfism work in fields ranging from law to medicine to teaching to serious, non-exploitative acting and that is the point of the book. These opportunities have only been made possible by disability activism, anti-discrimination laws and diversity initiatives, which the president of the United States is not only trying to destroy, but specifically blamed that very day for the tragic plane collision in Washington D.C. He listed dwarfism specifically among the conditions that diversity initiatives sought to protect from workplace discrimination.
There is no way to get a job when you belong to a minority that will make bigots happy. If you don’t work, you’re leeching off the system. If you do seek employment in a non-exploitative field, you’re obviously unqualified, only got there out of pity, and you’re stealing the job from someone who isn’t a minority and deserves it more. And if you do make a mistake at work, it doesn’t prove you’re human, it proves their point. We can’t possibly be qualified. How do they know this? “Common sense,” said the president.
Common sense is the ultimate populist answer. It’s what you say when you have no proof, but you have prejudices and you know a lot of people out there do, too, and they’re happy to hear you validate them. We just know people with dwarfism belong in freak shows. We just know they can’t possibly deserve any job outside that work. You know what I’m talking about.
Dr. Pritchard responded to the president’s assertion by reassuring the audience that, according to her data, no people with dwarfism who contributed to the book work in aviation whatsoever. A bullshit assertion deserves nothing less than a bullshit response.
After the event, I relaxed at home and noticed The Daily Show – that haven so many of us turn to even after all these years to remember we’re not alone in all this – headlined the news about the crash as “Trump Blames Plane Crash on DEI and Dwarfism.” I clicked on it and ended up turning it off halfway with a lump in my throat. After the audience lost it watching the host mimic a person with dwarfism trying to reach air traffic control panels, he finished his shtick musing about the size of dwarf penises. To the non-dwarf audience, such comedic lines appeared groundbreaking, but they’re straight out of the street harassment playbook, something guys with dwarfism hear shouted at them too often whenever they dare to go outside, including right around the corner from The Daily Show studios.
It’s not unlikely the episode was recorded just as I was giving my own presentation at the book launch – possibly right when I told our audience, “It can be particularly painful to see dwarfism mocked in spaces that pride themselves on being particularly progressive.”
At least they proved my point for me, as well as the necessity of our book.
Painting On Scars 