The Resistance

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I didn’t learn of Benjamin Lay until I was thirty-one years old. This is important, because I myself have dwarfism.

There is a shameful absence of books documenting the lives of important historical figures with dwarfism. Just as Game of Thrones and Tyrion Lannister alone cannot compensate—as many people of average height seem to think he does—for centuries of ridicule and abuse, so Marcus Rediker and The Fearless Benjamin Lay cannot make up for this dearth of representation, but the book is a significant step forward.

Who was Benjamin Lay? Born in England in 1682, Lay was one of the first white radical abolitionists. An autodidact, he was a sailor, glove maker, bookseller, and author. He wrote one of the world’s first abolitionist texts, All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates.

A devout Quaker, Lay loudly called for the church to cast out slave owners. He boycotted slave-produced commodities.

His time at sea, and particularly his experiences in Barbados, fueled his hatred of slavery, and he later became notorious for theatrical protests at Quaker meetings. In one spectacular demonstration, in 1738 at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, he hid a bladder filled with red juice inside a book, then ran his sword through the text, spattering “blood” on the stunned slave owners present.

At the time, many Quakers resisted Lay’s abolitionist views. Just as Lay had called for slave keepers to be cast out of the church, they cast him out of his. They disowned him. They denounced his book. They stopped him speaking at meetings—often physically removing him from the premises. They even withheld his marriage certificate to his wife, Sarah.

While talking and tweeting about Lay’s life, I encountered those who—in good will, I’m sure—thought it best to celebrate Lay’s achievements without mentioning his dwarfism. Such views take shape in a world where so many are taught that dwarfism is at best undesirable and at worst to be feared or loathed. To erase Lay’s dwarfism would be, some might think, to “make him normal.”

But life in a dwarf body shaped Lay’s beliefs. At times he struggled to be considered equal—a battle many dwarf people still face today.

In one incident, Rediker records how a man of average height tried to humiliate Lay by approaching him and announcing: “I am your servant.” With razor-sharp repartee, Lay stuck out his foot and replied, “Then clean my shoe,” embarrassing the bully.

To erase his dwarfism would limit our view of his life. It would sever a connection between Lay and his wife, Sarah, herself a dwarf person. And it was life in a dwarf body that led some historians, Rediker notes, to dismiss Lay as “a little hunchback,” sustaining his obscurity.

There is another vital reason why we must keep Lay’s dwarfism at the heart of discussions about him: because pernicious stereotypes dominate representations of dwarf people. A film about Lay’s life is yet to be made, but movies like Austin Powers and Wolf of Wall Street—which sustain the spectacle of dwarf bodies and condone violence toward them (violence then reenacted in real life)—gross hundreds of millions of dollars. Growing up as a dwarf person myself, by ten I had heard of the Seven Dwarfs, by thirteen the vile Mini-Me character had hit our screens, and three decades went by before I learned of Benjamin Lay.

One of the defining features of Rediker’s book is how he addresses Lay’s dwarfism. Other authors of historical biographies of defiant, gentle, and inspiring dwarf people have claimed to celebrate their subjects’ lives while simultaneously insulting their bodies and diminishing their extraordinary struggles—without reviewers noticing or caring.

Rediker does no such thing, seeking advice from the excellent Little People of America organization and explicitly acknowledging the “discrimination based on size and an often tyrannical normative image of the human body” our community experiences on a daily basis. As a proud and conscious dwarf person, as I finished reading that passage, I felt like a corset had been removed and oxygen filled my lungs.

I highly recommend watching this testimony from Aliya Rahman, the disabled woman who was dragged out of her car and kidnapped by ICE on her way to a doctor appointment in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.

Thank you members, for taking the time to be here today, and thank you staff for making this happen.

My name is Aliya Rahman, and I am a resident of South Minneapolis. I am a Bangladeshi American born in Northern Wisconsin. And I’m a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury.

Not all autistic brains do this, but mine fixates on sounds, numbers, and patterns. And while what the world saw happen to me exactly three weeks ago today on video was a terrible violation it is still nothing compared to the horrific practices I saw inside the Whipple center.

So I am here today with a duty to the people who have not had the privilege of coming home, and I offer this data because these practices must end now.

On January 13th on the way to my 39th appointment at Hennepin County’s traumatic brain injury center, I encountered a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles and no signs indicating how to get around it. I had not wanted to pull in to a blocked, chaotic intersection, but verbally agreed to do so and rolled down my window after an agent yelled, “Move! I will break your f-ing window!”

His first instruction.

Agents on all sides of my vehicle yelled conflicting threats and instructions that I could not process while watching for pedestrians.

Then, the glass of the passenger side window flew across my face.

I yelled, “I’m disabled!” at the hands grabbing at me and an agent said, “Too late.”

I felt immersed in a pattern, and I thought of Jenoah Donald, an autistic black man killed by the police during a traffic stop in 2021.

I remembered mister Silverio Villegas González, who was killed by ICE in his vehicle last year.

An agent pulled a large combat knife in front of my face, which I thought was for cutting me, and later learned was used to cut off my seat belt. Shooting pain went through my head, neck, and wrists when I hit the ground face first and people leaned on my back.

I felt the pattern, and I thought of mister George Floyd, who was killed four blocks away.

I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled. I now cannot lift my arms normally.

I was never asked for ID.

Never told I was under arrest.

Never read my rights.

And never charged with a crime.

Approaching the Whipple center, I saw black and brown bodies shackled together, chained together, being marched by yelling agents outdoors. I continued to hear the word “bodies”, because that is how agents referred to us:

“We’re bringing in a body.”

“They’re bringing in bodies 7, 8 at a time, where do I put ‘em?”

“We can’t use that room, there’s already a body in there.”

You have no reason to believe you will make it out alive if you’re already being called a body.

Agents repeatedly had to stop and ask how to do tasks. I received no medical screening, phone call, or access to a lawyer. I was denied a communication navigator when my speech began to slur. Agents laughed as I tried to immobilize my own neck. I asked for my cane and was told no, pulled up by my arms and prodded forward in leg irons by agents laughing and saying, “Walk! You can do it, walk.”

Agents did not know if the facility had a wheelchair.

When I was finally placed in one to be taken to interrogation an agent taunted, “You were driving, right? So your legs do work.”

I pleaded for emergency medical care for over an hour after my vision had become blurry, my heart rate went through the roof, and the pain in my neck and head became unbearable.

It was denied.

When I became unable to speak my cellmate pleaded for me.

The last sounds I remember before I blacked out on the cell floor were my cellmate banging on the door, pleading for a medic, and a voice outside saying, “We don’t wanna step on ICE’s toes.”

When I opened my eyes at Hennepin County’s emergency room, I learned I was brought there to be treated for assault.

The impacts of DHS detention on my physical, mental and financial well-being and safety have been very severe, but I do not deserve more humane treatment than anyone else, US citizen or not. And I am here today with a strong spirit and a duty to the many people who haven’t had the privilege to tell their stories or see their loved ones come home. I am extremely distressed by the pattern that violence from law enforcement has been happening to black and indigenous communities for centuries, and to DHS survivors for over 20 years.

We call ourselves a civilized nation, but we lack rules and accountability around what a person claiming to be law enforcement is permitted to do to another human being.

I can’t do that without negative consequences

I can’t do that unless I have support for it

I can’t do that