MY UNTRIMMED SLAYER CAPE !

[eng.] my sanctuary has fallen under the onslaught of the dark bureau warriors. forced to continue to keep her notes here. unfortunately,, i lost most of my followers and admirers, that is, my path begins almost from the very beginning

I listened to a story yesterday about a black woman who continually fights for her son who has autism spectrum disorder and how the journey led her to question many things in life. There was something she said along the lines about how the world doesn’t deserve her son because of his kindness, creativity, and purity. The mother also spoke on her worries about her son getting older and potentially being confronted by police officers for being both black and autistic. 

Which got me thinking an old post I wrote about autism in anime/manga fandom a few years ago. The kids diagnosed with autism - they matter (especially if they’re black as they’re very underrepresented). I also remember talking about chunibyo (as traits of that characteristic share some similarities to autism) in the post. I wonder now if the world should be more welcoming towards anyone of any race/gender with autism, chunibyo and other developmental limitations. 

I read an article on Nippon.com from Taiwanese author, Li Kotomi, about how her love of otaku culture got her to learn Japanese. She talked about what she anime series grew up on, her tricks to learn certain characters in the language, and criticisms concerning usage. Kotomi went on to talk about chunibyo as she believed she was experiencing it herself during middle school, which is usually the time period when chunibyo starts to emerge. She goes on to say:

“Characters exhibiting chūnibyō symptoms are a frequent occurrence in the two-dimensional world of anime and manga these days, and I have met people like this in the real world too—both Japanese and foreign students. In general, these characters seem to strike people as pretentious and embarrassing, but personally I find them rather endearing. Ultimately, their eccentric behavior is the result of an inability to control the burgeoning sense of self and the urge for creativity and self-expression that comes with adolescence. 

Certainly I find the chūnibyo characters a thousand times more likable than some of the other forms of neurosis we see prominently displayed in our everyday society, where many people reach adulthood with their overblown sense of ego still not tamed and brought under control—including the desperate-to-impress businessman with his showy fondness for the latest corporate jargon, who likes to throw around English business terms he does not really understand, like “consensus,” “commitment,” and “issues.” Or the etiquette mavens who have no particular knowledge about language but are already ready to rebuke sternly anyone who dares to break banal and fiddly “rules” of usage and office honorific language without any good evidence to support them. 

Give me someone with chūnibyō any day over these people.”

What Kotomi said about chunibyo was very similar to what the black mother was trying to say about her son. Youth that live with some kind of developmental issue/disorder deserve a place in the grander scheme of things. There’s also way too many adults who come up with all kinds of reasoning to justify actions that systemically prevents certain groups of people from succeeding.

While it’s true that order has to be maintained at some level, it shouldn’t be absolute. What’s also true is that autism can be frightening to a caregiver of someone who has it. I do feel the biggest takeaway is that living with someone with developmental disabilities provides much-need learning on how to navigate uncertainty and chaos in ways that benefit everyone. And quite honestly, a lot of people need lessons in that.