Sometimes the news comes together for me in unexpected ways. I see a connection between two stories in the paper today.
It's a connection that has me wondering -- who are the real freaks in this world?
The first story is that Eunice Kennedy Shriver has died. Shriver's most notable achievement was to take the beautiful creation of a Chicago Park District employee -- the Special Olympics -- and go national with it. The park district employee was future Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne McGlone Burke.
This got me to thinking about a column I wrote three years ago about the Cusack family of West Beverly, whose son Michael, then 50, had Down syndrome. Michael had been a star Special Olympics athlete.
What I will always remember is that the Cusacks were true pioneers back when Michael was born in the 1950s. Against a doctor's advice, they refused to institutionalize him. Against the advice of well-meaning friends, they also refused to hide him away at home.
Instead, Esther and John Cusack took Michael everywhere, like they would any other child. But back then, that was not the norm. Back then, that took a little courage. Back then, people foolishly stared -- even more than they do today.
The second story in the news is about this strange fellow in New York, John Strong, who runs a Coney Island carnival show featuring disfigured animals -- two-nosed cows, two-headed snakes, that sort of thing. Strong, according to an AP story, will be going on one of those TV court shows to argue that a certain five-legged dog belongs to him.
Now here's the connection: People go to shows like that to look at the freaks. Today they look at freak animals, but it wasn't so long ago that the freaks were as likely to be people -- people who were very small, people who had three arms, that sort of thing.
The message to kids, of course, was "go ahead and stare." The message was "people who look different are not wholly human."
And this was the world Michael Cusack was born into, the world people like John Strong still promote to this day. If you teach a kid to stare at an unfortunate five-legged dog, the staring won't stop there.
Who's the real freak? The dog? Or Strong?
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I have no idea what you're even saying here.
Are you saying that all side shows should be banned because people would stare at the animals then you might as well ban the zoo and any form of exhibitation.
I think you are totally full of it!
Matter of fact, I don't think you even know what you're talking about!
Sorry, but you've got it backwards. The purpose of sideshows is to let people know it's okay to stare -IN THE SIDESHOW where the person is getting paid for it, not out on the streets. It shows the public that these people are NOT something to keep stuck in the house or an institution, but are viable and contributing members of society. People are amazed at the skills exhibited by the sideshow "freaks," and will rarely look at deformities the same again. The people on stage, in turn, are generally emboldened by their "stage star" status, and would never dream of peddling or panhandling on the streets again after working a sideshow. Some people claim the Special Olympics itself is just an excuse to parade deformed, handicapped "freaks" before the public, without guilt or claims of exploitation. Yet that is exactly what's happening there.
The 5-legged dog would have enjoyed the same "star" status as any human sideshow "freak." Not only would she get tons of attention from the show visitors, but she'd share the bed of the show's owner. She wouldn't have been forced to do anything, and would enjoy a pampered life, as a "star." The leg-amputation was not done for her benefit, but at the whims of the illegal "owner" who was lauded as a hero for making the cog "normal."