Benevolence

 

It is early April 2009, I find myself in a gymnasium at a local middle school wearing a superhero shirt and cape with a seven and nine-year-old in tow. There are groups of people, families of adults with children, and organizers scattered throughout the large area. I find my way to the perimeter of the room, hoping to go unnoticed. I observe the energy as they prepare to organize everyone to participate in a SuperHero walk through the downtown streets of our small city in recognition of Autism awareness or acceptance, whatever the buzz term of the moment was.  There were many thoughts going through my head at the time but I can remember one being as a neurotypical female, I was sure I had no idea what it was like to be neurodiverse on the spectrum and I couldn't imagine that all neurodiverse people on the spectrum were feeling the same way about their individual challenges, experiences and ways of navigating a world that was not set up for difference, so I was quite sure that this scenario was not playing out to be one I was feeling comfortable being a part of.  However, at this moment, I also witnessed a room full of kind individuals who were believing in the good of their actions and because of this, I  felt I needed to be appreciative, in the name of kindness.  I rationalized that I was a very newly appointed member of a club I hadn't ever imagined myself a part of so everyone else must know what they are doing.  Despite my best efforts to ignore my gut feeling,  I still felt off and awkward. I was unsure of the Superhero paraphernalia and what it had to do with Autism.  My daughter had never expressed an interest in superheroes, Dora the explorer maybe but I wasn't thinking she qualified at the time.  Questions arose in the moment for me too, like was being aware that neurodiversity exists in the form of autism really something to be moved by, or was needing to promote accepting neurodiverse people or any other marginalized group, not part of some larger systematic, societal issue that was more than my autistic daughter and our family could shoulder the burden of? The walk was raising money in support of the local Autism center so why was I still unsure about participating?  What I really wanted at that moment was to know the perspective of an autistic adult. Did they not just want to be seen, heard, represented, appreciated, and celebrated? Not cured, tolerated, or pathologized? However, the room was devoid of any.    The only adults in the room seemed very pleased with themselves and their kind efforts.  The children, mostly boys, were happy to be wearing their costumes as well. It was very clear that there were many who didn't share my perspective and I was alright with that. There are many reasons for that and I respected all of them for honoring what was best for them.   I only share all of this experience with you because it was one of the first times I questioned whether kindness is always kind.

I think being kind can exist without true acceptance and understanding.   Can we not still be kind and be dehumanizing and othering someone at the same time?   When we assume what is best for another and offer this as kindness, when we infantilize someone by talking to them as a child when they are an adult with a disability, when we make decisions, without consult or knowledge, about what someone in our care wants to eat, watch,  or participate in as an act of kindness, is it really kind?  When we talk about what is best for them to another adult in the room when they too are standing right there, is it kind?  If we invade their space or boundaries with loving gestures but no consent, is it still kind?  I have found myself in this position many times where gestures or actions, gifts, advice, and celebrations have all been offered under the veil of kindness.  I have learned a lot over the years about my own behavior in this way as well because I wanted to you and had to and I am sure I will continue to.  I have made peace with not knowing what is best for another human being. I think it is also fair to say that we are all coming to kindness with our own definitions, biases, and experiences. Often we offer kindness from our rational mind perspective as the right thing to do and then maybe it becomes nice instead of kind.   We can probably all remember a time when we became defensive, righteous, or hurt when our kindnesses were not received as such. I probably couldn't count the number of times I faced my own bruised ego with the words, " I was just being kind".   Perhaps this is because we mistake our kindness as universal. Maybe the group in the gymnasium that day was just a group of neurotypical people projecting what they thought was best for a group of individuals who were not yet old enough or maybe didn't have the skills yet to articulate what would be best for them.  Maybe we need to learn to accept that we don't always know and be ok with that.    I believe that instead of kindness, what we needed to be offering that day and every day is benevolence. With benevolence, we are motivated by genuine care, respect, and concern for humanity and we have compassion for everyone's humanness. Because of this we stop pretending to know what is kind and we ask and we listen and we ask again and we reckon with our own egos and feelings that tell us a different story of people being unappreciative, sensitive, or difficult. Let's think about offering benevolence to every living breathing human and then maybe we can acknowledge that kindness isn't always kind.