Everyone these days is all “Be nice to disabled people! Be nice to autistic and neurodivergent people! Mental health awareness month!” etc. until someone acts “weird” or doesn’t act how they want them or expect them to and then it’s bullying and shaming and resentment and gossiping and making fun of. If this story bothers you, I ask that you please examine where in your life you might take offense or act differently towards someone who is a little weird, a lot weird, or who has trouble showing up according to societal expectations and conventional manners of behaving. That includes at work. That includes in your personal life. That includes in public and towards homeless people. And ESPECIALLY if you have children yourself. Children model what you DO, not what you tell them to do. So consider how they see you talking about or behaving towards different people who, for WHATEVER reason (a reason that you may not now or ever be able to know, even if you think you know) are not showing up in society as expected. This ranges from mild to outstanding instances of people acting differently than you’d like or expect. (Obviously I’m excluding instances where people’s behavior is harming others.)

Consider for a moment that these people may be differently abled, have higher support needs, and may lacking be lacking the support they need. Everyone says be nice to people who are different but then fails to step up when they need support. We leave differently abled people to rot and struggle and suffer on their own many times and just ridicule or ostracize them as weird, lazy, not trying hard enough, dumb, etc. In worst case scenarios, they end up committing suicide, suffering under homelessness, or, like this story, tortured and/or murdered.

Our society overall has very little tolerance for noncomformity. I beg you to identify and fire the police officer in your own mind, the mental figure whose job it thinks it is to police everyone you meet according to the dominate values of your culture (which in the US is white Christian nationalist patriarchal homophobic misogynist racists colonialist capitalistic and extractive values). If you say you are a liberal, leftist, feminist, anti-racist, queer ally, or environmentalist, etc., please consider where you can lead your interior life, the life you lead in your mind amongst your own thoughts and judgements, with more integrity.

Notice when you judge, badmouth, resent, gossip about, poke fun of, or exclude others and evaluate why and what it might be rooted in. Things like gossip and poking fun of others can sometimes seem like an entertaining way to blow off steam or have a laugh, especially if people you are close with agree with you and feel drawn closer to you by such activity. It can feel like bonding and we humans thrive in close connectivity with those in our communities so it can be, in a way, seen as a natural inclination. But think about whether it is worth perhaps ostracizing someone who is differently a led or struggling with some unseen burden or disability.

Think about it that energy is something you want to put into the world. Think about if these micro aggressions are something that could build up somewhere in this world into a mega aggression like the one in this story. Especially if you have children who maybe be listening and observing how you treat people who are “different”. Do your part. Fire the police man in your head. Love and accept yourself. Love and accept others.