Ableism in Gattaca

I don’t quite know how to start this.

I pride myself on being eloquent, in my own (subjective) opinion. I shake every time I speak up in class or in a situation that doesn’t feel fully comfortable, but I have learned to trust that my voice will be there for me, that I can start speaking and will come off as articulate.

Not today.

I don’t like watching movies in school--not all movies, not all the time, but in general--and yesterday and today one of my classes was watching Gattaca. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether I’m shaky and rattled because of the suspense of an action movie, because of general anxiety, because of a low blood sugar, etcetera. But after the first half of Gattaca yesterday, I left the class knowing I did not like this movie and I did not want to see the rest. I couldn’t even tell why for a while, but it struck me last night: besides flunking the Bechdel test, it’s ableist, despite seeming like it might have the potential to be the opposite.

The premise of the movie is that in a not-too-distant future society, everything is explicitly determined by your genetics, which can be engineered to make you perfect, or you can be naturally-born, with all the unknowns of that. The main character of Gattaca was born with some physical limitations and high risks for heart disease and such, but he is so determined to succeed in the cutthroat, elite, and “geno-ist” world of science/space travel that he takes the identity of a formerly  perfect man, Jerome, who has now fallen from his social standing after becoming cr*ppled.  The movie tells the story of the main character struggling to keep his identity from being discovered as he tries to become an astronaut in a society that considers people like him worthless.

Interesting idea, right? It could be a powerful commentary on the dangers and horror of a society in which supposedly the only remaining form of oppression is a drastic and explicit ableism, called “geno-ism.” It could be a story that affirms disabled people living their lives how they want to against all odds, or fighting for their rights to determine their own lives and potential. It could be a story that hammers home the message that judging people on the basis of disability is extremely damaging and that you can’t possibly know everything a person is or could be by knowing their genetics and abilities.

It could be--or could have been, rather, since instead of challenging ableism or giving us a story in which the In-Valid people launch a rebellion or even protest for their rights, we get a story that ignores that ableism is no distant horror, but already alive and well in the present world. We get a story in which fake-Jerome, the protagonist, achieves his dreams by faking being a Valid. He proves to us that there’s nothing wrong with being an In-Valid and that In-Valids, too, can be successful--but only as long as no one knows they’re In-Valid.

Today, at the end of the class I decided I should say something. I got a couple of sentences in about ableism and disability and such, and then I couldn’t talk. I could not make myself speak. My entire body was shaking and I was fighting tears, listening to my heartbeat againsts the silence of the classroom. I bit down on my lip to keep from crying, but I still couldn’t speak. I shrugged and lifted my hands as though making an offering. The teacher picked up the thread of conversation and kept going, but what I wanted to say I was never able to articulate. After class I stood in a bathroom stall choking on the effort not to cry.

I would never have anticipated this response, and I was as shocked as the class probably was when I was rendered unable to say my piece. I knew Gattaca was making me uncomfortable, but I could not have predicted that it would hurt like that. Apparently the movie used up more spoons than I would have thought, and I ran out.  In an effort to parse my reaction, I have tried to pinpoint what dynamics in Gattaca hit so hard and so painfully and why.

The first thing that struck me was that it’s both disingenuous and redundant to set up geno-ism as some new bogey monster that reared its head as an unfortunate consequence after everyone’s DNA was sequenced and made public,  and  manipulating genes to make “perfect” children became the norm.

Yes, being able to know what anyone’s DNA contains and ordains would bring ableism to a new level. But that’s all it is--a new level. Geno-ism isn’t some new social ill. It’s just a heightened and more explicit form of ableism, and geno-ism victimizes people with invisible disabilities to an extent that is not seen today.

To place discrimination on the basis of arbitrarily determined ability--according to risk factors or medical conditions or other disabilities--in the future as if it inhabits a society that we could move towards rather than one we live in now is extremely damaging to people who already are familiar with such discrimination. Because think about it: in Gattaca, ableism is essentially codified policy in many workplaces; people with disabilities are denied social services; they are forced to work menial jobs as cheap labor; and many parents deliberately avoid having their children born with any condition that would render them In-Valid.

Now think about today’s world: disabled people face massive workplace discrimination, and yes, even for nearly invisible disabilities--I know someone who had to leave her job because of harassment for being diabetic. People with disabilities are systematically shut out from many healthcare options--before Obamacare, if I had not already had insurance when I was diagnosed with my various medical problems, I would not have been able to get it or would have had an extremely hard time doing so because insurance companies discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. People with disabilities are very often relegated to menial jobs, such as janitors or fast food workers, and given no other options. And although I support abortion rights, one of the reasons given in support of reproductive rights is frequently that abortions allow parents to avoid having children born with disabilities. And here, too, sometimes it is necessary to hide your disabilities in order to be accepted. Gattaca  threw all these things into blatant view in its “futuristic” society, but they are no imminent nightmare--they’re already here, and we didn’t even need public knowledge of everyone’s genome to accomplish that.  Gattaca made disability the sole dividing line between elites and the underclass, but ableism doesn’t need to be that stark in order to be deeply entrenched and do deep damage.

Now, after I tried and failed to say my piece in class, my teacher began talking about the movie as a positive portrayal of why geno-ism would be so dangerous, why it’s wrong to judge on the basis of In-Validity, and how disabled people can overcome their obstacles and achieve great things. Besides being a bit of trite  inspirationalism (if that’s not a word, it should be--making disabled people’s successes out to be inspirational  and extra-impressive just because they happened , which is apparently shocking and unlikely), considering Gattaca a triumphant repudiation of geno-ism--although I acknowledge that it raises some important bioethical questions and may help non-disabled people sympathize with someone facing ableist discrimination--does not stand up to scrutiny.

At the end of the movie, fake-Jerome has headed out to space, and as he leaves Earth behind, he feels he is in fact coming home. Escaping Earth just to feel at home--what does this say? If this is supposed to be a movie about why it’s bad to judge people on their DNA,what message is this sending? Isn’t the message here that the protagonist has to go into space, to a different planet, in order to not live in fear of people’s judgment and condemnation? If the movie was trying to point out how terrible this possible society would be, there ought to have been attacks on that society and an attempt to overthrow it. Fight-the-bad-government-and-win might be a bit hackneyed as a plotline, but please, give me a little revolution. Give me a little vindication. Let us see this terrible paradigm toppled as the movie grapples more directly with real questions about the harm in gauging people’s worth according to their ability. Let us see resistance to this system. Let us see the In-Valids forming solidarity alliances and refusing to submit, refusing to be written off as lesser, refusing to try only to blend in and be acceptable according to the norm.

Because that’s all Jerome does. Determined to become an astronaut, he becomes an impostor in the world of Valid people. We all know he isn’t really Valid, that he’s carrying out a dangerous balancing act--and sure, we root for him, because we don’t want him to fall victim to discrimination on the basis of his In-Validity. Yes, the unfairness of his assigned position in society is clear. But the only solution we see for changing this situation is to fake it, to go to extreme lengths to “pass” as Valid. This is a toxic message about disability that’s all too prevalent in our society today: blend in, be normal, don’t be weird, don’t let them know, don’t be how you really are, be how you’re supposed to be. This message racks up real casualties, real people who keep  struggling to meet the criteria for “normal” that are not possible and should not be demanded of them.  

Also, our one disabled main character (not played by a disabled actor) serves the sole purpose, it seems, of supplying bodily materials and samples so that fake-Jerome, the In-Valid, can pass as real-Jerome, the former Valid turned cr*pple. His personality, when he gets one, seems to be built around his bitterness that even as a Valid he was never good enough, and now he doesn’t have an identity or a life outside of helping someone impersonate him. To make matters worse (spoiler warning), at the end of the movie, while fake-Jerome soars off into space aboard a rocket ship, real-Jerome self-immolates. Thus we see our In-Valid character succumb to the impossibility of his life. His suicide could be taken as a commentary on the tragic fallout of “geno-ism,” but when set against the success of the In-Valid who “beat the system” by passing as Valid, fake-Jerome’s story seems to say that real-Jerome was a failure. Not to mention, it reinforces the idea that the disabled character who “overcame” their disabilities--by hiding them and conforming to the rigid standard of perfection--can get a happy ending, can succeed, while the other commits suicide.

Gattaca’s  message, therefore, ends up coming across as saying that to avoid that inexorable shame of being In-Valid, passing as normal should be the ultimate goal for disabled people, and that as long as they don’t, there is no opportunity for them. The goal does not seem to be to dismantle this system, to fight, to demand rights, to demand respect, to push back against geno-ism. What we learn instead is that the way to avoid being a target of geno-ism is to avoid being seen or known as disabled. There is no activism or protest. There is a mention that there are laws meant to forbid geno-ism that are completely disregarded, and while that’s a realistic touch, it merely reinforces the prevailing idea that the only way to beat the system is to become the system, without letting the system know that you’re an impostor.

That is no way to dismantle oppression. That is no way to build a better world. That is no way to affirm disabled people as real, complex humans who don’t need to change in order to fit a straitjacket of “normal.” Maybe Gattaca’s creators intended that it provoke reflection on our current ableist world, but if so, it failed for me utterly. And whatever the intention, to halfheartedly tackle ableism without really fighting it is no way to make us feel like our struggles are comprehended and respected, and like our lives are full and worth living exactly as we are.

Some Radical Thoughts For Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day, I’m going to set forth here a version of a little talk I gave at my school’s Environmental Awareness Day a week ago. Loath am I to see any discussion of environmentalism go by without making an effort to string together the larger picture, the intersections between climate change and other systems of oppression, so that making of connections is what I've tried to do here. To de-silo the climate issue, so to speak. Earth Day can be a pretty tame occasion, it seems, but we can't afford a tame conversation about the climate crisis anymore. 

My comments are informed by Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything and by the notes I took at a workshop on environmental justice at a recent local conference. 

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I say often that apathy is a deathwish, but, as with so many other things, all apathy is not created equal. Some people’s indifference is more deadly than others’. As a wealthy and privileged community, it is my town’s option and responsibility to take the most active role our privilege allows us in combating climate change. Central to the idea of fighting the climate crisis is a movement around environmental justice, which is sometimes different from the standard environmental movement--though it shouldn’t be. 

The key tenet of environmental justice is that it acknowledges that the environment is nature but is also our living conditions, health, and the groups that we belong to. It acknowledges the intersections between climate issues and other social justice issues, particularly race, and also class. Environmental justice involves tackling unfair policies, facing the reality that regulatory structures are only meant to keep some of us safe. 

One of the many ironic injustices of climate change is that although it sounds like a democratic force--untamed forces of nature and such like that--it’s not in fact democratic at all: it will reinforce and worsen existing disparities and inequality. Certainly, it’s inevitable for everyone, but massive climate disruption is already happening for some people. The ones who did the least to cause climate change--those who burned the least fossil fuels to get where they are and who continue to consume the least--are living in communities on the frontlines of climate change, a la Kiribati, Bangladesh, sub-Saharan Africa. This crisis is one they barely contribute to, but they will be paying for it long before we in towns like mine do, and paying with their lives. 

Here in Massachusetts, there is environmental racism and injustice right at home too. A lot of environmental issues can seem distant and removed to us, because we aren’t faced with them every day--we aren’t, for instance, a low-lying island being slowly inundated by rising sea levels, nor are we California or São Paolo, weathering historic and devastating droughts. My town isn’t next to a toxic mine or a hazardous waste site--that sort of pollution has been shifted to disadvantaged communities, displacing the crisis without dispelling it. 

Unequal distribution of environmentally harmful living situations is a manifestation of environmental racism. Massachusetts is very un-progressive with this: our levels of wealth inequality are as bad as Mississippi, and the communities of low income and people of color are the ones likelier to experience environmental contamination, danger, and toxicity. This is part of what’s been happening in Flint, Michigan, incidentally. Is it a coincidence that it was Flint, a community of largely poor people of color, that saw its water contaminated with lead and saw that contamination ignored by the government? No. It’s environmental racism. 

Michigan isn’t a rare or isolated offender, however: Massachusetts has severely unequal distribution of environmental hazards. In fact, we rank last overall in the country for disparity in who lives near hazardous sites. The air pollution racial disparity is worst in New England than the rest of the country too, and the Merrimack valley in Massachusetts has the highest mercury levels in New England. 

We don’t, of course, want everyone polluted equally--that’s not the solution. We want no one polluted. This is why the climate movement needs to be broader than just “recycle more and change your lightbulbs.” We have to think about the other systems of oppression that environmental problems feed into. 

To change these paradigms requires a mindset shift. In the current framework of environmental, industrial, and waste-management policy, some people are deemed disposable, and some places are deemed “sacrifice zones,” in order to maintain a system that exploits and harms some people and privileges others. My town, of course, will never be a sacrifice zone--here, our lives are deemed valuable. But that advantage comes with the obligation that we use it mindfully. We have a lot of power, if we want it--to stop pipelines through people’s backyards, to stop mines near their houses, to fight the fossil fuel exploitation of land of indigenous people.

One cynical reason that we have power to change the game is that carbon emissions and negative impacts on the environment increase along with wealth--those of us with the disposable income are liable to drive more, travel more, consume more luxuries, etc. So the actions we take to mitigate our contributions to climate change--because those contributions can be pretty big--could have significant impact. We can start with simple things--be aware of what we’re consuming, what we’re buying, the choices we’re making about food and water and transportation and electricity and throwing stuff away. 

Then there’s other kinds of involvement: joining environmental organizations--there are plenty in the Boston area--and signing petitions, joining efforts to divest from fossil fuels and put a price on carbon, lobbying your legislators, and going to events. Just show up. Just be there. This is critical: be there for the people who are fighting, even if you don’t feel like it’s affecting you much yet. 

On the small, current, and concrete level, showing up is important for expressing genuine solidarity with people fighting a fight that hasn’t yet reached our doorsteps, lending the power of numbers to their struggle. But on a broader and further-reaching level, we must realize that if we don’t work in solidarity with people on the frontlines now, we will eventually become the front lines. That’s our future, as well as their present . That’s our reckoning that will come, someday. 

This is what climate change promises us. And we have a short window of time to make a lot of change--which we can do--but we’re going to need all hands on deck. No one left out or left in a sacrifice zone. As they say at climate rallies and such: To change everything, we need everyone. 

How Not to Deal with a Culture of Bigotry

Recently, my town’s continued efforts towards tackling the bigotry that’s been welling up recently met with stark and ominous--if predictable--pushback. A few days ago, the city held a public meeting to discuss how to respond to the anti-Semitic and racist events of late--they acknowledged racism more prominently this time, which seemed promising. Unfortunately, that attempt to be inclusive of more people facing intolerance ended up sparking some “issues hierarchy,” as I might call it. Our issues are more important than your issues. Our pain is more severe than yours. Our voices need to be heard more than yours. You know the drill.

This wasn’t the only narrative that emerged, but it was a strain that rang out more clearly this time, as I watched the recording of the meeting, than I had noticed in the past.

Since the recent surge of anti-Semitic graffiti and insults, the atmosphere felt to me a bit like treading on eggshells. Issues around anti-Semitism evoke strong emotional reactions, as any incident of bigotry does, but also touches a nerve of defensiveness. Too frequently, anti-Semitism is equated automatically with criticizing Israel, and Jewish voices and others are all obscured by that static.

It is probably not invalid to say that the city and school administrations’ response to longtime anti-Semitism (even here, with a one-third Jewish population) has been weak and ineffectual. Certainly, accountability and transparency are questionable. If our record on bullying is any indication, then I can say from personal observation that our bureaucracy is deeply pockmarked with indifference and systemic problems. However, the issues at hand here are not merely that anti-Semitism was tolerated quietly until recently, and that the effectiveness of the city’s response can be doubted. The deeper problem that this represents is that all the forms of bigotry that people in my community have experienced were pushed under the rug and left to fester untreated. Trying to bring those other problems to light is not to minimize anti-Semitism. And to contract the scope of the problem to focus only on anti-Semitism and the victimization of one group of people is to minimize, ignore, and perpetuate other forms of prejudice.

It was disturbing and shocking to see residents of my town stand to denounce the attention given to racism, or assert that the main issue and only deserving point of focus here and now was anti-Semitism. The anger and self-righteousness that was stirred up is telling: the outbreak of anti-Semitism here is not special or isolated. It was bad and painful, to be sure, but a toxic atmosphere is not anathema to the status quo here, no matter our shiny and progressive surface. The tipping point and the trigger for these dialogues about how to tackle our problems happened to be anti-Semitic hate crimes--but that does not mean that the only issue we need to resolve is anti-Semitic prejudice. The hierarchy of importance of oppressions ensured that other glaring and appalling incidents of racism and Islamophobia, not to mention the general undercurrents of sexism and homophobia, were not granted enough weight to be our tipping point. That in itself speaks to how serious it is that we deal with all forms of bigotry we face.

As one Black parent who spoke up at the town meeting said, there were no emails out to parents after racist incidents took place. There was no outcry and call for soul-searching. Schoolwide discussions and town meetings were not convened. For these conversations to happen now, people with enough power and privilege needed to be affected by bigotry. This town has a far more Jewish character than it does one that is reliably welcoming and respectful towards people of color. The acts of anti-Semitism that we have experienced recently--hateful graffiti and slurs--are reprehensible, but they do not render their victims more oppressed or more worthy of justice than other people suffering from intolerance and systems of oppression.

However, because anti-Semitism is a trigger word for pro-Israel forces--who demonstrated their strength, vitriol, and fearmongering at the town meeting--incidents that target Jews become conflated with attacks on Israel. This is disingenuous in that it bulls forward a blatantly pro-Israel agenda when Israel is irrelevant in this local issue, and in that this argument implies that Israel stands for all Jews, and that all Jews stand for Israel, and an attack on one is an attack on the other.

That the pro-Israel lobby was frustrated specifically that anti-racism had been given a voice at the table as well is also a significant observation. First, the our-issues-trump-your-issues sentiment in itself is often racist and also unhelpful. As a few people at the meeting pointed out, trying to build this hierarchy of oppressions construct walls when what we need is to strive for cooperation and understanding.

Second, addressing racism can set off particular defensiveness with Zionist folks, because the state of Israel is in many ways predicated on racism. Both its portrayal as a Jewish state--in which anyone not Jewish then becomes Other--and its self-promotion as the only free and genuine democracy in the Middle East--setting Israel apart from those backward Arabs, so to speak--are racist positions. Racism is an uncomfortable subject better left alone when trying to defend a racist state. The US also shies away from real conversations about race and racial policy, because again, it is a subject that could raise questions some would rather not hear.

Third, tunnel-vision outrage at anti-Semitism that channels itself into defensiveness of Israel does not lend itself well to intersectionality and addressing all oppressions. Particularly since, as stated, Israel relies on racist policies itself, and in addition regards with hostility interracial coalitions in solidarity with Palestinian rights, such as the Black-Palestinian solidarity movement that is burgeoning (and released a powerful statement and video last year). Indeed, the similarities between the struggles for Black and Palestinian liberation are striking: both communities, for instance, may experience the deprivation of water rights, due process, and safe homes, and both struggle against the violence of an occupying military or paramilitary force (I’m thinking militarized police in communities of color in the US). Perhaps there is a fear is that too much attention on or too close an analysis of racism here might provide an environment more likely to be critical of the systemic racism in Israeli society as well. Or the backlash against intersectionality could simply come from a desire to prioritize anti-Semitism, which is so often co-opted as a platform to promote and defend Israel.

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My town’s relationship with blatant and hostile Zionism is neither short nor benign, but to paint anti-Semitism as the core issue we face--and especially to conflate it, as I have said, with anti-Zionism--would conceal this. While one man at the meeting was railing against supposed pro-Palestinian propaganda in our schoolbooks and an alleged “leftist alliance with radical Islamists,” if I recall correctly, I could not help remembering that teachers at one of our high schools have received death threats for teaching history through a lens deemed too sympathetic to Palestine. Our schools also have ties to pro-Zionist organizations (particularly Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a rabidly Zionist and anti-Islam organization, which some of the disruptors at the town meeting belong to), which encourage reports of anti-Israel going-ons in the schools, and inflame Islamophobia. Glaringly absent, as far as I could tell, from the meeting was any mention at all of Islamophobia, despite the high visibility (in my observation, anyhow) of that type of bigotry and hate speech. This is a significant omission, and perhaps quite a strategic one, in order to focus on anti-Semitism at the expense of addressing other religious prejudice.  

Why all this fervor and agitation is being stirred up now is not, I think, because Massachusetts in particular is caught is some kind of unprecedented whiplash of prejudice and hate crimes. The roots and the timing reach beyond our state. Some of it--the hair-trigger defensiveness of the Zionist side--may stem from continued friction and strife over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Boycott-Divest-Sanctions (BDS) movement, which, in unintentional testament to its power and potential, is facing crackdowns from multiple levels of government and academia, including at many schools right here in Boston. .

But a great deal of the tension, of the hate crimes, of the fear, is spawned by the fear- and hatemongering happening at the national level of politics, most remarkably with Donald Trump’s brand of reckless incitement. The hate speech and tension in the US has been amplified to an unusually shameless and publicized degree. The sweep of anti-LGBTQ laws across the country, further crackdowns on reproductive rights, violence and racism on full display at Trump rallies--are these kinds of trends related to the uptick in anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry on display at my school? Is the national culture of anger and prejudice trickling down to the educational system? At times, this country looks a bit like a powder keg and a bit like a surreal nightmarescape, and the actions of my peers may be reflecting that.

The response to the incidents of bigotry or hate reflects the volatility of this moment as well, it must be noted. Hillary Clinton, for example, displayed her remarkably bald Zionism and fearmongering at a recent speech to AIPAC, and the amplification of her rhetoric may well be stoking the kind of flames that erupted in my town a couple days ago.

I’ve heard that hardline Zionist positions hold less sway among youth, and the same goes for Clinton’s campaign and ideology. These trends may also have been visible at the town meeting as a marked generational divide. The students who spoke at the meeting--even those who I know to lean towards the Zionist narrative--were far more rational, eloquent, respectful, intersectional, and thoughtful than many of the adults who took the microphone.

One of the sadder things about this devolvement of the bigotry situation here, of course, is how much of the potential conversation will be lost if the Zionists succeed in commandeering it away from an (already flawed) intersectional narrative. Cynical I may be about whether my town would ever seriously address or fundamentally change the culture that keeps racism, sexism, and other oppressions simmering, but any opportunity for change that might have arisen from the recent attention to our fault lines could be lost if the conversation is hijacked to focus solely on anti-Semitism--and on Israel. Since attitudes here tend towards the pro-Israel line anyway, this would be only a perpetuation or intensification of the unhealthy status quo.