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Who's the freak now?

By razib on May 22, 2007.

I was having coffee with a friend of mine. She's an attractive young woman who was once a professional model of some promise (she's not single guys, no emails inquiring please!). I simply note this fact to frame the following anecdote appropriately and make clear how incongruous it was. I was explaining to her the ethical issues involved in selective abortion of fetuses who will have Down Syndrome. When I mentioned Down Syndrome a pall seemed to hang over the conversation, and there was a moment of silence. She looked at me very gravely and stated, "I was once tormented and picked on by a group of Down Syndrome individuals...." That was not the response I expected. In any case, she had to take the bus when she was in high school, and apparently at her stop there was a a group of Down Syndrome adults who were regulars. And because they had the force of numbers on their side they taunted her and made her feel like an outcast, they would run around her and shout "grandma, grandma!"

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Hmm, why "grandma"?

That comment makes her sound very arrogant. Here she is, a woman who had the chance to become a professional model (something I'm sure many other young women could only dream of doing) and the first thing that she does when you mention Down Syndrome is complain about an incident where some people who had undoubtedly faced years of ridicule attempted to demonstrate what it's like the other way around.