If just one percent of the world population stutters, what does that mean for the number of those who accurately comprehend a stutterer’s persona? Since stuttering is one of the more under-discussed disabilities, the breadth of discussion around it often stays rooted in stigmas. Rather than consider the complexities of a stutterer’s lifestyle, depthless generalizations about us reign supreme. The typically stringent anxious, distressed, and unintelligent classifications are conjured up vastly from the simple act of hearing us speak.
To be clear, I do consider these attitudes to be characteristics of ignorance. Anytime we group a certain subset of individuals together, whether subconsciously or not, it is a betrayal. A betrayal of, in my opinion, what should be the most desired form of human nature. That being the ability to see every type of person as their fullest self. But it goes even further than that. On top of the pain they impose on others, ignorant people unknowingly obstruct their own potential to reach their fullest selves, too.
In my case, as well as the rest of my little one percent club, we desire more practice from the fluent. Targeted efforts not to fixate on how we form words, but instead on their sentiment and what that spells for the type of people we really are. Personally, I don’t need nor want anybody to study the physiological background of stuttering. Because it’s not really about becoming an expert on my stutter, at all.
It’s about not limiting yourself in the process of getting to know me.
What we need are more people who sincerely believe that our thoughts are worth waiting for.
When I was crafting this piece, I really did debate sharing some strategies for combating stutter-related ignorance. And maybe I will, soon. But even that might deter me from my point, which is that stutterers are people, too. In many of the same ways as everybody else, sans one. Sadly, it is this one difference that many choose to fixate on. And not in a good way, which would clearly be a better alternative. After all, my utopia would celebrate differences.
This blog celebrates differences.
But I also think that, in order to combat ignorance, we have to see it as a moving force. Able to shrink, as much as we know it is capable of spreading. Sometimes there is merit in trying to understand the ignorant. At least, that’s what I’ve been trying to convince myself. That we’re all still here, and that we possess the ability to better know one another.
I’m going to keep trying to see the ignorant the way I hope to be seen.