If You Ask Me / By Martha Knight

Time was we could not include a person with an autism spectrum disorder in a news photograph. Editors and publishers just told us that was the policy.

Mind you, in those days we did not use that terminology, either, but did make references to “the mentally retarded” or “the mentally disabled” or “the developmentally disabled.” Now we would have to use the “persons with…” circumlocution.

Think of all of us who were using those terms now said to be abusive and offensive! People like the late Joseph T. Weingold, father of a son with Down syndrome, Jon, and also a founding father of the movement for the retarded, and tireless champion for the term itself not being thought of as derogatory.

Applying the r-word as a noun, with the accent on the first syllable, was done by ignorant people, the kind who used the k-word, the n-word and the w-word.

Weingold and others of us activists blocked buses at Sampson State School, courting arrest and preventing New York State from removing hundreds of adults from the only home they had ever known, to other settings where they would not receive proper shelter and care.

Aided and abetted by the Young Turks, we imprisoned the Deputy Commissioner for Mental Retardation in the Mental Hygiene offices on Holland Avenue in Albany, until he agreed to meet with us and discuss a reorganization of his domain, and adopt an approach that would not lump a lifelong disability or handicapping condition with mental illness.

When our organization, the New York State Association for Mentally Retarded Children (later Citizens) held its annual convention in Olean, N.Y., I was there as a delegate and as the secretary of the NYSARC, and as a reporter for the Olean daily paper.

Politicians attended and “made nice,” as Jerry would say. They were happy to pose for photos with some of the area movers and shakers in “the movement for the retarded.” They wanted you to know they were supportive of “local services” such as the Habilitation Center.

When a group of children entertained the delegates and local dignitaries at the NYSARC banquet, singing, dancing, performing skits, they were applauded heartily.

I took photos throughout the convention, filed stories, took photos at the banquet. Also, the local daily even sent its Society Editor (now we say Lifestyles) over, the night of the banquet.

But no photos containing a (pick your best politically correct phrase) person could appear in the paper. I had a pitched battle with the managing editor. “I have their signed consents! I have the parents’ consents!”

Not good enough, the editor explained. The publisher weighed in too. See, the individuals are not capable of giving their consent! They don’t understand that the public at large considers them to be, um, severely limited. It is the nature of their limitation not to be able to understand that they are limited.

“And of course that would apply to photographs of blind people—they don’t know how they look,” I said. And a good deal more.

Special Olympics? We could mention the Kennedy family, Eunice Shriver, and even list winners. But no photos of the kids.

By the way, did you notice the name of the organization? The NYSARC? It had given birth to all the other ARCs, including the Pennsylvania PARC (there was a McKean County Chapter) and the National NARC. Well, children, that is why you read about these organizations with “Arc” in their names, today. They stopped capitalizing the letters, acronym style, but did not create a whole new “brand” or reincorporate. Besides, who knows what the acceptable terms will be next year? The “Arc” idea suggests a nice, safe, protective, rescuing vessel.

Well, now that the media and public are so much more enlightened, we no longer encounter those photographic restrictions, do we! Thank goodness!

Remember when engagement photos always showed the “bride elect” only, and not the groom elect? And many papers used wedding photos of the bride but not her hubby? No, really. Ask your grandparents!

Also, births were announced in the paper only when the mom and dad had the same last name.

Those were the bad old days. Bur a few papers still do have some strange rules.

Last week a dear couple marked the 70th anniversary of their wedding. The lovely young bride had wed her handsome sailor boy in Florida, perhaps near his base. In 1945 there were quite a few weddings like that, or so I have been told.

What a wonderful wedding photo that was! A beautiful bride, a handsome young man in his U.S. Navy uniform. And here they are, 70 years later, in the home he built 50 years ago, in a housing development he helped develop. Their longtime neighbors and former colleagues arranged to get the wedding photo copied, and provided it to us.

Regrettably, an area daily which shall be nameless has a Lifestyles rule forbidding use of wedding photos in “anniversary announcements.” And they do not want to make any exceptions because then they would have to explain to all the others…

Oh, I quite understand. In fact, I would suggest that they stick rigidly to their rules, no matter how mindless, deviating only with regard to 70th anniversaries and up—75th, 80th, 85th—where one or both members of the couple were in the armed forces, and both still live at home.

Let’s keep track of all the 70th and above wedding anniversary “announcements” we see, okay? Let’s get a handle on how time consuming it would be for that daily’s beleaguered Lifestyles editor to fend off requests for use of wedding photos of these people who married in 1945 or before.

Seems to me they deserve whatever honor we can give them, and giving them a little space in the paper won’t hurt anyone. Besides, it’s inspiring to see such successful, durable marriages.

Peace.