Book Review: We See Things They'll Never See

 

Image: The cover of the book is an extreme close up of a face of a person who is looking downward. They have dark brown skin and there are stripes of dripped black and pink paint going down their face and glittering sheen to their skin. Across the top in white letters is "chantellle jessica lewis and jason arday." Down the center in much larger letters is "we see things they'll never see." Across the bottom is "love, hope, & neurodiversity."

We See Things They'll Never See: Love, Hope, & Neurodiversity is an academic text by academics who actually acknowledge and attend to the fact that they are academics. What I mean by this, is that the language they use is actually defined for a wider audience, they acknowledge when there is a strange juxtaposition between their positions in academia and their criticisms, and generally attempt a self aware approach to the topics discussed. This is one of the strengths of the book and is something I find slightly more common in disability based academia. I cannot count how many books I have read that never define neoliberalism or hegemony- even if they aren't solely written for academics. Chantelle Jessica Lewis and Jason Arday do well to imagine an audience wider than academic or well read activist circles reading this book. This is not to say that it is an easy read or lacking jargon, but it is definitely easiER.

Can we talk real quick about how great this cover design by Heather Hansen is? You should definitely judge this book by this cover because it is gorgeous.

Both authors are in the UK, but with the exception of a few details here and there, the book has plenty that applies to the USA and I am sure other areas of the world if not all in some way. The general argument is that various forms of hierarchy need be challenged and dismantled in order to support a neurodiverse populace, all of which will also benefit people who may not currently fall into the neurodiverse and related labels. 

The authors discuss their process for writing the book at length. At first I welcomed this, as the style is unconventional for the field. They include themselves as subjects in the book rather than only writers making statements about the rest of the world. That said, it got to the point multiple times where this was repetitive and took up far to much space before getting to the good stuff. Or an important point would be cut short to return to the authors interactions while writing again. At one point they discuss using speech-to-text to help write and this made a lot of sense to me. When my hands betray me, I use it, and it always needs to be heavily edited down afterward. This book could have used said editing here and there.

That said, once they got to the meat of the book, I found it interesting and at times refreshing in ways it shouldn't have to be. The authors' use of neurodiversity in this book is mostly in reference to autism, but it does not exclude other groups like some writings regrettably do. Calling someone with, say, schizophrenia "neurotypical" because they are not autistic is pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but I digress. The authors also discuss several topics that are highly neglected in disability discourse, often by the more privileged demographics (middle class+ white folks with low support needs for instance.) One of these is service/care workers. There is often discussion of a social model where care is a given and support is around every corner without confronting who currently offers that support. They discuss who is often doing this labor- poor folks, bipoc folks, undocumented folks, etc or unsupported family. I would add to this that many care workers are disabled or chronically ill themselves and pushing through it to survive while offering care to others for meager income. I appreciated this discussion greatly.

The authors also discuss the problems with meritocracy- something embedded so far in the center left that some of the main reasons given in our current horrorshow of a country that people shouldn't be kidnapped and sent to concentration camps is that they contribute in very specific ways or have specific traits valuable to capitalism. Lewis and Arday discuss the value of people outside of this and how this framework does extensive harm to movements of liberation. They also include solidarity with aging populations- another thing I do not see mentioned enough in accessibility discourse. The vast majority of people will not lead a full life without disability. The amount of access needs humans have often increase with age, so it should be a given that aging folks are automatically part of the discussion. Yet, I sometimes see it as only a footnote if it is discussed at all.

They wrap of the book with a set of recommendations for a more supportive neurodiverse society. Many of the suggestions are apt, but I wish more time had been spent discussing them. I think if we could cut out a big chunk of the repetitive stuff about the authors' writing process and fill that space with more of their thoughts on the solutions at the end, the text would be stronger.

Overall though, I found this discussion of neurodiversity to be important and helpful. It is one of the more inclusive things I have read regarding accessibility at large and I appreciate that the authors found a way to write it together that served both them and their audience. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.