This powerful and profound new video created especially for World Down Syndrome Day, taking place today, March 21, has blown us away.
In fact, it hit us in the feels so much, we cried.
“How do you see me?” narrates 19-year old AnnaRose Rubright, a college student with Down syndrome. And while it might seem like simple question, coming from someone with a disability it’s loaded and heavy with meaning.
The video starts Hollywood actress Olivia Wilde, and cleverly juxtaposes what society might consider a ‘normal’ person, with someone with Down syndrome. The message asks us: how do YOU see people with Down syndrome? As different? As less than? As an entity you’ll never be able to relate to?
This clever metaphorical juxtaposition aims to make people understand that people with Down syndrome see themselves just as important, as worthy and as ‘normal’ as we see ourselves
“A real problem for people with Down syndrome is the way people look at them because of their condition,” Sergio Silvestre, President of CoorDown, Italy’s national organisation for people with Down syndrome, who created the video, told ABC News.
“The metaphor in the video aims to [show] how people with Down syndrome see themselves, while revealing the inherent prejudice and discrimination they face based on society's preconceptions and stereotypical low expectations.”
“I see myself as an ordinary person with an important, meaningful beautiful life,” AnnaRose says simply in the video.
“This is how I see myself.
“How do you see me?”
And as far as we’re concerned, as a society we have no less than a responsibility to see people with Down syndrome the way they see themselves.
