true beauty?

Have you seen that Foundation for a Better Life commercial where the girl with Down Syndrome is elected Homecoming Queen and all the beautiful people at the dance are all cheering her on? How patronizing. I mean, seriously, did the people who wrote this ad/form this organization not go to high school? Ugh, the ad just pisses me off. I can't even articulate how insulting it is to those of us who never had the option of being Homecoming Queen in real life.

It's not that I resent the girl with Down's Syndrome being elected Homecoming Queen (which if the website is to be believed really happened some place), but it's just that this sort of thing doesn't happen in real life. And how many of the "normal" students are truly friends with the girl they elected Queen? By electing her, suddenly they feel like they have done a good deed, but how many of them think of her as a real person with real feelings? Or was this more about being seen as being kind? I don't mean that it's right to ignore those who are different, but to single this girl out because she's different and pretend that she's suddenly the most popular girl in school, well, it just reminds me too much of the movie Carrie.

You want to be seen as a good person? Be a good person. Grand gestures are just that, empty gestures. Get to know that person who is generally shunned by society. Treat everyone as if they are a human being and worthy of respect and love. Don't be cruel, either by action or inaction. Don't be fake. Be a real friend.

Don't give the outcast a moment in the sun and have her find out later that it wasn't real. That's crueler than just keeping the status quo. At least with the status quo the person knows where they belong.

I refuse to link to the website, I have no idea what this foundation is, but their commercials in general just scream some hidden agenda and I just don't even want to explore it further. I just don't want to know.