Opinon: 'Born This Way' Suprises One Father; Needs to Promote Inclusion

Reality TV ruins everything. The genre feeds off stereotypes, linking the twinned emotions of fascination and disgust. It thrives by portraying its subjects as Other, rendering them as objects to loathe, mock, desire or praise. If there’s something you really care about, the last thing you should want is to see it portrayed on reality TV.So it was with intense trepidation that I watched the first two episodes of “Born This Way,” a six-episode show from the A&E network about seven Californian millennials with Down syndrome. I am the father of a boy with Down syndrome and a critic of the ways we portray disability in the media. There’s so much wrong with how we represent Down syndrome in particular, but reality TV seemed like the worst possible vehicle to correct those wrongs.