Say What You Will, But I
Still Don’t Like Midgets
the commune’s Virgil Banks gives you the tall and the short of it. 

Monday, Feb. 4, 2002
Anyone who’s known me for any length of time knows the simple truth: I don’t like midgets. Woah now, hold your ripe tomatoes and ceramic bricks, I know it’s not a terribly PC viewpoint, especially in these liberal, midget-friendly times. I know what you’re thinking, and it’s the same thing people on the street tell me every day. They tell me that it’s unfair to be prejudiced against someone just because they’re in a minority, and that if I really got to know some midgets, I’d realize they’re not all the same. Believe me, I know and understand this argument, and can see its merits. I’m not some kind of drooling Neanderthal here. When my neighbor’s dog dug under my fence and peed on my garden-hose caddy, I didn’t go out and shoot every dog in the neighborhood. I just shot that one dog.

I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, and that there are good and bad in every group. But I challenge you to argue that you’d take the time to read a book whose cover thoroughly creeped you out, or one that had just pissed all over the side of your house like some kind of water-witch lawn toy. I didn’t think so.

It tires me when people drag out the old “prejudice” argument whenever the subject of my dislike for midgets comes up during a party or traffic encounter. The mere mention of the word practically brands you as a mini-Hitler for the rest of your life. But let’s really look at what this is saying. To have prejudice is to pre-judge, that is to judge beforehand. The negative connotation of the term is that one would pass judgment on another before all relevant information has been collected. For example, just because watching one Adam Sandler movie caused you to lose faith in humanity and decimated your sperm count, it would be prejudiced of you to suggest that Sandler’s next film won’t be Oscar-worthy. In order to prove that you’re not some kind of knuckle-dragging Archie Bunker, it becomes necessary to watch every single Adam Sandler film that comes out, even if it gives you a peptic ulcer in the process. I don’t know if he originated the concept, but Sandler sure has made out like a bandit on this whole PC liberal guilt deal.

But like I was saying, whenever some midget-lover and I lock horns on this issue, I try to explain that my distaste for midgets is neither ill-informed nor unfair. Arguments concerning the fantastic virtues of midget-sized individuals and the great contributions that midgets have made over the course of history fall upon my deaf ears, as I’ve never suggested that midgets were not productive members of society. The simple fact of the matter is that I find their proportions creepy and unnerving. This being the very trait that makes them midgets, I hardly think my distaste constitutes any unfair previous judgment against the midgets themselves.

If anything, I think I’ve been more than polite to the midgets I’ve run across over the course of my life. Many will no doubt point to the fact that it was a midget doctor who failed to revive my mother on her death bed when I was a child. They are quick to suggest that this childhood trauma left me with an unfair bent against little people. Yet, whenever adult-sized people gather to toss midgets at bowling pins, will you find me in attendance? Most certainly not. I have never tied a midget to a kite before proceeding to drag him behind my car in some twisted midget-bashing version of parasailing. Nor have I ever cruelly used the last available booster seat at a fast food establishment merely to ensure that a deserving midget goes without. I have never once kicked a midget, nor have I ever dressed one up all in orange for the purpose of slam-dunking him through a basketball hoop.

In spite of years of backwards-talking midgets haunting my dreams and even the highly traumatic viewing of Under the Rainbow when I was a teen, when my brother Mitch choked to death on a Mike & Ike during the film’s climactic midget swordfight, I have refrained from midget-bashing in all of its tempting forms. And yet, simply because I will not ferry a midget about in a specially-made tote upon my back, or allow one to marry into my family, I am seen as a monster by some. And for the most part it’s not even the midgets themselves who think so, though the gross disparity in our body sizes might cause one of them to take me for a monster in a completely unrelated event.

Before you let your imagination run away with you, let it be made clear that I’m not suggesting the creation of midget death camps here. That would be completely Un-American, not to mention costly. But what would be so bad about creating a separate midget nation, more ideally suited to their smaller scale? Wouldn’t the skinny portion of Idaho be perfect for such a project? It would be almost like a kind of merry theme park, where midgets could wear novel hats and curly-pointed shoes without fear of reprisal from normal-sized folks. They could lead happy and productive lives in Littleville, making toys and candy for export back to Greater America, and would no longer be at the mercy of fringe pornographers and David Lynch for employment opportunities. Normal-sized people (or “Bigguns,” as they would be known) who are fond of midgets could visit on their vacations and buy midget crafts and bumper stickers, and have their pictures taken while sticking their heads into holes cut in pre-painted scenes that make them seem like the midgets for a change. It sounds pretty idyllic to me. Heck, I’d want to live there myself if the buildings and people were all normal-sized, though I guess that would kind of defeat the purpose.

For what it’s worth, I’d like to add that although my distaste for midgets has raised the most controversy, I also feel the same sense of unease and nervous tension whenever I find myself around small children of similar size, and I avoid them with the same fastidiousness. However, somehow I think that this revelation will most likely earn me even more detractors, rather than serving to foster greater understanding and sympathy for my point of view. Sadly, this is the way of the world in the 21st century.