Help us compile a master post on ablism

[M.J.]

Hello FOCA community!

In our quest to keep this community open and welcoming to as many people as possible we are hoping to compile a master post on ablism.

As admins we have noticed that one of the more frequent types of rule-breaking has to do with ablism of different types. It can be that people don't understand or know that certain words have ablist connotations, they may not know what ablism is or why it's a bad thing, how it impacts people etc.

A master post would serve as a helpful resource to teach people about ablism but also offer concrete steps to improve.

As part of writing this post we were hoping to have your help! We are looking for useful blogs, articles and other links that explain ablism from a 101-perspective. Additionally, if there is something in particular that you hope a post like this would address please let us know.

- Quisty and the FOCA team

[that Beth girl]

Good idea. Is it OK to post links as a reply here, or should we PM them to you?

[The_Other_Alice]

Links in a reply would be fabulous, thank you!

[that Beth girl]

Awesome. A while ago there was a blog called FWD that helped me understand a lot of 101 stuff on the subject. The contributors stopped writing years ago but left the blog up as a resource.
http://disabledfeminists.com/
The sitemap might also be useful.
http://disabledfeminists.com/sitemap/

[solecism]

I really like Rolling Around in My Head by Dave Hinsberger:
http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/
He chronicles his daily life being visibly disabled in a wheelchair and his work as a disability activist/educator and shows just how pervasive are the ableism and intolerance and outright hatred he experiences while going about his life. I have found it very helpful to improving my understanding of ableism and disability.

[MamaCheshire]

I think the Ableism tag on realsocialskills.org is helpful:

http://realsocialskills.org/tagged/ableism

And I'll probably have more to say about this later.

[Rose Fox]

Since I just had a comment TW'd because I used [a reclaimed slur]"gimpy" to refer to myself, I suggest making it clear in this post that there is a blanket ban on particular terms and there are no exceptions, including for disabled people who have reclaimed those terms.

[creativeusername]

I don't have any links to contribute because (perhaps arrogantly) I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on the issue by virtue of being victimized by it, so I don't actually read much disability stuff, and I vehemently disagree with at least one core precept that I've seen offered by pretty much every "disability 101" thing that I have read, so I'm skeptical that there even is a comprehensive 101-level consensus to be offered about ableism.

Nonetheless, please consider using the following wall-of-text in your master post. If I really must, I can make a blog, post this there, then link it here, but I'd rather not do that. Also, If this post sucks and you want to ignore me, that's okay too :)

Evelyn Takes It Up To Eleven: An Easy-as-Fuck Introduction to Ableism, by Evelyn née creativeusername.

1. Perhaps I'm young and easily impressed, but I'm still at the point where I'm grateful to anyone who doesn't automatically roll their eyes when the word "ableism" is used earnestly. If you're not doing that, then you're already ahead of the curve in my book.

2. If you're accused of ableism, don't just point to your nearest disabled friend and ask them to win an argument for you. Think for yourself. Being disabled isn't like having a PhD; I'm not an expert on anything except my own life.

3. Some disabilities don't manifest in easily visible ways, but that doesn't make them fake (or mild, even).

4. Even someone with a mild-to-moderate disability might have been taken advantage of by abusers and not given the support they needed, sabotaging their ability to meet certain social expectations that they might have met otherwise. This is especially true if the person falls under other categories of oppression. Shit compounds in ways that might seem unbelievable to someone who hasn't lived that life. You don't have to believe every sad story you're told, but it probably doesn't hurt to keep your suspicions about someone to yourself in 99.99999 percent of cases.

5. "Special education" deals with a broad spectrum of disorders and disabilities. It's not a euphemism for "low IQ" except in the colloquial usage popularized by clueless teenagers.

6. To quote the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:

"People with psychiatric disabilities are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime (Appleby, et al., 2001). Researchers at North Carolina State University and Duke University found that people with severe mental illnesses—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychosis—are 2 ½ times more likely to be attacked, raped or mugged than the general population (Hiday, et al., 1999)."

7. Disabled people are among you, and you might not realize it! Of all the justifications I've heard for using the word [tw: ableist slur] retard, the one that put me off the most was "it just didn't occur to me that I'd unknowingly find myself in the company of someone with a developmental disability". We are not all like that one loudly dysfunctional and obnoxious shortbus kid whose existence you were vaguely aware of when you were in high school, and even that person might have learned to manage their behavior since then.


8. [tw: apparently I am an asshole and this section is ableist as fuck. I leave it here as testimony to my true character]I don't agree with arguments against words like "crazy" and "stupid", but I do find certain reactions to those arguments asshole-ish. It's one thing to say "I don't agree with you, and if this is a real issue for you, then I encourage you to seek therapy, because day-to-day life must be intolerable for you and the solution for that isn't going to be found in internet activism". I think that's probably the ideal way to disagree on the matter. It's another thing to say "lol @ these idiotic lunatics who deserve to be on the fringe of society." Most of the reactions to such arguments that I've seen have been of the second variety, and I'm not happy about that.

All people are diverse, and I don't think it's controversial to say that people who have rare disorders (or people who have been marginalized along multiple axes of oppression) might have a highly unusual perspective on things. Why should their emotions necessarily align with the logic of common sense, mainstream blue-state conceptions of social justice, or even sociological theory? I find something immensely distasteful (at best) about the implication that no one who deserves to be empathized with could possibly be hurt by words like "crazy" or "stupid".

To illustrate: my first post on this forum was basically a half-decade-in-the-making rant about some social justice advocates using "basement-dwelling virgin" as a default insult toward MRAs and other assorted misogynists. Despite having added caveats to the effect that I was [am] sympathetic to such comments as knee-jerk reactions to sexism (adding that it's a reaction I've also had, which is completely illogical because I have little-to-no platonic experience, let alone sexual experience), and despite listing the various ways in which I lack privilege (to indicate that, yes, I did have "real problems" to complain about), I actually expected to be dismissed/mocked/banned. I was quite surprised that I didn't receive a single unkind response, not even through PM. (If anything, the sympathy briefly went too far in the other direction for my taste, what with a comparison to Orwell's 1984 having been made).

I'd never say that "virgin" is a slur of any sort (though I think "basement dweller" and its variants are probably reliable indicators of someone with issues along class and ability lines), and I'm not so clueless to think that a comprehensive examination of misogyny wouldn't address sexual frustration in men, but I think maybe there's something extremely wrong with a situation where someone who has a definite "stake in social justice" feels terrified to discuss their internal life with their supposed political allies.

So, to bring this back around to ableism, I worry that some people are having similar reactions regarding the use of words like "stupid" and "crazy". I don't actually want to be a part of a social movement where empathy is available only to those who meet the Official Sociological Criteria for Having Their Feelings Taken Seriously, not that anyone cares what I want.

9. I remember a comment at Captain Awkward (that I can't link to first because I don't remember which post it appeared under, and second because the newish CA layout disabled access to comment URLs) where a trans* person mentioned having experiences where cis people would, apropos of nothing, say something like "I'd never date a trans* person." I have also had one similar experience in regards to being disabled. Please, don't do that sort of thing. It's weird and creepy. I'm not some overly-privileged wannabe "player" who needs to be reminded that virtually no one wants to date him. I am well aware that virtually no one wants to date me, thank you. That is the majority opinion reinforced by every bit of relevant popular culture ever, thank you.

10. Similarly, it's not ableist to not date someone who doesn't meet your dating criteria even if their disability is the reason they don't meet that criteria. For an example from another thread, someone with a learning disability may not like to read, but a voracious reader isn't ableist for wanting a partner with similar reading habits. It is, however, ableist as fuck to submit an essay-length defense of your preferences based on flimsy anecdotal evidence (c.f. loud and obnoxious high school kid from above) that you take for proof-positive that a whole class of people should just be avoided except maybe in "exceptional" cases. (And yes, I have seen this happen more than once, and the -ism in question isn't always ableism. It's not always an "ism", in fact, it seems like some people just really enjoy using whatever flimsy faux-evidence occurs to them in an attempt to provide an "objective" basis for their personal preferences, and they can get away with it even in progressive circles because some progressives -- including me! -- are terrified of implying that "personal choice" isn't sacrosanct).

11. Just don't be a jerk, yeah?

[edited to add two words -- "some" and "circles" -- to the last parenthetical, then again to add the trigger warning]

[GoatLady]

Wow. I firmly and decisively object to the idea that "if people using crazy in a derogatory manner bothers you, get professional help" is even a remotely good way, let alone "ideal" for dealing with that disagreement. It's ugly, dismissive, and implying that someone who may have a strong reaction to a word commonly used in abusive situations like gaslighting is the irrational one. Plus it falls under diagnosing someone as mentally ill, if only by implication, when you have ZERO standing to do that, and in fact doing it is a complete asshole move.

You say you find it distasteful to suggest that people hurt by the word "crazy" shouldn't be empathized with, but that's EXACTLY what your suggested "ideal" script does: it says "the problem here is NOT me and my thoughtless use of language, but that you're hypersensitive it's pathology and you need to go fix yourself."

This is absolutely NOT the kind of thing that needs to go in an Ableism 101 post except as an example of shitty things to say, because it's ableist as fuck.

[creativeusername]

You know what, Goatlady? I agree with you. Your anger is valid. Your opinion is valid and true and a correct response to what I wrote. I'm sorry. I have added a trigger warning to that section. Did you see anything else that needs a trigger warning? The mods are free to dismiss the whole thing, dismiss parts of it, whatever. I'm not attached to the fucking thing; I'm just trying to be less of a useless shit, yeah?

Anyone who would like to see me explicate this about-face in the form of a mental health breakdown is encouraged to check out my latest post in the Jedi Hugs section. It's long and self-indulgent, as is my selfish and inappropriate and awkward wont.