This is a pretty good unintentional sequel to last week’s Mannequins video. I love the bit with the woman describing her family’s reaction to each of her four pregnancies.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Random Acts Of Kindness
Just Rollin On - December 10, 2013
This blog post caught my eye yesterday. The blogger, a wheelchair user, describes his conflicting feelings when an older woman in a grocery store ... a complete stranger ... spontaneously offered to pay for his groceries. He describes feeling that his reaction was not what he would have hoped, because he failed to turn down the woman's offer, felt angry and condescended to afterwards, and felt guilty for feeling uncomfortable with the entire scenario.
I have had people offer to let me go ahead of them in lines at cash registers, but I can't recall having anyone offer to pay for stuff I'm preparing to buy. I'm not counting the couple of times in recent years when someone ahead of me in line at a drive through has paid in advance for my cheeseburger and fries. I don't count it because most likely they didn't see me or know that I have disabilities. Also, I've learned that this is a thing people do nowadays ... they "pay it forward" by anonymously treating people they don't know, especially in drive-thrus. The people who do it feel it's a great way to spread happiness without taking selfish credit. Some people receive said happiness with good cheer, while others feel uncomfortable, or ... like me ... wonder if they'd be as generous when it comes to supporting tax-funded support programs like Food Stamps or Unemployment.
Those issues aside, disability can cast a different light on these situations, both for the would-be giver, and the receiver. As is becoming my habit when I'm not sure I've got an issue figured out, I'm just going to make some bullet pointed points about disabled people and "random acts of kindness":
• The whole dilemma is about three entirely different, in some ways conflicting factors that can all be active at the same time:
1. The desire to be kind to strangers, particularly those you perceive to need of kindness.
2. The real need some (or all?) people have for kindness and generosity.
3. The harm and discomfort that can come when social inequality is reinforced or emphasized by unexamined assumptions and lack of sensitivity.
• Actually, number 3 there is the real issue. The receiver is almost always just a little bit ... if not a great deal ... put off balance and made to feel uncomfortable, and unequal, by these out of nowhere gifts, especially when they are public.
• I don't think you have to be cynical to realize that random, unexpected, public generosity ... whatever positives may flow from it ... area actually quite likely to make a recipient uncomfortable. That should just be common sense.
• I'm not a big fan of the anonymous gift in the drive-thru line, but I prefer it slightly to the more public method, like what the blogger describes. Whether or not the woman meant anything but pure kindness, it comes off as a rather self-aggrandizing, attention-seeking gesture. The supposedly desired effect could have been achieved without causing a fuss, but she chose to make her gesture public.
• On the other hand, doing it anonymously almost completely removes the possibility of refusing, while asking first ... which the woman did ... at least makes it possible for the potential recipient to say, "You're so kind, but no, thank you, I've got it." It's the same principle as not immediately starting to push a wheelchair user up a hill, but asking first if they'd like some help.
• Probably the most important factor in a scenario like this is how the would-be giver accepts the turn-down. If they say, "Okay, just thought I'd ask. Have a great day!", then the whole thing becomes just a pleasant interaction, and nobody feels slighted or placed in an unequal position. If instead they insist, it quickly becomes obnoxious.
• If the intended recipient is obviously disabled ... in a wheelchair for example ... then one should assume that the potential for offense is quite high. Not because disabled people are more crabby than others, but because there are just too many ways the gesture can be misinterpreted. This is a good place to "check yourself". Ask yourself, "Why am I offering to buy THIS woman's coffee?" If the answer is anything like, "Because she's using crutches and must have a hard life", then rethink before you act.
• If we disabled people really feel strongly about unsolicited charity, and hate the imbalance it implies, maybe we could do something ourselves to restore balance. Why don't we start offering to pay for random, non-disabled peoples' coffees or groceries? It would be unusual enough that if enough of us started doing it once a week maybe, I'm sure it would make an impression.
I'd be curious to find out what others think. Click below to comment!
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Photo Of The Day
This is a fascinating blog with a great premise … the little-known problem of early shoe death due to the strange ways of walking that often come with physical disabilities.
Advocacy To Serve
IsraelSeen.com - December 7, 2013
I don’t know how the heck I found this article, but it got me really excited.
When I was a Junior in High School, we all took a standardized test used by the military to identify aptitudes for different military occupations. It was kind of fun, and I thought nothing of it. A few months later, I started getting brochures in the mail from different branches of the military. Then, one evening, our dinner was interrupted by a call from a Navy recruiter who wanted to tell me how awesome the submarine service was. He actually never spoke to me, but my father toyed with him for awhile, before asking him how they would accommodate my disabilities. At the time, I thought the whole thing was kind of funny, and I have never had any desire to serve in the military, even as a childhood fantasy.
Still, I occasionally think about this incident, and how truly strange it is that I couldn't serve in the military, even though there are plenty of things I could have done that have nothing to do with physical fitness ... useful things not requiring living in a submarine, riding in a tank, flying a fighter jet, or going on a foot patrol. Which is why this Israeli man's successful self-advocacy excited me. His physical disabilities are if anything more significant than mine, but he's doing his part. Obviously, he's motivated by beliefs I have a hard time relating to, but that’s beside the point. He wanted to serve, and seems to have known, on some level, that there had to be a way he could do so. His advocacy was personal and persistent, and successful.
When will something like this happen her in the USA? When will a highly motivated disabled young person offer him or herself to the military long enough and sincerely enough to break through to a real service role?
Monday, December 9, 2013
Video Of The Day
There’s nothing actually very new in this video, about the Croatian Paralympic Team, but for some reason it’s just better than most of the videos like it that I’ve seen. I think maybe it’s the lack of dialog or slogans. I’m really starting to think that this is the secret key to disability images … let the pictures do the talking; we’ll get the point.
Of course, having written about it, I've ruined it.
Disability News
Maggie Clark, Pew / Stateline Staff Writer, USA Today - December 6, 2013
The case involves the State of Florida, which uses only IQ to determine whether a convicted person is “mentally retarded” and therefore ineligible for execution. A few other states use very narrow or very difficult to prove criteria to determine intellectual disability, while most states use a “3 prong” approach that takes several factors into consideration. It sounds like the Supreme Court might be ready to give clearer, possibly better criteria to all the states.
I’ve still never heard anyone discuss how legally defining intellectual disability in death penalty cases might affect non-criminal cases like competency and guardianship. Since I oppose the death penalty, I’d be glad to see any ruling that removes more “borderline” cases from death row. But, I’m also worried what else might happen when more people are deemed legally not responsible for their actions, due to intellectual disability. Lots of intellectually disabled people would benefit from having more responsibility and autonomy in their lives.
Benjamin Weiser and Matt Flegenheimer, New York Times - December 5, 2013
Obviously, this is a great victory for disabled people in New York City. As someone who lives in a small town, though, I’m hoping that in a few years, used accessible cabs from New York might provide more accessible service in rural areas. Where I live, even one accessible taxi would make a huge difference.
Hillel Aron, LA Weekly - December 5, 2013
After reading this story, I went looking for information on LA Weekly, wondering if it was a heavily partisan, right-wing newspaper. It seems not. It's more like the Village Voice, a little "out there", but artsy, and left-of-center. So, I’m even more disgusted at the story, and afraid of how many otherwise sensible people will start to believe that this one guy is indicative of some sort of ugly trend. More specifically, this is just shoddy journalism. The article refers to a “sizable but unknown amount of cash” the man has collected from his ADA lawsuits. If the amount is unknown, how do you know it’s sizable? The article explains that only California law permits collecting damages from ADA lawsuits. So really, it isn’t the ADA at all … it’s a California law he’s suing under. It may be modeled on the ADA, but it isn’t the ADA, which is a Federal law. And the cartoon at the top of the article is really pretty offensive and snide.
I really worry that the next big thing in the social history of disability is going to be the general public buying into a whole matrix of myths that cast us as dishonest, lazy, selfish, irritating, and delusional. These are already active, but I'm concerned that they will take the next step from shameful prejudices won't admit to, to hip, cynical joke themes enjoyed by "smart" readers of alternative weeklies like the LA Weekly.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Weekly Wrap-Up
This week in "Disability Thinking" ...
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Revisiting Rookie
Anyway, that’s why this post by someone I follow on Tumblr and Twitter caught my eye. I am so glad Rookie did a story / photo exhibit, on youth with disabilities. I hope it isn’t the last one. Here’s a link directly to the article, if that’s easier.
Rookie, Lauren Poor and Maddy Ruvolo - December 6, 2013
In case you missed it, here’s the TED Talk:
… And here’s some of what I wrote about it:
In her presentation here, Gevinson talks about the difficulty of finding strong female characters in popular culture. You can find strong female characters in movies and on TV, their strengths tend to be defined by singular, narrow characteristics:
"They're not strong characters who happen to be female. They're completely flat and they're basically cardboard characters. The problem with this is that then people expect women to be that easy to understand, and women are mad at themselves for not being that simple. When in actuality, women are complicated, women are multifaceted. Not because women are crazy, but because people are crazy, and women happen to be people.”
Now try this. Replace the words I've colored red with "people with disabilities", or your favorite "disability" term, and these observations are just as true. The same holds for lots of the articles and blog posts on Rookie about being female and a teenager.
After reading the New Yorker article, and then exploring the Rookie website, I came to what should have been an obvious thought. Disability is at least as varied, vexing, and misunderstood as being a teenage girl. Why not apply the techniques, models, and attitude of Rookie to the disability experience? Start a blog on the topic of disability, and expand it into an online magazine / community by and for people with disabilities. Most importantly, give it personality and a point of view. Make it a site people with disabilities want to visit.
So, what do you all think? How can we get our own version of Rookie going, and can we sustain it?
So, what do you all think? How can we get our own version of Rookie going, and can we sustain it?
FDR Reconsidered
Fresh Air, National Public Radio - November 25, 2013 — via Media dis&dat
Late last month, Fresh Air’s Dave Davies interviewed James Tobin, author of “The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency”. Tobin challenges the widely held assumption that President Franklin Roosevelt basically hid the physical disability that resulted from polio. He asserts that while FDR worked hard to prove his restored good health, and to make people feel comfortable with him so they would overlook his disability, most Americans knew very well that he couldn’t walk or stand unaided. Based on the interview, (I haven’t read the book yet), it seems like Tobin has presented by far the most historically accurate and sophisticated account of FDR’s disability.
For those of us with disabilities, especially the ones who struggle with the balance between medical aspects and social aspects of our disabilities, the account depicts a man who really did balance the many conflicting ideas, priorities, and feelings that war with each other in disabled people to this day. He remained committed to the hope of a cure, yet he carefully planned and calibrated a return to his political career. He made it his responsibility to make non-disabled people feel comfortable with him, yet there’s no hint or evidence that he felt any sort of shame about his disability. And Tobin tells of at least two times when Roosevelt consciously used his disability to better understand others with disabilities, and to inform political policy. He even tells how political opponents briefly tried to say that FDR's disability was actually from syphilis, not polio … perhaps an early example of the, “You’re faking or misrepresenting your disability!” meme that seems to be such a thing nowadays.
As for the notion that he hid his disability, or that others helped him hide it, that never made much sense to me. I do think that there was a different standard for openness about personal issues back then, which means that he didn’t go out of his way to talk about his disability, or to share his feelings about it. It would have been thought impolite or impertinent for others to focus on his impairments as well. But, that’s not the same thing as deliberately concealing a disability … trying to prevent people from knowing about it. Which, by the way, puts a very different spin on the MS concealment storyline on “The West Wing”, which relied quite a bit on everyone’s understanding on the show that FDR would never have been able to be elected from a wheelchair with modern-day television and journalistic standards.
This interview also made me reflect again on the fact that my mother … who grew up during FDR’s Presidency … told me many times that “everyone knew” FDR couldn’t walk. They didn’t know all of the details, but the basic fact was understood.
The program is well worth a listen, and now I’m off to buy the book … well, the audiobook.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
What Nelson Mandela Means To Us
I came of age in that period of just a few years when the Cold War ended, and Apartheid in South Africa ended. Mikhail Gorbachev did his part, in a mostly technocratic way, while Nelson Mandela had a more emotional appeal.
Nelson Mandela was one of just a few people who can truly be said to have played a key role in history. What he symbolizes to me is the idea that the way things are in the world isn't necessarily the way they have to be. Cold Wars don’t have to go on indefinitely. Totalitarian regimes that wield dictatorial power don’t have the power to sustain themselves forever. The players on the world’s chessboard in your childhood may be different when you are an adult. Not just in different positions, but with entirely new pieces. This is both liberating and frightening.
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that it’s an important idea for disabled people. We would appear to be prisoners of “the way things are”; our bodies or minds impose difficulties that are mostly beyond our control. Yet, if we can identify things that are under our control and make the most of them, then we don’t have to erase our problems in order to triumph. Racial animosity is a reality of South Africa that nobody could undo. But Apartheid as a policy could be changed, and that was enough to help South Africa start to evolve away from racism. We can’t become un-disabled, but we can do other things that make our disabilities more manageable, and our lives excellent.
There's another angle, too worth remembering tonight. A big part of the philosophical justification for Apartheid was a very particular concept of "the way things are" ... that black people were inferior and in need of supervision from white people if they were to enjoy just the scraps of modernity. While plenty of Apartheid supporters had more selfish motives, no doubt that many really believed, on some level, that the restrictions of Apartheid were for black peoples' own good.
Anyone who has lived long enough with significant disabilities can, I'm sure, understand that idea from the opposite end. One of the things Nelson Mandela did was to show that freedom and liberty are worth the apparent risks. Risks that are, in any case, probably overblown.
Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela.
Job Discrimination
Jennifer Lawson, The Reporter - December 4, 2013
Holy shit. I think it’s time for another training bliz on the Americans with Disabilities Act. Apparently, people are so ignorant of the law that they don’t even know enough to camouflage their discrimination with other “reasons”. I’ll bet that Dominos manager had literally no idea there was any such law against deliberate discrimination against a disabled person. I’m no fan of Dominos, but I also bet that the corporate office will make it a priority to teach their managers otherwise. After all, you can achieve a lot of responsibility at a very young age in a place like a Dominos Pizza, which means a high risk of rather stunning knowledge gaps … like never having heard of disability rights laws.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
What A Coincidence!
So, I just get done emotionally processing that mannequin video, and decide to click and see what Smart Ass Cripple is up to. And his post this week is about body image! I’ve got tears in my eyes again, on the same topic, but this time from laughing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)