Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Music For A Sunny Afternoon
One of those ‘90s performers I tend to forget, but always enjoy when I rediscover them.
Day Off
It’s a beautiful day here in Northeastern New York, sunny, and almost warm. So, this right here is the only blogging I’m going to do today. I need some fresh, spring air.
Tomorrow, I promise … “3 Ableisms: Systemic Ableism”.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Still Curious About Britain ...
Frances Ryan, The Guardian - April 1, 2014
This is a fine and full-throated editorial against a set of policy changes and budget cuts that have been instituted in the United Kingdom by a coalition government led by the Conservative Party (a.k.a. “Tories”) and it’s coalition partner, the Liberal Democratic Party. Depending on who you ask, the drastic changes in disability-related support programs were intended to save money, nothing more … encourage more disabled people to work and be self-sufficient … or identify people who are intentionally or not “wasting” scarce government resources.
Appropriately, this Guardian piece doesn’t discuss motives, but rather focuses on effects one year later, and the effects are, by all accounts terrible.
What I still haven’t seen and would very much like to see is some point by point reckoning with how the results stack up against the stated purposes of these changes. My guess is that the real motive behind them is simply saving money, since austerity seems to be the coalition government’s ideological fixation. However, it should have been possible, at least in theory, to identify any real and unnecessary disincentives to gainful employment. Likewise, any benefit system is going to have some waste, and some people who probably shouldn’t be getting help … that is, unless you decide to go for something like a Minimum Basic Income idea that doesn’t depend on eligibility.
So, have the UK government’s “reforms” fixed work disincentives? Are more disabled people now working, happily, in jobs, with more wealth and financial security?
And how many total fraudsters did they find? By that I mean, how many people were receiving disability assistance of some kind who simply were not disabled?
As long as I’m asking questions, how about one more. What is happening to people who, rightly or not, have had benefits cut or eliminated? Are they pulling themselves up by their bootstraps? Or, are they leaning more heavily than before on other parts of the British social service system, including the National Health Service?
I appreciate The Guardian’s moral indignation, but it’s kind of a shame they’re not contending directly with what the UK government says it set out to do. It isn’t always wise or right to fight an enemy on the enemy’s terms, but now and then it can be instructive to at least give it a try … if only to apply an objective test to the enemy’s honesty.
3 Ableisms: Part 1 - Well-Meaning Ableism
Yesterday, I proposed that there are 3 main categories of disability prejudice or “Ableism”: Well-Meaning Ableism, Systemic Ableism, and Asshole Ableism. Today I’ll try to describe the first category, Well-Meaning Ableism.
“Well-Meaning Ableism” is the idea that the ableist thoughts or actions in question are motivated not by hostility, but by misguided good will. I would also include unexamined assumptions; it has never occurred to the Well-Meaning Ableist that their beliefs or practices might be off-base or offensive. They often think that their beliefs about disability are progressive, when in fact they may be two or three decades out of date. Also, while they are well meant, they are based on faulty assumptions about living with disabilities and what people with disabilities actually care about most.
Examples:
- Referring to us as “differently abled” or “hand-capable” because “disability sounds too negative”.
- Using the word “retarded” to describe anyone or anything weak, boring, or uncool. (Might be “Asshole Ableism” … I’m not sure).
- Describing disabled people as “wheelchair-bound,” “victims” of disabling conditions, or intellectually disabled adults as “at a mental age of 8 years old”.
- Giving a disabled friend the ultimate compliment: “I don’t think of you as disabled”.
- Unquestioning, incurious support for sheltered workshops, nursing homes, “special schools”, and any disability charity, no matter what their philosophy or rhetoric.
- Angrily confronting a driver parked in a handicapped space because he walks away from his car, without thinking that he may have a hidden disability.
- Collecting and sharing “Inspiration Porn” … photos and videos about disabled people, with “inspiring” messages or captions.
This is the one kind of ableism that most people agree exists. Even some disabled people operate on the assumption that all of the real-life disability prejudice or “ableism” they experience is due to misinformation, honest mistakes, or lack of proper “disability awareness”, not hostility. Well-Meaning Ableism is also often thought to be more annoying than harmful. That said, the persistence of these erroneous ideas and habits can itself be debilitating when experienced over a whole lifetime. They also indirectly help preserve "Systemic Ableism", and leave room for more the more covert and sinister notions I have decided to call “Asshole Ableism”.
Tomorrow, I’ll look at Systemic Ableism … which, though also largely unintentional, maintains literal barriers to mobility, independence, and self-sufficiency.
Let me know if I’ve got any of these wrong, or you can think of better examples.
Monday, March 31, 2014
3 Kinds Of Ableism
This week I am going to do something different at Disability Thinking.
I have been thinking a lot about disability prejudice, also known as “ableism”. Mainly, I’ve been trying to think more precisely about it, partly because I feel like it is awfully easy to throw the term around, and use it to give a name to everything bad that happens to us when we have disabilities. I also think there is some confusion about the questions of motive or intention. Is ableism all about actions and behavior? Can a person be “ableist” in their character? Can institutions or even a whole society be “ableist?”
Well, yes, yes, and yes. The way I figure it, there are three kinds of ableism:
1. Well-Meaning Ableism
2. Institutional Ableism
3. Asshole Ableism
These aren't official terms, of course. The point is, ableism is a concept in flux, so I think my words are as good as any.
I will explain what I mean over the next three days, starting tomorrow, with the variety of ableism that a lot of people … including a lot of disabled people … think is the only kind of ableism that actually exists. They are wrong, but I can see why the think it, because Well-Meaning Ableism is as common as dirt. More on that tomorrow.
"Shared Abilities" Video Commentary
Sunday, March 30, 2014
"Vox" Explains: Obamacare and The Debt
The new Vox news website finally has some content other than its introduction. It has also already sparked some controversy due to some of its new hires … plus the inevitable buzz suggesting that these youngish, nerdy, progressive-ish journalists have sold out in some way. I still think the project is worth following, and that the idea of journalism doing more to “explain” the news is a good one.
Here are a couple if videos that seem to represent what their work will look like. They are also on topics of some interest to people with disabilities. The Obamacare / health insurance connection is obvious. As for “The Debt”, well it’s not really a disability issue per se, but I think it’s important to keep in mind the actual nature of the dreaded federal budget deficit when politicians insist that “there’s just no more money” for anything we want to do.
How Obamacare’s individual mandate works … in two minutes
Stop freaking out about the debt
Weekly Wrap-Up
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Disabled People Are Confusing
It seems like a lot of disability blogs and websites have gotten into the same listing trend that made BuzzFeed famous. If I’m going enter the list game, and it seems like I must, I want to do something different.
I started off by listing one or two-sentence concepts about disability that I think are important to understanding disabled people. One fact seemed to run through all of them. Disabled people are confusing!
Please, don’t get the wrong idea. We’re not inexplicable. It’s not that we don’t make any sense. By and large we aren’t dishonest or inconsistent. From the point of view of non-disabled people, though, (as best I can tell), a lot of the thoughts, feelings, and ideas we disabled people take for granted can appear strange and contradictory to others, including some of our clan who have only recently become disabled.
So, here is my list ...
10 Ways Disabled People Are Confusing
1. Disability isn’t always easy to spot or identify. Some people who have very visible, obvious disabilities may be less impaired than they appear to be, while a lot of people have very significant disabilities that you can’t see at all.
2. Everything is fine, disability is no big deal! Except when it’s terrible. Life with a disability is probably not as bad as you might think, but it’s also probably harder, more tiring, more painful than we tend to let on.
3. Depending on the situation, sometimes we have to persuade people of how capable we are, while other times we have to argue that we are, in fact, disabled. Disbelief is a common reaction to our disabilities, and it can work both ways.
4. We like being praised. Who doesn’t like praise? But we are also suspicious of it. We have heard so much of it that is fake and unearned that we have a hard time accepting it when it is real and deserved.
5. We are proud of fellow disabled people who become famous comedians, actors, athletes, or politicians, but we worry about non-disabled people learning the wrong lessons from their examples. You know, yay for the Paralympians and all, but don’t hold your breath waiting for me to play Sled Hockey, okay?
6. Physically disabled people don’t like being treated as if we are also intellectually disabled, but it’s weird because we know people who actually are intellectually disabled deserve respect, too. It’s like old “Seinfeld” episode: “I’m not gay … Not that there’s anything wrong with that!"
7. Most of us are pretty self-reliant, but at the same time it's upsetting when nobody steps up to help us out when we need it. Here’s a tip … It’s always nice to be offered help; it only becomes annoying when it’s forced on us by people who seem convinced we are helpless.
8. We struggle all the time to figure out the right balance, in the right situation, between being a cheerful doormat and an annoying advocate. All the social rewards go to people who are pleasant no matter what happens. The harder stuff, the stuff we need that makes a real difference, often requires us to be tough and confrontational ... a.k.a., a pain in the ass.
9. Good luck getting us to agree on what we should be called. Some of us like “person with a disability”, others prefer “disabled person”. A few of us still have trouble with any variation on the word “disabled”, but the problem is that all the alternatives words are worse … smarmy (“differently abled”), patronizing (“handicap-able”), or so nonspecific as to be functionally useless (“special needs”). That’s one reason why some of just say “screw it” and opt for “cripple”.
10. We can hold two, three, even four or five vastly different concepts of disability in our minds, simultaneously. Is disability a dread disease, a social identity, a character-building challenge, an embarrassing scar, or an invisibility cloak? Is it part of who we are, or is it something that gets in the way of people seeing who we really are? Is it a natural variation, or an abnormality to be avoided? We’ll have to get back to you on all that ...
Disabled people are confusing sometimes, but that's partly because it is confusing to be disabled. Plus, even if we can't give non-disabled people absolute rules and truths about disability, there is value in knowing what we are conflicted about. Our internal and external conflicts and contradictions say a lot about who we are, and about disability as it is actually lived.
I hope that cleared things up. Your welcome.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Friday Favorites
I like this blog, by an Australian disability blogger, because while her general orientation in the disability world is similar to mine, she is also very good at presenting thoughtful arguments for positions I don’t agree with. For instance, she made one of the most persuasive arguments I have ever read for why it might be okay to support both inclusive education and “separate schools”. Often, people who blog their “contrary” opinions do so in a deliberate attempt to be provocative, to be mavericks. “She Types Things” really believes what she says she believes, so her arguments are strong, but not aggressive or smug.
This is simply a very well-written blog that I have just recently started reading. I added it to my Disability Blogs list after reading a beautiful piece on CP Awareness Day. It made me think in a new way about some of my own disability-related quirks. Anyone who can show me an unfamiliar perspective on disability is someone I’m going to follow.
This is as close to the kind of disability website I would like to create as I have ever seen up and running. It looks great. It is updated often. It covers a wide range of disability issues and perspectives. It’s run by a small but diverse team. Its overall tone is more or less in line with my thinking about disability. It combines personal blog-type articles with more objective news and feature stories. It has an easy to locate and explicitly defined mission, so there’s no sense of mystery about what the site is actually about. And its execution and scale seem to be in line with its ambitions. In other words, the Disability Horizons team seems to have set a reasonable goal and they are achieving it. I have seen several other “full featured” disability websites, (as distinct from more narrow, personal blogs), and too many of them either fall well short of too-ambitious goals, or are a little confusing, because they seem like they are semi-secretly affiliated with some vague sort of business venture that may or may not match up with the website’s topic and tone. The only slight drawback is that Disability Horizons is based in the United Kingdom, and is generally oriented to British disability issues. Still, that’s good I suppose, since it means there’s still room for something like this here in the US.
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