I know this isn't an interesting post, it's probably my 100th post on the subject. I try to avoid even reading about this stuff because no one cares. But I quit tumblr, so sometimes I have to say boring emotional stuff on my regular blog.
1. It's so dumb to think that listening to PWD aside from your own kid means that you have to obey and agree with everything they say! PWD don't even all have the same life experiences or opinions. Why don't you just treat people with disabilities like people with disabilities who might have something to say that is important and, even if they don't, don't deserve to be personally attacked?
"But I didn't personally attack anyone!"
Oh yeah, I've heard that before...too bad Ability Statements Are a Personal Attack! There's no way you would be into it if I started making assumptions about your kid or your life so why do you think disabled people should be all calm about you doing the same to us?
No disabled person wants a bunch of parents following them around and obsessing over their lives and worshipping them. Well some people do, but they're famous and they try not to talk politics because it might distract from the worship. You're not talking to those people, you're talking mostly to some really young/not-famous people with disabilities who don't want to profit from our disabilities but just want to be able to talk about them. We don't want you to agree with everything we say, we just want you to stop being disrespectful and acting like we're not even here.
This is especially annoying when used as an origin story, like, "I used to believe everything that disabled people on the Internet said, until someone told me that one person wasn't diagnosed with the disability they said they were diagnosed with, so now I don't believe ANY disabled people on the Internet." If you legit were believing everything all disabled people said AND prioritizing what they said over your own common sense and experience with your kid--instead of just listening to them like you would listen to any normal person, and thinking about what they said critically--well, why were you doing that? Why do we have to be always right or always wrong?
We're just OTHER PEOPLE, like you.
2. If I see the word high-functioning used one more time by someone who is claiming to be evenhanded...okay I'll probably have the same reaction as usual. Super big sigh, bad mood, usually avoiding a conversation with that person. That word just feels like they are stepping on other people and not even noticing or seeing why it's important.
3. It's not that weird that people from a certain minority group involved in advocacy would not be representative of everyone in their group. I remember someone (non-disabled obviously) making a comparison between gay advocates and Autistic advocates, and hastening to add, "except, the difference is not all Autistic people can do this kind of advocacy."
Yeah, okay, what about gay people who don't have the money or the mobility or the cognitive or emotional ability to participate in a certain kind of advocacy? Since we're always on the subject, what about gay people who have multiple severe disabilities? What about gay people who smear feces?
I would like to see mainstream gay advocates acknowledging gay disabled people more, obviously, but what I'm saying is I don't think you automatically have the right to discredit advocates just because they aren't a perfect microcosm of the community they are supporting. For example, people who can use the Internet independently, and read and type fluently, are more likely to be involved in blogging or having conversations on blogs. People who can use the Internet independently were more likely to find out about The Loud Hands Project and submit clips of themselves for the video. (According to one guy we all dress like "hipsters," and therefore don't have real autism. I'm still trying to figure out what people with real autism dress like? Probably guayabera shirts.)
I think it sucks that many kinds of anti-ableist advocacy aren't accessible to a lot of disabled people and I would like to change that. (I know that one of the goals of The Loud Hands Project is to do exactly that.) But I don't think, given the current lack of support, there is anything surprising when most disabled people who have anti-ableism blogs or attend meetings of disability rights organizations have certain abilities that make it easier (or at least possible) for them to do those things without support. It also doesn't mean they aren't severely affected in other areas, but no one cares about that, blogging is ~the most important thing in the world, ever.
4. Finally, just stop saying high-functioning! Again! It makes it impossible to talk to you because my head is going to DROWN in how annoying you are.
Especially if your kid is also "high-functioning" or could be classified that way, but for some reason you're neglecting to mention that. Maybe because you secretly sense what a shitty word that is to describe someone who's having a really difficult time! Or, maybe because you don't want to lose points in the argument. Possibly both! No one knows.
Like I said, this is probably the 100th post I've written on this subject and I swear to God, I don't think a single parent has ever read something like this and changed their mind and realized they were treating other people badly. Seriously. 100 posts. All bouncing straight back into my own mind.
If you have known me for a while, you probably remember my 2010 campaign to acquire a severe developmental disability by throwing myself in front of a FedEx truck before my 22nd birthday. Since I've missed the legal cutoff I would now have to throw myself a bit harder, or drink Drano, to get out the high-functioning deal. I know you think this is really insensitive and insulting to you and your kid, but try and think about WHY I would feel like that is a smart or reasonable thing to do. Because I really, really did feel that way.
A friend of mine recently described himself as "too disabled to work, not disabled enough to get disability benefits." If you think that kind of life situation is best described as "functioning," then you are a shit. Seriously. When I look at you, I don't see a person. I see a turd.
Of course I know you don't see anything when you look at me either!
Showing posts with label someone is wrong on the internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label someone is wrong on the internet. Show all posts
02 January, 2012
16 October, 2011
WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? or, sorry Pancho
When I was in high school I went to a therapeutic summer camp and I used to make fun of our group therapy sessions all the time. It would go like this:
Staff: I want everyone to say something that's wrong with the camp environment this summer.
Camper: I feel like people are more cliquey than they were last year.
Staff: Which people? Are you talking about me? We don't know who you're talking about.
Camper: Oh I don't know.
Staff: Well, you must have been talking about someone.
Camper: I guess I was talking about...Sam.
Staff: What did he do?
Camper: Well, I guess he always hangs out with his girlfriend and not with other people.
Staff: Sam, how do you feel about that?
It was kind of like a rooster fight. But most Internet drama makes me long to return to my days of rooster fighting at camp. I see so many exchanges that go like this:
Person: Ringo said THIS.
Ringo: Hey, I'm sorry if it sounded like that, but I didn't mean that. I don't think I said what you're saying I said.
Person: Oh hi Ringo! I didn't think you said that. I understand. That's just what some people thought you said.
Or this:
Person: People were doing this and this and this and it felt like this!
Stefan: I'm so sorry if I was doing that or causing it to feel like that.
Person: Oh, I didn't mean you Stefan, you were great.
Damon: Are you talking about me? I really don't think it's fair to say I was doing that. And I can't help it if it felt like that to you.
Person: No, I didn't really mean you Damon. You didn't do anything wrong.
Klaus: I was there, am I one of the people who did something? I'm new to these kind of interactions and I don't really know if I conducted myself right.
Person: No, you were fine Klaus. Don't worry.
Let's say that Klaus, Damon, and Stefan were some of the most talkative people in this instance of Internet conversation and/or drama. So what happened? What is the Person talking about? Was the Internet drama like the Person is saying, or not?
Most importantly...who was phone? If the Person doesn't think that either Klaus, Damon, or Stefan did this and this and this, but somehow the conversation was like this and this and this, who did it? Was there a magical fog in the air that made something bad happen without any individual people doing anything wrong?
I know this is a tall order, but can we please start being honest with people if we think they did something? Or--as I think sometimes happens--if we have a "feeling" about a group of people, but when we look at all the individuals, we realize that none of them actually did the thing we're "feeling," can we admit that maybe it didn't happen that way?
Staff: I want everyone to say something that's wrong with the camp environment this summer.
Camper: I feel like people are more cliquey than they were last year.
Staff: Which people? Are you talking about me? We don't know who you're talking about.
Camper: Oh I don't know.
Staff: Well, you must have been talking about someone.
Camper: I guess I was talking about...Sam.
Staff: What did he do?
Camper: Well, I guess he always hangs out with his girlfriend and not with other people.
Staff: Sam, how do you feel about that?
It was kind of like a rooster fight. But most Internet drama makes me long to return to my days of rooster fighting at camp. I see so many exchanges that go like this:
Person: Ringo said THIS.
Ringo: Hey, I'm sorry if it sounded like that, but I didn't mean that. I don't think I said what you're saying I said.
Person: Oh hi Ringo! I didn't think you said that. I understand. That's just what some people thought you said.
Or this:
Person: People were doing this and this and this and it felt like this!
Stefan: I'm so sorry if I was doing that or causing it to feel like that.
Person: Oh, I didn't mean you Stefan, you were great.
Damon: Are you talking about me? I really don't think it's fair to say I was doing that. And I can't help it if it felt like that to you.
Person: No, I didn't really mean you Damon. You didn't do anything wrong.
Klaus: I was there, am I one of the people who did something? I'm new to these kind of interactions and I don't really know if I conducted myself right.
Person: No, you were fine Klaus. Don't worry.
Let's say that Klaus, Damon, and Stefan were some of the most talkative people in this instance of Internet conversation and/or drama. So what happened? What is the Person talking about? Was the Internet drama like the Person is saying, or not?
Most importantly...who was phone? If the Person doesn't think that either Klaus, Damon, or Stefan did this and this and this, but somehow the conversation was like this and this and this, who did it? Was there a magical fog in the air that made something bad happen without any individual people doing anything wrong?
I know this is a tall order, but can we please start being honest with people if we think they did something? Or--as I think sometimes happens--if we have a "feeling" about a group of people, but when we look at all the individuals, we realize that none of them actually did the thing we're "feeling," can we admit that maybe it didn't happen that way?
04 October, 2011
1. Irrelevance
(One)
Ability statements are somewhat related to the tradition of the self-narrating zoo exhibit, and I'll explain why. First of all, I think people tend to get told their disability is mild (or something else, but whatever the words are they usually imply it's not a real disability) when they haven't gone into a lot of detail about their disability and how it affects them.
The thing is though that there's no correlation between how much you talk about your disability and whether your disability is real or not. So why do people imagine there is? I think it has to do with the expectation that disabled people who talk about disability will always be talking about their own disability. A writer who self-identifies as disabled, but isn't describing her own disability, produces writing that is inconsistent with what's expected from a disabled writer. Maybe this is why the legitimacy of her disabledness gets called into question.
I think some people who have made ability statements would argue that they weren't telling the disabled person her disability wasn't "real." They were just arguing that as a talking person, the disabled person doesn't understand the experience of people who can't talk (or whatever the ability in question is). But in the context in which ability statements appear, they almost always are jarring in the extent to which they don't follow naturally from the conversation.
"I am disabled, and I think--"
"You can talk."
"I know I can talk, but anyway I'm disabled, and I think--"
"You're less disabled than someone else."
"I know I'm less disabled than someone else, but I was just saying--"
"You can attend college."
"Actually I had to drop out of college for reasons related to my disability, but anyway, I had something to say, and this is kind of offensive."
"Why are you denying that there's a difference between you and people with severe disabilities?"
As a queer person, I can make this comparison, I think: someone who's talking about something "as a queer person" doesn't usually have a lot of straight people clamoring to tell him that he's bisexual rather than gay, or that he's "straight-acting," or that he came out late in life.
Queer is a pretty broad word and so is disabled. If someone is talking about disability as a broader category than some really specific thing like not being able to talk at all, then I don't really see the motivation for needing to pin down a lot of specific facts and--it often seems--put the disabled person in her place by highlighting ways in which she is "less disabled" than someone else.
I don't think it is surprising how much it happens, because the way disabled people are treated is often all about putting them in their place for wielding the term "disability" themselves instead of letting someone else have it (and that has to do with the next thing I'm going to say). But when it happens it is really offensive because it takes a conversation that was often more abstract or general and steers it into being about the details of the disabled person's life.
Ability statements are a personal attack because they are dehumanizing. By throwing them out there when they are irrelevant, you indicate that a disabled person doesn't have the right to just express ideas and feelings like you do. She must be on display.
Ability statements are somewhat related to the tradition of the self-narrating zoo exhibit, and I'll explain why. First of all, I think people tend to get told their disability is mild (or something else, but whatever the words are they usually imply it's not a real disability) when they haven't gone into a lot of detail about their disability and how it affects them.
The thing is though that there's no correlation between how much you talk about your disability and whether your disability is real or not. So why do people imagine there is? I think it has to do with the expectation that disabled people who talk about disability will always be talking about their own disability. A writer who self-identifies as disabled, but isn't describing her own disability, produces writing that is inconsistent with what's expected from a disabled writer. Maybe this is why the legitimacy of her disabledness gets called into question.
I think some people who have made ability statements would argue that they weren't telling the disabled person her disability wasn't "real." They were just arguing that as a talking person, the disabled person doesn't understand the experience of people who can't talk (or whatever the ability in question is). But in the context in which ability statements appear, they almost always are jarring in the extent to which they don't follow naturally from the conversation.
"I am disabled, and I think--"
"You can talk."
"I know I can talk, but anyway I'm disabled, and I think--"
"You're less disabled than someone else."
"I know I'm less disabled than someone else, but I was just saying--"
"You can attend college."
"Actually I had to drop out of college for reasons related to my disability, but anyway, I had something to say, and this is kind of offensive."
"Why are you denying that there's a difference between you and people with severe disabilities?"
As a queer person, I can make this comparison, I think: someone who's talking about something "as a queer person" doesn't usually have a lot of straight people clamoring to tell him that he's bisexual rather than gay, or that he's "straight-acting," or that he came out late in life.
Queer is a pretty broad word and so is disabled. If someone is talking about disability as a broader category than some really specific thing like not being able to talk at all, then I don't really see the motivation for needing to pin down a lot of specific facts and--it often seems--put the disabled person in her place by highlighting ways in which she is "less disabled" than someone else.
I don't think it is surprising how much it happens, because the way disabled people are treated is often all about putting them in their place for wielding the term "disability" themselves instead of letting someone else have it (and that has to do with the next thing I'm going to say). But when it happens it is really offensive because it takes a conversation that was often more abstract or general and steers it into being about the details of the disabled person's life.
Ability statements are a personal attack because they are dehumanizing. By throwing them out there when they are irrelevant, you indicate that a disabled person doesn't have the right to just express ideas and feelings like you do. She must be on display.
Ability Statements Are a Personal Attack.
I just figured someone should post a to-the-point explanation of why this is the case. I think some people, especially people without disabilities, will say something that they think is pretty innocuous, like, "You obviously can live on your own." But then they check back on the comment thread and the person they said that to looks like this:
(Realistic Haunter.)
How come?
1. Irrelevance
2. Unevenness and inexplicability
3. Real Life Facts
(Realistic Haunter.)
How come?
1. Irrelevance
2. Unevenness and inexplicability
3. Real Life Facts
24 September, 2011
Apparently someone decided to call and harass RRH on the phone because of the tpga "dialogue." As everyone knows, it wasn't a dialogue, RRH didn't seem to care much about the issues being discussed, blah blah blah, but guess what, that's a totally irrelevant.
Part of being a member of a minority community is that you can't just do whatever you want all the time.
When a person with a disability expresses how they feel about something, especially if they are angry, other people regularly act as if the PWD has done something on the level of calling their house and harassing them. It can be kind of funny to look at this big divide between how someone's being characterized (scary and intimidating) and who they actually are (a disabled, usually young person typing comments on the Internet that are often more polite than the comments of the person who feels so "intimidated").
Well, guess what, there's no divide this time, because someone actually did what non-disabled people expect disabled people to do all the time. They actually did something scary. I'm sure this person was really mad and going through a lot, but, guess what, minority community! You fucked EVERYONE.
Now, I know this seems really unfair. Why aren't I writing a rant at parents who have threatened my own disabled friends? Because they're not in my community. Their decisions are their own, your decisions are ours. I totally understand that this sounds offensive--why can't disabled people just be individuals? I don't know guys, but we're just not, so please do not do things like this.
Part of being a member of a minority community is that you can't just do whatever you want all the time.
When a person with a disability expresses how they feel about something, especially if they are angry, other people regularly act as if the PWD has done something on the level of calling their house and harassing them. It can be kind of funny to look at this big divide between how someone's being characterized (scary and intimidating) and who they actually are (a disabled, usually young person typing comments on the Internet that are often more polite than the comments of the person who feels so "intimidated").
Well, guess what, there's no divide this time, because someone actually did what non-disabled people expect disabled people to do all the time. They actually did something scary. I'm sure this person was really mad and going through a lot, but, guess what, minority community! You fucked EVERYONE.
Now, I know this seems really unfair. Why aren't I writing a rant at parents who have threatened my own disabled friends? Because they're not in my community. Their decisions are their own, your decisions are ours. I totally understand that this sounds offensive--why can't disabled people just be individuals? I don't know guys, but we're just not, so please do not do things like this.
07 March, 2011
how to find out if your students are disabled!! by AWV, age 8
Sorry to brag, but you know. It happens. I linked my disability services post/video on tumblr and it got 26 notes. Then someone else posted it on tumblr, and their post got 73 notes. Then someone else posted it and their post got 67 notes. That's 166 notes! Now I get to feel slightly accomplished despite sucking at a bunch of other stuff.
First, an epigraph from my dear friend Lion Face: "You make a bad bitch. Please don't be like that."
So, yeah, I'm being kind of bitchy about this and you should go look at my tumblr and read her post so you can make your own judgment--but this disabled professor reblogged it and gave me a big talk about how PROFESSORS ARE PEOPLE TOO and I SHOULDN'T BLAME PROFESSORS (which I wasn't doing, I'm pretty sure the video was about how disability services suck and professors should be aware of that, not about how professors suck) and DON'T I KNOW THAT PROFESSORS ARE SOMETIMES DISABLED TOO. This last one really throws me for a loop because I think it's implying that I should be practicing ~disability solidarity~ and not criticizing ableist, able-normative, and inaccessible behavior because it might be coming from a disabled person! I don't get this, especially since I also sometimes work jobs where I am meant to be supporting disabled people, and I do not feel that my disability in any way exempts me from being open to criticism and trying to figure out if I'm doing a good job.
Anyway, one question this person asked was, even if it's hard for students to make the decision to come and talk about being disabled and ask for accommodations, how else could the professor possibly know the student is disabled otherwise? HOW IN THE WORLD COULD ANYONE EVER FIND THIS OUT?
Well...
~how to find out if your students are disabled!!!11 (and if they need accommodations) (and generally make your class closer to universal design)
1. On the first day of class, hand out little index cards or forms asking questions about the students. A lot of professors already do this when there's a limit on class size and they want to decide who is best suited for the class, or for other reasons. (My Latin professor would terrifyingly shuffle her index cards and use them to call on people. We were reading Boethius, so she called it the Wheel of Fortune.)
2. Have one of the questions be more or less, "Are you disabled?" but ask this in a very open way, possibly with a joke involved, so no one feels that they have to answer the question "No" because their disability isn't ~serious~ enough or they don't have documentation.
3. On the syllabus, write the usual thing about how disabled students can contact the disability services office if they need accommodations. But also say that in some cases you are open to communicating with a student directly, and doing things differently with them if it seems fair to do so. And say that if an aspect of the way the class is set up seems really inaccessible, you encourage students to contact you about this; you can't promise that you will change the structure of the class, but you will consider it if there are no drawbacks. After all, in some cases universal design benefits everyone.
4. In #2 and #3, make it possible for people to state exactly what they have trouble with, instead of stating their diagnosis if they are uncomfortable.
Something pretty obvious is that no one likes to go talk to a professor about being disabled and needing an accommodation, especially because you often have no idea how the professor feels about disability or will react to your disability. (This particular reblogging professor writes on her syllabus that she has a disability, which I think is great--but in general, students usually don't know what the professor's experience with disability is.) And also because asking for an accommodation may lead to the professor thinking you're lazy and having a low opinion of you.
So...if the professor normalizes the idea of disability and shows that they are comfortable with disability and won't just tolerate but will accept a conversation about accessibility, and makes it possible to disclose disability casually and without speaking...then they will know when students are disabled and when students would benefit from accommodations. Without students having to come and tell them. I'm not a professor so maybe I'm wrong, but would this method really be so difficult?
First, an epigraph from my dear friend Lion Face: "You make a bad bitch. Please don't be like that."
So, yeah, I'm being kind of bitchy about this and you should go look at my tumblr and read her post so you can make your own judgment--but this disabled professor reblogged it and gave me a big talk about how PROFESSORS ARE PEOPLE TOO and I SHOULDN'T BLAME PROFESSORS (which I wasn't doing, I'm pretty sure the video was about how disability services suck and professors should be aware of that, not about how professors suck) and DON'T I KNOW THAT PROFESSORS ARE SOMETIMES DISABLED TOO. This last one really throws me for a loop because I think it's implying that I should be practicing ~disability solidarity~ and not criticizing ableist, able-normative, and inaccessible behavior because it might be coming from a disabled person! I don't get this, especially since I also sometimes work jobs where I am meant to be supporting disabled people, and I do not feel that my disability in any way exempts me from being open to criticism and trying to figure out if I'm doing a good job.
Anyway, one question this person asked was, even if it's hard for students to make the decision to come and talk about being disabled and ask for accommodations, how else could the professor possibly know the student is disabled otherwise? HOW IN THE WORLD COULD ANYONE EVER FIND THIS OUT?
Well...
~how to find out if your students are disabled!!!11 (and if they need accommodations) (and generally make your class closer to universal design)
1. On the first day of class, hand out little index cards or forms asking questions about the students. A lot of professors already do this when there's a limit on class size and they want to decide who is best suited for the class, or for other reasons. (My Latin professor would terrifyingly shuffle her index cards and use them to call on people. We were reading Boethius, so she called it the Wheel of Fortune.)
2. Have one of the questions be more or less, "Are you disabled?" but ask this in a very open way, possibly with a joke involved, so no one feels that they have to answer the question "No" because their disability isn't ~serious~ enough or they don't have documentation.
3. On the syllabus, write the usual thing about how disabled students can contact the disability services office if they need accommodations. But also say that in some cases you are open to communicating with a student directly, and doing things differently with them if it seems fair to do so. And say that if an aspect of the way the class is set up seems really inaccessible, you encourage students to contact you about this; you can't promise that you will change the structure of the class, but you will consider it if there are no drawbacks. After all, in some cases universal design benefits everyone.
4. In #2 and #3, make it possible for people to state exactly what they have trouble with, instead of stating their diagnosis if they are uncomfortable.
Something pretty obvious is that no one likes to go talk to a professor about being disabled and needing an accommodation, especially because you often have no idea how the professor feels about disability or will react to your disability. (This particular reblogging professor writes on her syllabus that she has a disability, which I think is great--but in general, students usually don't know what the professor's experience with disability is.) And also because asking for an accommodation may lead to the professor thinking you're lazy and having a low opinion of you.
So...if the professor normalizes the idea of disability and shows that they are comfortable with disability and won't just tolerate but will accept a conversation about accessibility, and makes it possible to disclose disability casually and without speaking...then they will know when students are disabled and when students would benefit from accommodations. Without students having to come and tell them. I'm not a professor so maybe I'm wrong, but would this method really be so difficult?
23 January, 2011
I'm getting in a dumb fight on obietalk (my college's anonymous forum). Seriously cis people flipping out about the word cis probably makes me more mad than anything in the world. It just makes me really mad that whoever created the word went out of their way to find this completely neutral term, and people still claim it's an insult.
I really don't like the word neurotypical, I think because people kind of use it without walking the walk (my definition of "walking the walk" would be "not othering people with ASD or setting up people without ASD as an example for us to aspire to"). Just as a random example, ADCN found this, written by a non-ASD woman who has a very passing as ethics slant but refers to herself as neurotypical. But I do get annoyed when I see people react to the word neurotypical in kind of a similar way and automatically categorize it as an insult. I've even occasionally seen straight people who can't handle the word straight because they don't "feel straight."
This just kind of makes me want to barf. It sort of reminds me of Asher's post about tone and how there's always someone who will say that he has an unreasonable or aggressive tone. Someone on obietalk tried to explain to me why they thought "cis" was offensive by saying "what if straight people decided that all gay people should be called faggots?" It just really freaks me out how something totally neutral can be transformed into a slur when it reaches someone who is incredibly offended by the idea that everyone who isn't like them should just be accepted as another kind of person, instead of being an Oh My Gosh You Guys Look At That Weird Thing.
I really don't like the word neurotypical, I think because people kind of use it without walking the walk (my definition of "walking the walk" would be "not othering people with ASD or setting up people without ASD as an example for us to aspire to"). Just as a random example, ADCN found this, written by a non-ASD woman who has a very passing as ethics slant but refers to herself as neurotypical. But I do get annoyed when I see people react to the word neurotypical in kind of a similar way and automatically categorize it as an insult. I've even occasionally seen straight people who can't handle the word straight because they don't "feel straight."
This just kind of makes me want to barf. It sort of reminds me of Asher's post about tone and how there's always someone who will say that he has an unreasonable or aggressive tone. Someone on obietalk tried to explain to me why they thought "cis" was offensive by saying "what if straight people decided that all gay people should be called faggots?" It just really freaks me out how something totally neutral can be transformed into a slur when it reaches someone who is incredibly offended by the idea that everyone who isn't like them should just be accepted as another kind of person, instead of being an Oh My Gosh You Guys Look At That Weird Thing.
12 October, 2010
"it's social model vs. medical model NOT mild vs. severe disability" transcript
Hey, okay, so I just wanted to say something because I keep reading a lot of flamewars, which is probably a stupid thing for me to do 'cause it just makes me annoyed, but I just ended up feeling like if someone just came out and said this then people wouldn't be so annoying to each other on the Internet.
So basically what I want to say is...well, I mean, I'm annoyed by particular flamewars that people have about disability rights, and I have autism, so I think I tend to read the flamewars that are about autism, but I've definitely heard people say this about everything from Down Syndrome to, like, spinal muscular atrophy and, like, tons of different disabilities.
Basically a person will be talking about a disability in a way that their opponent thinks is too positive, and they'll be saying, "We shouldn't be trying to cure this disability or talking about how awful it is--we should be talking about how to help people that have it, and accepting them."
And then the other person will say, "Well, that's how you feel because your disability's not severe, but I know someone whose disability is severe, and that's why I have my point of view. And both our points of view are equally valid because they both come from our experience," or something like that.
Okay, well, I don't really think this is true. I think instead of saying, "it's, like, mild disabilities vs. severe disabilities and those each lend themselves to a different political opinion," I think that it's just the medical model of disability vs. the social model.
And, um, the medical model of disability basically means that if someone isn't successful in society, um, you figure out what's wrong with them and you try to change what's wrong with them or keep it from happening to anyone else.
And, um, the social model of disability means that if someone isn't successful, you say, "Well, what should society be doing differently so that this person can be more successful?"
Um, I think a good example of this is a lot of the time people will say, "Well, autism is so terrible because my relative has autism and they can't live independently, and my whole family is really worried about where this person's gonna live when they're older."
Well, people who are into the social model of disability would say, "This is a political issue, and the government is already supposed to be supporting people who can't live independently, but as it is a lot of people end up in institutions when they don't need to be in institutions, they don't want to be in institutions, and institutions are actually more expensive for the government." So, um, those people would say, "This is actually an issue we need to be working on, and it isn't a fact that can't be changed, that someone's family has to worry about where the person is going to live and how they're gonna be taken care of--um, that's actually something that can and should be made different."
So, um, I personally have seen people who had pretty mild disabilities, I guess, who were very upset about the disability they had, wanted it to be cured, and supported the medical model of disability; and it's also the case that many people who were instrumental in developing disability rights and the social model of disability were people with severe disabilities.
So, um, that equation just isn't true, basically. And I also happen to find it kind of offensive, because, um, the assumption seems to be that if someone supports the social model of disability they must have a really easy experience with their disability, because if they had a hard experience they would support the medical model.
And you know, I think it's pretty insulting to go around saying what someone else's experience must be like just because you disagreed with them--especially on the Internet since you don't actually know them. But, um, yeah I just wanted to say this and I wish that people would think about this before they start bringing in people's personal disability experiences, instead of just saying that they don't agree with them.
So basically what I want to say is...well, I mean, I'm annoyed by particular flamewars that people have about disability rights, and I have autism, so I think I tend to read the flamewars that are about autism, but I've definitely heard people say this about everything from Down Syndrome to, like, spinal muscular atrophy and, like, tons of different disabilities.
Basically a person will be talking about a disability in a way that their opponent thinks is too positive, and they'll be saying, "We shouldn't be trying to cure this disability or talking about how awful it is--we should be talking about how to help people that have it, and accepting them."
And then the other person will say, "Well, that's how you feel because your disability's not severe, but I know someone whose disability is severe, and that's why I have my point of view. And both our points of view are equally valid because they both come from our experience," or something like that.
Okay, well, I don't really think this is true. I think instead of saying, "it's, like, mild disabilities vs. severe disabilities and those each lend themselves to a different political opinion," I think that it's just the medical model of disability vs. the social model.
And, um, the medical model of disability basically means that if someone isn't successful in society, um, you figure out what's wrong with them and you try to change what's wrong with them or keep it from happening to anyone else.
And, um, the social model of disability means that if someone isn't successful, you say, "Well, what should society be doing differently so that this person can be more successful?"
Um, I think a good example of this is a lot of the time people will say, "Well, autism is so terrible because my relative has autism and they can't live independently, and my whole family is really worried about where this person's gonna live when they're older."
Well, people who are into the social model of disability would say, "This is a political issue, and the government is already supposed to be supporting people who can't live independently, but as it is a lot of people end up in institutions when they don't need to be in institutions, they don't want to be in institutions, and institutions are actually more expensive for the government." So, um, those people would say, "This is actually an issue we need to be working on, and it isn't a fact that can't be changed, that someone's family has to worry about where the person is going to live and how they're gonna be taken care of--um, that's actually something that can and should be made different."
So, um, I personally have seen people who had pretty mild disabilities, I guess, who were very upset about the disability they had, wanted it to be cured, and supported the medical model of disability; and it's also the case that many people who were instrumental in developing disability rights and the social model of disability were people with severe disabilities.
So, um, that equation just isn't true, basically. And I also happen to find it kind of offensive, because, um, the assumption seems to be that if someone supports the social model of disability they must have a really easy experience with their disability, because if they had a hard experience they would support the medical model.
And you know, I think it's pretty insulting to go around saying what someone else's experience must be like just because you disagreed with them--especially on the Internet since you don't actually know them. But, um, yeah I just wanted to say this and I wish that people would think about this before they start bringing in people's personal disability experiences, instead of just saying that they don't agree with them.
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