BADD 2008

[jesse_the_k]

May 1st is Blogging Against Disablism Day. I'm at a loss for words, but others are full of great ones. I hope many people read Wheelchair Dancer's and Mandolin's examination of the disabilist language permeating the rhetoric in the important recent discussions in/on feminism and women of color.

I'd like to suggest that society as a whole has not paid the same kind of attention to disabled people's concerns about language. By not paying attention to the literal value, the very real substantive, physical, psychological, sensory, and emotional experiences that come with these linguistic moves, we have created a negative rhetorical climate. In this world, it is too easy for feminists and people of colour to base their claims on argumentative strategies that depend, as their signature moves, on marginalizing the experience of disabled people and on disparaging their appearance and bodies.

I've posted about this before, and I'm thrilled that WCD has made such a comprehensive and thoughtful case. And in that comments thread, I came across the best. analogy. ever. "Mathtitis": or why & how disability, just like femininity, is a social construction. If you've ever thought, "but surely being disabled is bad, it's different than being female or Black or gay" for the love of Lucy go read that thread!

So, say you have a characteristic that society sees as less than. Oh, what is a good example? Say you aren't good at math, for whatever reason. (Many people aren't good at math, but it isn't considered a disability. People just work around it.) Say all the sudden, your deficiency in math (which, I guess isn't as "good as" someone who is good at math) is visible to the naked eye and seen as a disability. Say every where you go, people treat you with pity, and they don't let you handle money because you aren't good at math. And you aren't allowed to drive a car or hold down a job because you aren't good in math, even if a simple calculator or a talking pedometer would accommodate you. And whenever anyone makes a mistake mathmatically, they are teased and said to have Mathitis, like you do. They must just be a mathtard. And the implication is that they are less than and can't do anything for themselves. And perhaps when you went to the doctor, they didn't treat your cancer as aggressively as they would someone without mathitis, because your quality of life isn't as good as others and so you would just be wasting resources. And say people asked you all the time, even on the streets, if you have checked into this cure or that cure for your problem, or if you've ever thought of killing yourself because of your problem.

If that seems extreme, it's useful to remember that up until the middle of the 18th century, long division was an arcane art that not even Oxbridge scholars were expected to master. (That from Georges Ifrah's The Universal History of Numbers, definitive proof that independent scholars rock the world.)

Comments

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this post! I'll peruse these links this afternoon instead of cleaning my house.

I already skimmed the bit about language, and I'm glad it's calling me out on all of the disablist comments I use, like "lame", etc. I'm going to make a concerted effort to be aware of and purge that kind of ignorant language from my speech, I hope you'll call me out on it if you catch me using them. It annoys the hell out of me when people use "gay" in a derogatory sense, I think it behooves me to use respectful language myself.



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Still haven't solved the bird nesting problem, eh?

[jesse_the_k]

Always glad to provide not-housework-tasks.

One of the reasons the language issue is so important to me is I want to prevent people from going through pointless "my body has changed and therefore I am not a real person" angst. Because chances are excellent you'll be disabled in your life, or someone close to you will be. And that process is much crueler than needs be.

We have all internalized disablism so thoroughly that I think it's as punishing -- or maybe harder -- as dealing with the sudden loss of privilege. (Yeah, I know that most people imagine that the impairment is the hard part, that is, the loss of function. But humans are amazingly adaptable, and given the right environment, we can move on pretty damn quick).