Defining
Ableism
Note:
This is U.S.-centric
***
Sometimes
it feels hard to define ableism when it is all around us and
everywhere and so much more than language. Language contributes to,
and perpetuates, ableism. Ableist acts can include language.
But
I keep thinking of the time in Fall 2013 when I started having
seizures from a medication interaction. The seizures were atypical.
No one knew what they were, least of all me, too out of it to tell
that something was actually terribly wrong.
What
I most vividly recall is not even the night I had my worst episode,
but the day after, when my friend and I talked about it and she'd
been terrified to call 911 because of the way I was presenting.
Because I was slurring incoherently like I was having some sort of
non-neurological or physically based episode, and she knew what
happens to people in the psychiatric systems if they go wrong. She
knew the way I was presenting would land me in the psych ward.
More
drastically, I think of the man who ended up in the mental health
system during a crisis, and the
state of Maine put his cat down and sold his home.
When
we have to be so afraid of our psychiatric system...? That's the
result of ableism.
Sometimes
I think about all the dead and murdered people too, like Dustin
Hicks, a recent one close to home. My chapter just had to write a
statement on it. The news outlets declined to even reply to my
encouragement to publish all or part of the statement. One news
report discussed his mother and reasons why she might want to kill
him. None mentioned that he deserved to live, or that his death was a
tragedy. We know almost nothing about him.
When
we have to issue statements over and over again urging people to
report responsibly and call our deaths, not our lives, tragedies?
That's the result of ableism.
I
think of all the various intersections we have between other
identities, too. We are not a monolith. I think of the many, many
people of color with disabilities who face racism and ableism,
sometimes with deadly or injurious consequences. I think of the
#FreeNeli
campaign, and how long it took many of us white folks to start
tweeting on it after the initial call for tweets. I think of Neli
himself, unjustly incarcerated for being black and autistic, in
isolation. The governor finally did issue a conditional pardon.
I
think of Kayleb Moon-Robinson, one of the many students of color and
students with disabilities disproportionately referred to law
enforcement. An eleven-year-old charged with a felony. The
school to prison pipeline is real...
I
think of those of us who hold many identify facets, like being
LGBTQ+, a person of color, a religious minority, as well as being
disabled.
When
we have those intersections meet in a dangerous way, amplified by
multiple marginalized identities, the ableism and other -isms and
-phobias become intertwined, and not the result of purely ableism.
These intersections matter.
I
think of how someone got kicked out of their house by their roommates
for being autistic.
I
think of history, too. I think of the sordid history of locking
people with psychiatric disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and
developmental disabilities in institutions...
I
think of the nasty history of eugenics. (The .pdf is American and
German history of eugenics only, as I lack a college library to find
the other physical sources. Also, there's a typo at one point where I
meant to say “Indiana passed the first sterilization law in
1907.”). How it affected so many with disabilities (and other
intersections).
I
think of how nowhere was physically accessible, how Ed Roberts
couldn't go to school unless he lived in the infirmary.
I
think of activists crawling up the Capitol steps to protest and
demand the ADA's passage. Don't let the black and white photographs
in the coverage of the Capitol Crawl let you think that this was
long-gone history. We only just hit 25 years of the ADA.
I
think of the long, long history ableism has. Ableism is not new.
***
Could
I go on? Yes.
I
fear being too depressing. I fear a lot of things. Mostly, I am
sometimes frightened of the world.
We
could stand to be gentler of people still learning the new words that
change so much. Ableism is far more than a list of words and we need
all the good hearts we can find. Clumsy language on the part of
someone who is trying (and who may have communications-based
disabilities!) is something to be less concerned about than the dead
and wounded around us. Clumsy language on the part of someone who is
trying should, perhaps, receive calling in, not calling out.
Ableism
seems insurmountable, and there will never be a great sweeping moment
where we crush it entirely. But I think we're making a dent. We've
come 25 years since the ADA. Seattle has some crappy curbs that
Disability Rights Washington is taking them to task for. Ableism
still goes on and on. But we're making a dent. The largest non-profit
in the nation dedicated to eradicating autism had
its donations drop. Their president is resigning, though this may
have been a planned move. We are producing documentaries of our
pain and sorrow, of our challenges and stories, of
our hopes and dreams.
We
have people among us becoming lawyers and professionals and
influencing that way. We have others in grassroots advocacy and
policy advocacy. We have those whose advocacy is for themselves only,
fighting to survive and be heard and respected (and that's okay). We
want our brethren to survive.
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