Day: July 14, 2017

On the Social Dimension of Disability: “I don’t think of you that way.”

aegipan-omnicorn:

birabeero:

I can’t count the amount of people who have said some variation of “I don’t think of you that way” when it comes up that I’m disabled.

Disability (n.): 

a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities.

I have permanent paralysis in my shoulder, arm, and hand from an injury to my brachial plexus. My range of motion in that arm is about 40% of what a typical, uninjured arm would be, not to mention my underdeveloped strength, dislocated shoulder, and the resulting scoliosis. I could go on. Based on the simplest, literal definition, I am definitely disabled, because at the very least, compared with a typical body, my movements are limited.*

So, why am I always hearing “I don’t think of you that way”? 

Often a person says it to relieve their own social discomfort or cognitive dissonance, either because I’ve self-identified as disabled or because they’ve said something disparaging about disabled people. Examples:

  • My boyfriend’s mom says she has “crippling self-doubt.” My boyfriend says, “bad word choice,” gesturing to me. She does a double take, looks my way, and says “Oh, I’m sorry, it didn’t occur to me because I don’t see you that way.”
  • My college roommate and I are chatting and I mention, in a neutral tone, that I am disabled. In the voice of someone finally expressing something that’s been bothering her, she says “I don’t know why you think of yourself that way. I don’t think of you that way.”

In the first example, my boyfriend’s mom uses “crippling,” (cripple (n.): a person who is partially or totally unable to use one or more limbs) as shorthand to say that her self-doubt prevents her from normal activities, or at least from the activities she’d prefer to take part in. When my boyfriend points out that this metaphor implies physical disability (such as mine) necessarily means abnormal, negative, or useless, she experiences discomfort. She relieves it by saying, “I don’t think of you that way,” preserving the abnormal, negative, or useless associations in her head with physical disability. Because she sees me as normal, useful, productive, I must not be disabled. The definition of disability shifts from a value-neutral description of physical or mental difference to a negative social role, in order to exclude me.

In the second example, my roommate does something similar. Although I don’t express sadness or anger when calling myself disabled, it makes her upset, and she pushes back. That’s because, rather than seeing disability as a value-neutral physical or mental difference, she sees it as a negative social role. In her mind, by self-identifying this way, I’m insulting myself.

The problem with both these lines of logic is twofold:

  • The definition of disability shifts at will in order to protect the nondisabled person’s perception of disability as a negative attribute.
  • Inclusion and exclusion into this social role shifts at will in order to protect the nondisabled person’s perception of disability as a negative attribute and attitude toward disabled people that they do “think of that way.”

If I’m not disabled, then I have no way to explain why I was told not to become a lifeguard, or why men routinely refuse to date me because my “arm is just too weird,” or why strangers approach me to tell me how great it is that I’m out living life. I lose out on putting a name to these negative experiences (which is a necessary part of healing from them and fighting back) in order to protect nondisabled people’s shifting definition of disability.

Worse still, if I’m not disabled, then disabled people are just the faceless, abnormal, negative, useless Other. If, as soon as a person because a valued figure in your life, they’re excluded from that group, it is far too easy to dehumanize, objectify, and disenfranchise that group. 

*I wouldn’t trade that limitation of movement for the world, as it’s caused me to develop an interesting set of physical skills that nondisabled people lack along with character traits that are integral to my personality. But that’s for a different post.

“If, as soon as a person becomes a valued figure in your life, they’re excluded from that group, it is far too easy to dehumanize, objectify, and disenfranchise that group.”

Wow. Thank you for putting this into words so well. I’m going to use this.

Good description. “I don’t think of you as X” seems to function similarly in so many contexts, and it’s depressing.

And it occurs to me again that similar attitudes may well help explain the otherwise baffling figure that “nearly half (43%) of the British public say they do not know anyone who is disabled”. When it’s hard to see how that could even be possible, in reality.

There is also possibly the question of how closely do you need to know someone before even counting them when asked about it.

But, that kind of response (not to mention “just a third (33%)…said that they would feel comfortable talking to disabled

people”) would make a lot more sense if actual disabled people existing in front of them were getting excluded from this very negative stereotyped mental image of The Disabled.

itrunsdoom:

The Cube? Yeah, it runs Doom. Or at least, can show it.

“The Cube” is the name for Deadmau5′s frankly ridiculous DJ stand/stage setup, which basically consists of a giant three-sided LED display on motors for motion control, with Deadmau5 sitting on top doing whatever it is Deadmau5 does. Look, I’m old and set in my ways, alright? If you can’t strum it or hit it with a stick, I don’t know how music is made with it. It just happens. Like babies.

Anyhoo, speaking of babies, recently Mau5 commissioned a little babby version of The Cube, dubbed “Cube Lite”, that’s largely identical to the real thing, just shrunk down to about three feet tall so he can work on his light show from the comfort of his studio, and not, like, an aircraft hangar or something.

It can do other things too, as one Twitter wit managed to convince Mau5 to demonstrate. Click the link for video! I couldn’t embed it or download it to repost here, because Twitter be cray.

Thanks to @ask-travisthefatlazyauthor and @scrubdowner for submitting this!

Source: itrunsdoom

okayokaystop:

butt-princess:

size10plz:

uppity-broad:

allthecanadianpolitics:

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail shuts down disrespectful white journalists over a question asking if Justin Trudeau is responsible for Missing Indigenous Teens in Northern Ontario.

More information here:

Indigenous women call reporter ‘white lady,’ demand she leave press conference

Video source: @asolezz

What a brave and amazing woman.

And that headline on the linked article is a shameful example of exactly what Ms. Wabano-Ishtail was talking about! White fragility at its finest. Out of all the important things she said, reporters think her use of the term “white lady” is the most news worthy.

She is putting herself on the line to educate white people about issues our ignorance and privilege stops us from understanding. We should fucking thank her, not compound the disrespect and harm like that.

So here is a better headline: “Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail educates disrespectful white journalists.”

[ Captions ]

Person in background: Stop right now.

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: Don’t speak to us that way. You’re a guest here, and you don’t even know how to speak to us. You don’t even recognize the tone in your voice in your delivery. No you’re done. You’re done. Next question.

Reporter: I’ll-I’ll re-ask what [ inaudible ] question, how do you think

Person off screen: You want to re-ask?

Reporter: Yes.

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: You better be respectful.

 [ inaudible chattering in background ] 

Reporter: I’m being totally respectful. I’m asking how Justin Trudeau record, compared to Stephen Harper’s record, do you think he’s improved the situation. I think that is what Julie was asking. 

[ inaudible chattering off camera ]

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: We have a holistic genocide happening here. 

Female Reporter: I can speak for myself

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: And I can speak for myself. You know what white people? You’ve had your voice here for 524 years. 524 years you’ve been visible, white lady. You’ve been visible for 524 years. Look how fast your white man stands up for you. Where is everybody else who will come and stand up for us? I have a right to my voice, I’m still fighting for my voice, and my visibility. 

Reporter: We asked a question about what you–

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail: And I’m telling you! And I’m telling you right now. There has been 524 years of holistic genocide on Turtle Island. We’re the ones that are dying, it is not you that is dying. As far as Justin Trudeau is doing? One of the things that we need to keep in mind is that we’re asking the United Nations to help us of charges of genocide, a war against humanity, war crimes, and a crime of aggression be laid. Because your liberal party, was also responsible; every party, every governments that has been in power. None of your governments have clean hands. All of your governments…all of your governments have blood on their hands. None of you are different, you haven’t changed. The moment we have our voice, and back bone you want to shut us down. And you think you have your privilege to disrespect us the moment we tell you, because of your colonial mindset, and your colonial way of being. Your white privilege, your white fragility, you can’t take our truth. Look how many people came to bat for you, white lady. And you’re a guest here. Without us, you’d be homeless. This is over.

what the fuck is she fucking talking about? how is this about white fragility and white privilege have anything to do with the question she was asked? what did the journalist tell her to stop doing? maybe she told her to stop rambling about identity politics bullshit? seriously, how about just answering the question as to whether or not they think Trudeau is doing a better job figuring out whats happening to these missing native people rather then going off on a tangent about bullshit. we can’t solve the problem of her butt hurt over the colonization of canada, we have to do something about the highway of tears and all the missing and dead people, most of which are native. this is just whining about bullshit thats not relevent to anything. what the fuck is holistic genocide? what the fuck?

Shes saying the government hasnt helped native people. This problem of native people being targeted isnt new and its been a problem since white people came here but no one listens. Do you think that reporter really cares about the native people? Because if she did shed know the answer to her question. Shes practically answering her own question by disrespecting that woman because white people have been disrespecting natives since they came here and they pretend to care but still dont.

slashmarks:

galacticwiseguy:

toloveviceforitself:

normanbates:

saying “there is no ethical consumption under late capitalism” is a platitude. if you don’t want to at least try to make the world better for workers until “full communism” is established, by keeping an eye on human rights breaches, strikes, and other news, and avoiding the worst of the worst products if you have the ability to do so, it’s hard to believe that you really care about workers.

there is no activism in which doing nothing is the best option. that’s all.

The point isn’t that there’s nothing to be done for it, the point is that pretending you can fix it by *consuming correctly* is a distraction method meant to stop you from ever actually changing it, and it’s a distraction pushed by the exact people who want these sorts of systems to keep going.

The people who want to charge you double for their “ethical” products don’t want the “unethical” version to stop existing. They’d lose half their brand if it did. And they’d also lose their consumers’ classist distaste for the *other* consumers who can’t afford anything *but* the “unethical version”. That distaste keeps people buying their product just as much as any kind of actual ethics.

The unethical version is always cheaper, and so it will always exist as long as it’s *allowed* to exist. You can never boycott it out of existence because there will always be someone priced into buying it anyway.

But they know that we have a finite amount of money, energy, and attention, and that if they keep us busy policing each other for the purity of our purchasing choices, they can exhaust all three and keep us from going after actual solutions like just straight up outlawing sweatshop labor, or raising the minimum wage, or whatever. They can cause movements toward those small, incremental goals to fall apart as everyone involved purity tests each other to death over something that was never going to matter anyway. They can get us to devour each other and never bother them again.

“There is no ethical consumption” is another way of saying “nice try, but we still see you”.

tldr:

it never meant “buy whatever, give up.”

it meant “buy whatever while you do something ACTUALLY useful instead of meaningless ‘voting with your wallet.’”

Also: boycotts can work, but they don’t work via people trying to avoid all “unethical” products at once.

They work when they’re targeted campaigns with PR and media support and large amounts of people; and they work when they exist for a limited duration of time; and they work when they are accompanied by clear demands, that companies can meet, and end the boycott by meeting; and when applicable, they work via the organizers providing alternative vital services or food sources for the duration of the boycott for people who can’t afford to just go without or buy other brands.

There’s a really, really big difference between a boycott campaign in support of striking workers that significantly dips company products below the expected target for that quarter, and people avoiding certain products because they associate them with “unethical” brands.