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Historical ableism

It is also important to understand violence against disabled people from a historical perspective[1].  Some of the most well-known instances of violence against the disabled community occurred in Nazi Germany where the practice of euthanasia was practiced.  The first targets of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany were disabled people.  The goal of the Third Reich was to create a “perfect” (i.e., Aryan, straight, non-disabled) Germany.  In order to accomplish this, they first had to get rid of people who were visibly deformed, considered incompetent, or otherwise did not fit societal standards of “normalcy.”  They were able to justify the euthanasia of disabled people by claiming they were doing it as an act of “mercy.”  Similarly, the Nazis practiced eugenics, both in the form of ethnic cleansing and cleansing Germany of disability, and any group that was considered “undesirable” (e.g., homosexuals).  The Nazis attempted to manipulate the gene pool by killing those with genetic disorders, ensuring that disability and its cultural significance would be erased. The Nazis did not see any significance to disabled people, but rather believed they polluted the state, consuming resources while not contributing.  In an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Solveig Magnus Reindal argues against eugenics, stating that its proponents rely “on an individual model of disability, where disability is regarded as a product of biological determinism or ‘personal tragedy’ in the individual” (Reindal, 89).  Essentially, the fault that Reindal and many disability studies scholars have with eugenics is its declaration of what lives are worth living, and what lives are not. This evokes the question of who has the authority and the right to decide what lives are valuable and what genes should not be passed on.  This question, or rather the assumed answer (i.e., medical professionals, politicians, et al.) has plagued the disabled community for decades.  

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Don’t forget disabled people when fighting fascist either. They were also targeted by the Nazis for being “useless eaters”, tbh the same reason they’re left out on the cold now in presumably noon Nazi settings.

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Inclusive activism

If you talk about disability rights but don’t include…

People with intellectual disabilities

People with mental health problems

People who have trouble managing their hygiene or bodily fluids

People who face different challenges because of their race, culture, sexual orientation, age, faith, class or gender

People with “socially unacceptable” behaviours

People with maximal and minimal care needs

…then you’re not really talking about disability rights, you’re talking about your rights.

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Disability equality

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The problems of conditioning disability to functionality.

I’m giving a lecture on this to national medical authorities on Friday.

Today I have been told that according to the parameters of the upcoming presidency in my country I won’t be medically acknowledged as a disabled person (even if I have very evident cerebral palsy , scholiosis, I walk with a cane and also have several mental illnesses) because i am functional: I have a job that gives me some money, a career, I can walk independently, “I am not as vulnerable as other people might be so I don’t deserve the potential benefits that come with the diagnosis because I am not that bad”. What they don’t know is that my salary is not enough to cover all the bills I would have if I didn’t live with my mother, that my functionality is intermittent and that i wouldn’t be this functional without the very few benefits (that are more like accommodations I deserve by right) that I’ve been given before.

I am angry at the system for marginalizing me even more by denying my disability and it’s limitations just because I’ve been lucky enough to get a job at the same government who wants to deny my vulnerability.

I have many things to say on Friday, I just don’t know how to say them. I know you can get me guys, what would you say to those medical authorities if it was you in that place instead of me?

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There is nothing understandable about the murder of a disabled person.

Killing them is not an act of mercy.

The caregivers are not “freed” from the burden.

There is NO excuse for someone to murder somebody else, disabled or not.

A disabled person having their life cut short is just as tragic as an able-bodied person having their life cut short.

Stop dismissing the murders of disabled people as “okay because…”

The only answer to that is

IT IS NOT OKAY.

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On bearing witness to the humanity of disabled people and the destructiveness of ableism

One of the most powerful things that we can do is to bear witness to the humanity of disabled people and the destructive consequences of ableism. When we bear witness to our humanity and to the things that others do to us, it changes the conversation. Our stories are powerful.

Some people have the privilege of being largely untouched by ableism. (Or being untouched by a particular kind of ableism.) Most people who are privileged in this way are also unaware of how deeply marginalized disabled people are being harmed. (I’m using disability as the primary example here, but this actually applies to ever kind of marginalization.)

We are dehumanized, and a lot of people don’t notice that it’s happening. They’re taught to overlook our humanity, and a lot of what happens to us is hidden from them. When people learn how to notice, they often start caring.

Bearing witness to our humanity means making it impossible to discuss disability in the abstract. It means making people have to notice that when they talk about disability, they’re talking about *actual human beings*. We do things. Some of us have jobs. Some of us are artists. Some of us write. Some of us are married. Some of us are fans of TV shows. Some of us are experts in our fields. Some of us cook. All of us matter. Making people notice us as real human beings changes the conversation about disability.

Speaking out about the consequences of ableism also changes the conversation. When institution survivors bear witness to what happens in institutions, it becomes much more difficult for people to believe that institutionalization is good for disabled people. When people speak out about what authoritarian childhood therapy did to them, it’s harder to pretend that compliance training is harmless. When people speak out about electric shock, it is much harder to pretend that people who are tortured with electric shocks think that it makes their lives better.

When disabled people talk about what it is like to learn the name of their disability by eavesdropping and googling, some parents listen. Likewise, when disabled people talk about what it’s like to grow up without accurate language for ourselves, some parents come to understand the importance of talking to children about their disabilities.

Bearing witness also matters to other disabled people. We often learn to overlook our own humanity. We often learn to disregard the things that others have done to us. When other disabled people are unapologetically human, it’s easier to see ourselves as human. When other disabled people talk about the harm ableism does, it’s easier to remember that these things shouldn’t happen to us.

This doesn’t always work. When people with disabilities bear witness to our humanity and to what happens to us, we often get hostile responses. Even when some people are listening, there are usually also angry people who are not. Even when people are eventually willing to listen, they are often initially angry and mean. Those of us who talk about these things pay a price for doing so. Everyone has the right to decide for themselves whether this is a price they’re willing to pay in a given situation.

Your stories belong to you. Stories can be a powerful force for liberation, but you are not a liberation object. You are a person. You have the right to decide whether or not to tell your stories. If you choose to tell stories, you have the right to decide which stories to tell, how you want to tell them, and who you want to tell them to. (Including, whether or not you want to answer questions that people ask you.) You can also change your mind. Doing some advocacy work doesn’t make you an advocacy object, and it doesn’t strip you of the right to say no. No matter how politically or socially useful your stories are, they belong to you.

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One thing nobody teaches you is how politicised being disabled is. Your whole existence being called a waste of resources. Your whole worth being boiled down to whether you can work. If you can, you’re not disabled and get nothing. If you’re not, you’re lazy and deserve nothing.

Accessibility is seen as a burden and us demanding too much like the greedy people they claim us to be. No handouts! No Handouts! We are invisible and subhuman. We are the other. We are portrayed as burdens to society for simply wanting to exist in the world as they do.

The ability to live week to week is constantly in jeopardy. Lost jobs from sick days. Rising costs of medical care and accommodations. Your government assistance becomes a talking point and a target. People rallying for you to starve instead of paying any taxes to your care. One day your means to live just disappears without fanfare or your input. ‘Austerity measures’ being levied on us for being ‘leeches’. They might not kill us directly but they don’t care about leaving us to die.

Right to die advocates fighting valiantly for euthanasia but doing nothing about disability rights. Nothing about accommodations. Nothing about accessibility. Nothing about subsidies or in home care. They’d rather give us the ability to die than allow us to live. Because we are tragedies.

Burdens.

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Dear Alan Feinstein,

               After reading your letter to the editor in Newsday, I was compelled to respond.  My name is Erica Mones and I am a 21-year-old college student and I have a developmental disability called cerebral palsy.  Although I am physically disabled, I have been able to be relatively successful: I was accepted to  16 of the 20 colleges I applied to, my senior year of high school I was on a town-wide task-force for disability rights, last year I interned as research assistant for a history professor, in October I was elected and currently serve as a senator on my school’s Student Government Association, and most recently, I landed an internship at my school’s Center for Community Service and Justice.  On the surface, I am a successful go-getter, someone who makes the most of her situation, however, much of my success can be attributed to luck.

               I was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy when I was just two months old.  My mom describes the day as the “scariest day of [her] life” because she did not know what my future looked like.  Doctors warned her that I may never be able to speak, walk, feed myself, or be fully independent.  One of these predictions came true—I am not and will never be fully independent.  But I am constantly reminded of how fortune I am to be able to live within my community.  Some of my closest friends have significantly more pronounced disabilities than me; many who cannot walk at all or feed themselves, many others who cannot keep traditional jobs because of behavioral and mental disabilities.   Many of them do not have the privilege of living in their communities.  What my mom feared most for me is a reality for many of my friends.  

Many people with severe cognitive and/or physical disabilities are forced into institutions because they are thought to be a burden on society and dangerous.  Your letter exemplified this perfectly, as you asked that the town to consider the safety of the residents on your street.  I am sure that your concerns are valid, but why do disabled people not have the same right as their non-disabled peers to exist in mainstream society?  The alternative to group homes is putting people in institutions, where they are often vulnerable to neglect and abuse.  A prominent case occurred in Queens in 2012 when an autistic man named Rasheen Rose was killed by a staff member at one of these institutions.

While group homes are not much better than institutions (an investigation in Oregon revealed low-level neglect at many facilities), keeping group homes segregated from neighborhoods can only ensure that neglect is more likely to go undetected.  Disabled people need to be a part of their community in order for them to be safe.

I also implore you to remember that regardless of disability, people who do not have a history of endangering others should not be locked away just because children live close by.  Children would benefit from being exposed to disability.  People can only learn the most important about disability from encountering it—that disabled people are no less human.  It is difficult to discern whether someone is dangerous before even meeting them, and not giving them a chance is prejudiced.  My hope is that the children on your street will not have to learn these prejudices, and instead be open-minded about disability and other forms of human diversity.  People like you and me are no better than those with severe disabilities, so we have no right to let our misconceptions about disabilities prevent others from living in our communities.  Thank you for your time.

 Erica

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We must leave evidence. Evidence that we were here, that we existed, that we survived and loved and ached. Evidence of the wholeness we never felt and the immense sense of fullness we gave to each other. Evidence of who we were, who we thought we were, who we never should have been. Evidence for each other that there are other ways to live–past survival; past isolation.

Mia Mingus, leavingevidence.wordpress.com (via itisbettertospeak)

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No Rainbows for the Disabled

We still live outside, even as rainbows explode across social media. We have merged books and cats and lives, but we must not merge finances, lest we lose a quarter. I cannot help my scattershot seizures, nor my bad sugar. You cannot force your legs to work. So, we live somewhere outside the land of rainbows and cheer our friends on as they step inside the warm glow of matrimony.

We sit here, in the cold somewhere. We live outside, and we are apart together.

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View on ABA?

At my job we use ABA. From my own education experience this has always been pushed as the Golden Method to use when working with autistic kids/adults. Recently I’ve been trying to do my own research and rely less on professionals/parents testimonials on ABA and try and hear more testimonies from people who’ve actually had ABA practices done on them. So if you’ve had first-hand experience receiving ABA as treatment I would love to hear stories about it. And whether you felt the treatment was beneficial.