A Queer One From The Start

Ableism is not a list of words

I know. This is a very controversial topic right now but hear me out. Because I am disabled and I am frustrated with what this site has turned ableism into. Nothing more or less than a list of words to be avoided . Tumblr informs me that that is all I have to face and struggle with every time I leave the house. I really wish a simple list was all ableism was. I do. But Why aren’t we focusing on the real culprit here?

Ignorance. Ignorance that tumblr is spreading because they refuse to talk about the real issues. How about the unheard of concept that people with mental disabilities are not stupid! And you know what? Not one single time in all of these lists floating around have I seen someone say that. No, instead we are told that you should not use the word because the mentally disabled should find it hurtful and offensive. Excuse me? These lists have spread all across this site and back. Lists informing everyone that the first thing you should think of when you think of the mentally disabled are the taboo words “stupid” and “dumb”. And no one seems to understand how problematic that is. How you all have single handedly put that label on people by claiming to fight against ableism. Let me instead give you something new to think about. People with mental disabilities are NOT stupid and that word has NO place being used that way. Trying to turn it into a slur? That will never happen. It is a common part of our language. It’s not going away. All you have done is told people that they have a new set of words that should hurt them every time they hear it and made an association so that the first thought when someone hears that word is now the disabled, creating new prejudice and more ableism than before.
Why are you focusing on words instead of teaching that not everyone in a wheelchair is paralyzed? Every person who has ever needed a wheelchair knows all too well that this is a very serious problem that tumblr surprisingly shys away from. And what about the fact that just because you see a person walking in a store or down the street, you cannot assume they do not have a chronic and/or invisible illness? These are some mind blowing topics right? Things that might really educate some people about what ableism is help help limit the prejudice and fear that people face every single time they leave their house.

Ableism isn’t a list of words that some able bodied and minded people put together to inform the disabled what they should and should not find offensive. Ableism is maintaining ignorance and ignoring the real issues.

Okay this is some bullshit right here.

Yes, I understand that when a lot of people talk about ableism they can’t see the forest for the trees. And sometimes you need to exercise a little more patience when telling people their actions are ableist because it’s just so ingrained.

But this? This to me reads just like one of those people who complains about “slacktivism” on the internet and says “why don’t you go out and do something that makes a REAL difference?” I’m a linguist. I also have multiple mental disabilities. WORDS MEAN THINGS. It may be jarring to be confronted about a word you take for granted and be told that it’s oppressive, but when you say that “mentally disabled people aren’t stupid” you’re doing people a huge disservice. It reminds me a lot of what’s known as Aspie Elitism in the autistic community, where people with diagnoses of Asperger’s have attitudes of “well at least we’re not like THOSE people!” toward “low-functioning”/nonverbal autistics. The fact of the matter is that a lot of disabled people ARE called stupid, and that’s where the negative association of the word comes from. The only reason that words like “stupid” are “a common part of our language” is because everyone automatically associates disability with negativity on an unconscious level. It’s a process that we’ve seen in our lifetimes with the R-word, and if we’re not careful it could become another “dumb” or “lame” whose origins lie in the dehumanization of disabled people but people just tell you to “get over it.” So no, I am not going to stop talking about ableist language and that DOES NOT IN ANY WAY prevent me from caring about other issues affecting us disabled people as well.

As for “a list of words that some able-bodied and -minded people put together to inform the disabled what they should and should not find offensive” — how fucking dare you? Perhaps the most famous, and INCREDIBLY in-depth focus on ableist language, the Ableist Word Profile, WAS WRITTEN ON FWD/FORWARD, WHERE FWD STANDS FOR FEMINISTS WITH DISABILITIES.Criticizing ableist language isn’t some idle hobby of a bunch of priggish able-bodied NTs, it was started by the people whom it impacts. If able-bodied NTs are regurgitating the rhetoric THEY started without paying any mind to any other issues affecting disabled folks, THEY are the ones you should be attacking, not us disabled people who actually give a damn about having the right words used to address us. You know how “Nothing about us without us” is a big slogan in the disability community? Well you just tried to make something about us be without us, and that’s something that WE started.

(via claudefelixfloor-deactivated201)

Source: ogrefairy