the Ableist Language Discourse on here is beyond frustrating. abled people will say oh we need to advocate for real change, not just changing vocabulary! ableism isn’t just someone calling you mean words and mocking you because you’re a stupid r word who has baby interests! and it’s like. you can care about multiple things. you can adress multiple forms of ableism without condoning leftists who fling slurs about id and dd people and ostracize them for their speech patterns and their interests that they find cringe. i hate that it’s implied or stated that when talk about things impacting higher support needs autistics and especially poc, the implication is that we’re like? shielded? from what a lot of you like to call real ableism. but i can promise you we’re not.
most of it is targeted at people with congenital or acquired brain damage that caused physical disabilities and developmental delays. black higher support needs autistics and other poc are already seen as more dangerous in public for Existing While Black. especially if we’re visibly deformed like I am. Our bodies look off. Our speech sounds off. Our movements are wrong. Our interests are wrong. Our clothes are wrong. Everything about us screams Wrong, Dangerous, Avoid!
People in our lives don’t care about us except for how they can make themselves look and feel good and seem like a saint for taking care of us. I’ll never be able to live alone and I’m trapped, surrounded by abusive carers and family who see me as a nuisance who’s better. off. dead. i don’t have friends except online. Online support is the only support I have. It might always be this way. My experience isn’t unique.
My caregiver gives me space to breathe outside sometimes. But it isn’t often and most people don’t see me as their equal anyway. They see me as a childish dangerous ugly freak.
and online it’s really hard to interact with abled and low support needs people on here. even if they’re also poc. go outside. chronically online shut in. socially inept freak. mental child. brain damage. brain worms. smooth brain. so much of the language used to criticize white people who act ignorant or entitled comes back to implicitly viewing developmental or intellectual disability as the Ultimate insult. It’s so, so damaging. It hurts. You think those things make people disposable and you hurt the poc in your spaces who struggle with the things you think of as hypothetical, throwaway insults.
you can care about what people like to insist are the actual issues. medical malpractice and caregiver abuse and familial abuse and forced institutionalization and homelessness and substance abuse and food insecurity and everything else that affects severely disabled people. But that doesn’t make changing language and abled people’s and lower support needs people’s attitudes around it any less important.
language and intention and the implications behind your words matter. I’ve dealt with all of that stuff firsthand. Plus added antiblackness and additional racist undesirability, being seen and treated as subhuman even more than my nonblack high support peers. I still have more community with them than most people on here because they don’t use my existence and interests as the Ultimate Insult. It’s not that surprising that I deal with all of this shit in my daily life and don’t want to log on and see, Oh go outside, you brain damaged socially stunted childish freak! As if that’s some trendy cool comeback.
Some of us are housebound due to abusive and neglectful caregivers. Some of us have okay caregivers and still can’t leave the house. Maybe there’s just a couple of reasons to critique and criticize correlating being a Socially Unfit Unkempt Childish Weirdo Who Needs To Go Outside with one’s thoughts, beliefs, and life experiences not being valued.
Someone talking about the importance of not discounting higher support needs disabled people who talk about ableist language and feeling ashamed and not treated like their age because of childish interests doesn’t mean they don’t address or aren’t exposed to the other things I talked about. We are. We are assumed to be sinister or stubborn or immature or rude or we are infantilized and babied and baby talked depending on if someone’s with us or the general attitudes of the public on a given day.
I’ve had comfort plushies and my favorite backpack and blankets stolen and trampled on. I’ve had my clothes ripped away and my mobility aids taken and played with. I’ve been called an iPad kid despite being an adult and had my AAC stolen and almost broken! I am not a child. No matter how I act or what I like or what I use to comfort myself while trapped by daily abuse and antiblackness from almost everyone around me. I am a visibly and multiply disabled black trans woman with very high support needs. I love certain Kids Media and find it safe. I will never be able to do most Adult Daily Living Tasks Independently. I don’t read very fast and it takes me a long time to process what I red. I was in Special Ed and go to special events for disabled adults sometimes. Still People have no right to infantilize me and see the worst in me and mock & harrass people who look and act & move like me.
we are people and we can care about and draw attention to multiple things. Even if changing our language to be more mindful doesn’t bring material change, it’s still worth it if it doesn’t alienate or trigger a fellow intellectually or developmentally disabled cripple. We are isolated and left to suffer with our pain and alienation enough as it is. Even more if we’re poc. It’s also just human decency to not use our circumstances and ways of being and interests as some Ultimate Comeback. Remember us, we aren’t going anywhere. Happy Disability Pride Month.
It bother Magz a lot when see how normal is say those demean things, embed in language n attitudes. Of brain n neurodevelopmemtal, automatic what make people "bad".
N Magz have criticize over and over
ableist language alienate some disabled people.
Ableist language affect how think n interact with disabled people, even when from other disabled people themself.
(Because disability broad n not same thing, n higher support needs get silence)
But there some points where am "allow" "let slide", because people not listen.
Because am not know what do.
Because it get treat as "too much" when criticize all time.
And am try see "benefit of doubt"
- oh they not mean that way... still feel bad.
-oh they have important point they want make... still feel bad.
(Example: Calling out racism n misinformation n other important bigotries, but they use "unlovable sociopath with brain damage" or something)
Not only of stigmatize intellectual ability n disabled traits n fears, but also of wrong use terms for refocus on lower supports needs as center.
Making stigmatized n ostracized disabled people that not get listen to even in disability space, not have way talk of self n not get taken serious. N have disgust or silence more when use own words.
(Example: "Nonspeaking" n "nonverbal" become relatable meme words for speaking people. But if are say cannot speak ever - whether from birth of acquired later - oh that just odd. That wrong.)
(Example: Say any type "can't do thing" or [insert way of talk about own disability]. Get lower support needs people act like they know what are talk of, but give unsolicited advice or wrong advice or judgement that make obvious they not know. Because are only familiar with more common discussions online about few select disabilities from "smart" people. Is better if acknowledge we all different...)
Is in the little things, is in the big things.
Is symptom of larger issue, we cannot ignore am think.
Am notice. Am cursed to notice. N magz criticisms never "stick".
No idea.
