Some reflections on #SpeechDiscriminationIs
I want to say some things about yesterday, which feels strange, because yesterday certainly wasn’t anything that we owned. It became something far more than I’d anticipated and I woke up this morning still feeling profoundly grateful and a little in awe.
I’m grateful for everyone who shared their stories, here and on twitter. I’m grateful for everyone who reblogged or retweeted or signal boosted or took the time to read along. So many of your stories I identified with. Many more were experiences I haven’t had—haven’t even considered. I’m honored and a little humbled that I had the opportunity to hear those things, especially in a public context like this.
And I’m surprised by how deeply yesterday affected me. We’d been planning trying to do something like this for a little while, and in the preparation I sort of lost track of what it would actually feel like to spend a day immersed in stories of discrimination.. and yeah, that stuff hits pretty hard.
Mostly, though, I’m incredibly excited about the community that is forming around stuttering. And I don’t want any of us to lose sight of just how remarkable this group of people and the conversations we have been having lately are.
Since starting this blog Erin, Zach and I have been told a lot of things. Things that were meant to discourage us. Things that were meant to silence us.
We’ve been told that people who stutter will never be comfortable identifying with the wider disability community.
Yesterday we joined with people with a wide range of disabilities to focus on our shared experiences of speech discrimination. Some of those communities have been doing this “disability rights” thing for a very long time. We shared our awareness day with them, and they shared their passion with us. Being able to tweet stories of other disabled experiences alongside our own is still something very new for stutterers, and it was so important.
We’ve been told not to complain about how we’re treated.
Yesterday we dared to speak up about the unjust ways we’ve been discriminated against. And it wasn’t a pity fest. My entire life people have told me that getting angry or focusing on the haters will just leave me feeling sorry for myself. But yesterday is proof that anger can also be empowering. It can be generative, and community building, and a reminder that we aren’t alone, and that these things are *wrong*, and that we’re allowed to stand up for ourselves when they happen.
We’ve been told that people who stutter aren’t going to believe that society, rather than their voices, disables them.
Yesterday we stopped focusing on whatever frustrations we may or may not have with our bodies and focused on social and structural discrimination instead. And it wasn’t even hard. We resisted the impulse so many of us have been taught to blame ourselves when we’re ignored, mocked, rejected, denied accommodation, education, or employment, and we started placing that blame on the people and society that are actually responsible. And we kept it up for an entire day. I for one found it one of the most refreshing conversations about stuttering that I’ve ever been able to take part in.
We’ve been told that fluent speakers aren’t going to care, and aren’t going to change.
Yesterday thousands of fluent speakers scrolled through our posts and tweets. I don’t know how many read them, I don’t know how many cared. But I know that some did. As a whole, stutterers have a long history of not expecting very much of our friends and colleagues. Yesterday, whether they heard us or not, we were bold enough to remind others to start taking responsibility for the shit their assumptions and practices can put us through. This is a very real change in the conversation about stuttering. And it was awesome.
I didn’t know that these things would happen yesterday. I’m not sure what I expected, but I know what I saw went beyond what I’ve ever seen in the stuttering community before. And I’m hopeful, and pretty damn excited.
So from the Did I Stutter team, a huge shout-out to everyone who took part in #SpeechDiscriminationIs yesterday. We’re honored to have been able to participate in sharing your stories, and look forward to continuing the conversation with all of you.
