so i volunteer at a program that teaches disabled kids and adults how to skate, and i invited one of my friends to the public skate session afterwards. that friend, i'll call her lynn, is always early, so when she came in, i was wiping my skates off as i talked to one of the kids i teach, who i'll call brian. he's autistic, and when he speaks, there is often a long pause between words as he formulates what he is going to say. he stims visibly quite often, rocking back and forth when seated. when lynn came up to me, she had no idea how to act around brian. she wore exaggerated expressions, and used the dreaded "baby-talk" voice. she would interrupt him in the middle of sentences, trying to guess what he was trying to say (and often being completely wrong). i could tell that brian was feeling uncomfortable, so i quickly excused ourselves from the conversation and pulled lynn away.
lynn was being ableist, though she didn't know it. and you know what? it's not even her fault. when people are young, disabled kids are kept away from abled kids, kept in separate classrooms with separate teachers. they have separate lunch times and separate recesses. the only time abled kids see the disabled kids that are taught in the same school as them is when they're in the hallways, accompanied by an aide, or having a meltdown in the cafeteria. this is not okay.
even as an adult, seeing a disabled person in my workplace is rare, and actual interaction is rarer. people tend to either a) avoid disabled people, or b) try to befriend them either out of pity or novelty.
i pulled lynn aside and told her what she was doing wrong. and listen, she hadn't even realized that it was wrong.
and then even when she knew what she was doing wrong, it still took time and lots of effort and research for her to finally be able to stop.
why? because abled people are trained to see anyone with a visible disability as "lesser." they're trained to see anyone with a visible disability as someone you pity, someone you are nice to because they "probably don't have any other friends," someone that you're patient and understanding with to the point of condescension. and that needs to be changed. that needs to be stopped.
abled kids need to be shown, not just taught, how to act around disabled people. they need to be taught that disability is a spectrum, that you can't treat all disabled people the same, just like you wouldn't treat all abled people the same. "disabled" doesn't mean that abled people have a right to treat them as they would little itty bitty puppies.
stop it. just stop it. because it's not fair to anyone.
This morning at work they had this article from the herald printed out. And...it really has to be read to be believed because it is just this perfect textbook example of how you shouldn’t approach disability. There is just SO MUCH wrong with this that I have to go through it bit by bit pointing out exactly what’s wrong with it and how egregiously wrong it is.
Like it starts like:
Your latte with soya not as perfect as yesterday's? Are your suburb's capital gains at a lower percentage than what you think is an inferior suburb?
Well, sit at an outside bar or cafe table and observe your fellow First Worlders and be glad.
The guy in his mid-20s in a wheelchair - you wonder was it a car crash, a rugby tackle or a collapsed scrum? How does he look at the future when his every dream is crushed? Think he cares about your coffee quality, how much unearned money you made from your house? He's just trying to stay sane.
Maybe he was born with a disability? Maybe he’s always used a wheelchair? Maybe he’s cool with it?
The overweight, unattractive 19-year-old girl buddies? What are their thoughts if not downright permanently miserable?
They want a partner, not a physical copy of each other. Eating is their comfort. Like talking and laughing loudly is.
But at home alone the mask falls off and misery takes over, along with the packets of never-satisfying sugary treats. She didn't ask to be unattractive. She can't help nature's cruel partner-selection process. Her life effectively stopped from week one of school, experiencing the cruelty of other kids.
I’m not entirely sure what this is supposed to be, but I think it’s supposed to be something along the lines of “ah, them poor fat ladies who just want to be loved! But no one loves them because they’re TOO FAT! And then they go home and cry into pizza boxes lamenting their sad lonely lives. And they laugh as a comfort thingy, not because they’re having a good time or anything. They’re fat, they can’t have a good time.’
(And can I just say how tired I am of this portrayal of heavy people? It isn’t accurate at all. I’m tired of the Poor Single Fat Lady Who No One Loves thing. There are single fat ladies who are too busy saving the world to meet someone. There are single fat ladies who aren’t really interested in relationships right now. And what if there’s a single fat lady who is single because she’s too busy having really hot sex with a different person every night, and her whole house is like her sex palace, with one of those hangy sex furniturey things in every room, and strapons hanging from chandeliers and she sleeps with a whole bunch of people and they all want to marry her but she isn’t looking for that sort of thing until one day she meets another fat lady and they fall in love and live happily ever after?’)
That gaunt-faced, middle-aged guy keeps crossing your vision, giving you, everyone, the same funny look. Searching for his lost self in every face? Companionship? A likely receptive person he can pour his heart out to? Was he severely traumatised as a kid? Does he have a mental problem, a social disorder?
what? Maybe he just has resting crazy face or something? Or maybe you’re overanalysing strangers?
He sure as hell isn't pissed off that his coffee isn't perfect. He doesn't own his own home to be worried about his capital gain. He just wants someone to talk to and even then, in the back of his roiling mind, knows he can't ever find the words to express his pain.
It is now that I say that I’m autistic and one of my prominent symptoms is really sensitive tastebuds so I don’t do coffee. But. This whole idea that people facing significant difficulties don’t also worry about trivial things is very inaccurate. You can be dealing with all manner of crap and still be irritated by minor things
That big Maori dude with a gang facial tattoo sitting in Queen St with his begging cup? Back in the day he was "Da Man" whose every foul deed was approved by his gang brothers. He woke each day in a fog from booze and drugs but knew one thing: he belonged.
The bodily-intake excesses got out of control. In prison there was plenty of stuff available to stay "out of it". Being out of facing the pain, let alone the damage, of a horrific childhood. On the outside? Well, drugs is the name of the gang game and members get to wallow in the stuff.
But it keeps draining out every last bit of his soul, until one day he wakes up and the core of him is gone. And just bare naked truth stands there. That's the beggar you can't bear to give the price of a cup of your precious coffee. He has - had - a story. But no-one wants to hear it.
What.
How would you like to be that girl afflicted with cerebral palsy? Yet where does she get that beatific smile from? Why does she appear so saintly, happy with her lot? Did you catch her on a day when her limited movement was slightly freer? What are her sleeping dreams about? Her waking ones? Is her heart filled with envy of the able-bodied? You can bet she isn't thinking about coffee quality and how much her house has gone up this week.
Oh dear, I think this is my favourite part. Shock! Plot twist? Like, a girl with CEREBRAL PALSY???? SMILING???? How can she be so happy? What a holy being she must be! Shouldn’t she be busy feeling depressed about having cerebral palsy every moment of her life? It’s just ridiculous. Why can’t you just see her as a happy person having a good day? But no, she must be this holy angel put on earth to show abled people how grateful you should be that you don’t have cerebral palsy.
What if genetically, you lack social awareness? What if it was beaten out of you? How do you connect to the rest of the world? Who listens, who understands, if you don't have the capacity to express yourself without breaking some social rule? Where do you fit? On the outside, pal. Without a key.
The elderly spinster living in a tiny council unit who never gets visitors, has no one to celebrate birthdays or Christmas with. No family members who pop in from time to time and together add up to a reasonably full emotional life. The handful of friends is down to one, or none at all, they've all died or moved away. And they weren't such close friends anyway, or they'd write.
Neither of these situations are inevitable-we as a society can function to support people! We don’t need to be hand-wringing and ‘oh-so-sad’ing, we need to be doing our bit to make the world a more inclusive place.
How lonely is life to the profoundly deaf, in that world of total silence? While we, the lucky normal of hearing, get to socialise, listen to the orchestras of living, throbbing humanity, insects, animals, wind, rain, thunder; the irony of appreciating what we call silence.
“The lucky normal of hearing”. For pete’s sake. Has this guy heard of Deaf communities? Or the Internet? Or sign language? Or hearing aids?
There are the severely disabled, disfigured, mentally unwell, every kind of social misfit. Marching in the same single column are the traumatised, the haunted, the inconsolably sad, the congenitally melancholic, the troubled and anguished, the ones made angry growing up in an angry household.
This makes me think of this line of sad people marching in a line of sadness like the saddest conga line ever.
Drink in each lucky moment, folks. Stop sweating the small things or getting vexed over piffling matters. You don't know how lucky you are.
Does this guy realise that disabled people might be reading this??? Or does he just think of them as puppets that God dangles in front of him every now and then so he can think “ah, it’s not so bad, at least I’m not one of those disabled people”.
Nothing could be more pitiful than a pitiable creature who does not see to pity himself, and weeps for the death that Dido suffered through love of Aeneas and not for the death he suffers himself through not loving You, O God, Light of my heart, Bread of my soul, Power wedded to my mind and the depths of my thought.
St Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. F.J. Sheed, 1.13, 13.
