Thinking about ablist language

[sqbr]

This post is for blogging against disablism day. I'm pretty new to thinking about disability in any serious way so this may all be bunk.

I was plotting out a post in my head the other day and the phrase "I am rather tone deaf to the nuances of american cultures" popped into my head. "Hmm" I thought "Is that ablist language? Do tone deaf people really count as disabled? Would they care? Where do you draw the line?"

And I had a bit of an epiphany. To a certain extent it doesn't matter: while one of the major reasons for avoiding ablist language is to avoid contributing to social bias and discrimination against those disabled people who suffer them, the very idea of using a real illness as a metaphor for a negative trait is indicative of deep problems with the way our society views illness.

Unfortunately, I am low on spoons, so I can't quite articulate my point, but I'll take a punt and try to flesh it out another day.

I think a good example which illustrates my point is "colourblind racism". Briefly: This is when someone "doesn't see" the race of the people they interact with, and so ends up supporting the status quo ie racism and not making allowances for the different experiences people have because of their race.
The reason this term is unfair to colourblind people is that they don't go around saying "I don't see colour! We should all act like colour doesn't exist! You people insisting that red and green traffic-lights mean different things are the real problem!". In my experience they aware of and acknowledge that their vision is flawed, and learn to work around it.

Ablist language works on the assumption that people who have lack certain abilities (whether this makes them disabled or not) are inherently less worthy, and incapable of being as good as anyone else at things involving that ability.

Aaaand that's about the end of my spoons. If you're interested in the topic, have a look at Feminists are fine with being bigots if it’s just ableism which has links which lead to more links... and then I ran out of link clicking spoons :)

Comments

Re: Joint reply to make the conversation easier to keep track of

[sqbr]

I actually just thought that since you'd mentioned the difficulties associated with "crazy", you'd almost certainly read something cogent on the subject.

I have, I linked it :) But no, I don't have a very deep understanding, to a large extent I'm working from general principles about power and representation and then learning the specifics of how it applies to disability.

The thing is: I'm not talking about public policy. I'm not even trying to say definitely what other people should and shouldn't say on ethical grounds. Because I'm not qualified to make those decisions. (I don't recall ever encountering ablist language which applies to me personally) The principle I work from though, and which I am going to try to enforce here is that if people with mental illness, say, claim to find "crazy" hurtful (and from the evidence I've seen, a moderate number of them do) then they don't need to justify it. You can choose not to stop using the word, but you can't deny that they find it hurtful, even if you can't understand why it would be.

I am personally trying to avoid language which I have gotten the impression people find hurtful or damaging, and working through my thoughts publicly to get feedback and encourage other people to think about the issues and make up their own minds based on the opinions of people who suffer as a result of ablist language (ie not me). As to public policy etc, I would listen to what disabled rights etc organisations etc say.

Re: Joint reply to make the conversation easier to keep track of

[attentive]

Yeah, I read the link (referred to it in a different comment -- I thought the fliparound of "not crazy" was interesting).

I realise you're not talking about public policy, nevertheless I believe the process whereby the objections of a few individuals within a notional "category" affected by prejudice are transformed into a general, normative rule of discussion should be carefully moderated (by a representative sample of affected people).

It's easy to imagine people diagnosed with mental illness feeling pigeonholed, patronised and infuriated by a concerned speaker avoiding the use of the term "crazy" because it might offend, when in their case it possibly doesn't. And subsequently resenting other people who'd testified to the offence they take from the term and their influence on the mainstream voice of authority that inevitably seems to have a majority share in the control of discourse*.

I've seen this happen in the case of feminism where women, particularly those who feel in control of their own circumstances and don't want to be portrayed as "in need" by an interfering male-dominated voice of authority, are infuriated by condescending concessions.

I can't see this being a problem with your comments policy though, since you've declared this to be a safe space in which people should be free from whatever oppression, including that related to the use of language, that they suffer from in other contexts. But I think there's a need for us all to understand that while a rule concerning terminology, or modes of speech, or some other instrument of the social sphere might function very effectively in one context, it might be an abject failure in another context.

Specific rules don't cross those contextual boundaries well, they usually need to be redesigned according to their more general formative principles within the new social environment, or the environment itself needs to be changed in preparation for their introduction (cf my earlier comment predicting the response of the Australian public to restricting use of the word "crazy").

* I understand this is in itself a huge problem (and one which I probably exacerbate by being in this discussion and trying to control thereby how discourse "should" change), but it's also just another practical hurdle to effective change.

Re: Joint reply to make the conversation easier to keep track of

[sqbr]

Yeeess....I guess it feels like you're setting up a straw man argument. I think we're arguing past each other: yes, it's important not to heedlessly follow the opinions of a vocal minority who claim to represent a whole group but don't. There's certainly a lot of extreme radical feminist doctrine I disagree with. And yes, you have to modify your approach depending on circumstances.

But you said I do find it difficult to credit certain terms as giving offence -- one example is a generic pejorative term like "crazy". And I was arguing that it does give offense to some people with mental illness, and on this point we now agree.

I do also think that this means it's probably worth avoiding all things being equal. The fact it doesn't bother all mentally ill people doesn't stop it bothering the ones it does. If it turned out that it bothered like ONE mentally ill person and NOONE ELSE minded then I might not try so hard. But...

The point of my post was not the individual use of particular words, but that the existence of ableist language is a symptom of deeper problems in attitude. By putting in a "Do you really want to use that word?" filter I'm forced to consider the (often very ableist) implications of what I'm saying. I mean that's the thing with "tone deaf": I don't think tone deaf people are really going to care, but using that metaphor is still problematic because it reinforces a POV I'm trying to move past. Similarly, stopping myself from using "crazy" has made me confront some deep seated issues with the way I view mental illness. (Of course relying on this argument alone ignores the effect on disabled people and makes it all about the Journey Of Self Discovery, which is not so good. But hey)

Re: Joint reply to make the conversation easier to keep track of

[attentive]

(Failing terribly at stopping discussion.)

I think my line is drawn somewhere else, or doesn't get drawn at all. Even the phenomenon of "giving offence" is much more nuanced than our discussion has admitted to this point, let alone the complex, dynamic environment in which the whole of any human utterance must be considered if you're going to analyse its intersection with power structures to the point where you can propose ways to change that.

But changing language is the means, changing power relations the end. I regard you here as promoting a somewhat reductive axiomatic programme for changing language. It seems to include the principle "if it offends thee, cut it off" as evinced by your comment:

"I do also think that this means it's probably worth avoiding all things being equal. The fact it doesn't bother all mentally ill people doesn't stop it bothering the ones it does."

(Side note: I'm not personally in favour of a hypothetical future in which no one gets "bothered". I'd rather one in which people are all bothered equally where those traits which should provide no basis for systematic discrimination are concerned.)

I assess "crazy" to be a good example of a term with a relative marginal capacity to offend by its mere presence in discourse. Compared to, say, "nigger", which by its mere presence has a great capacity to offend.

That's a unilateral assessment that doesn't have any bearing on how real people actually feel, so I make it tentatively, and in the knowledge that real people have been offended by uses of the term.

But we're not really talking about words but about their use as a tool of oppression. That's what we want to eliminate, but how?

Therefore where in some cases I think proscribing words is useful, in others I believe more nuanced tactics might be better. It is valuable, for instance, to bring the discussion about why you might want to avoid the word "crazy" into mainstream consciousness -- as you have into mine. By having this discussion I've become much more aware of the ablist politics embedded in my usual patterns of speech, which is a good thing for me and for the activist agenda.

It's perhaps more valuable to highlight, satirise, ridicule, invert or "jam" the way a word is used. That's attacking the process whereby its uses derive a power-political outcome, not the word itself.

Trying to ban the actual word in a wider social context seems likely to fail, and fail in a counterproductive way that gives the "normals" every chance to accuse the activists of naïveté and impracticality.

In effect, I see this conversation between us as testing what would happen if you proposed to limit the use of terms in a more general venue, say a university department or a corporate workplace. Except that I'm probably more forgiving than that hypothetical wider audience would be. The last thing you want to do is fail with a proposition like that in a venue where your audience ends by roundly congratulating itself on its disagreement with you, reinforcing prejudice.

Re: Joint reply to make the conversation easier to keep track of

[sqbr]

Trying to ban the actual word in a wider social context seems likely to fail, and fail in a counterproductive way that gives the "normals" every chance to accuse the activists of naïveté and impracticality.

Yes, but I'm not suggesting that. The only time I can remember correcting someone's use of words like "crazy" or "insane" as hyperbole was the official discussion post for an anti-racist community, which felt like a place that should be super careful with it's language, and the author agreed with me and changed it. I don't think we're actually disagreeing on anything here, and since we're a fair way from the actual point of my post this seems like a good time to stop :P