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

[edge-ofthe-sea.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Someone in the sims community (yeah, yeah) tried to claim that they weren't insulting anyone when they said a certain pre-made sim had to have the most "plastic surgery" for a makeover thread because he looked like he had Down's Syndrome. *facepalm*

Excuses? "I have a disabled parent!" and "I'm and EMT, we joke like this all the time!"

GUH. Ablism is a pretty big thing for me. For awhile, I was going into special education (until I realized I don't like teaching) and most of my jobs have been working with those with disorders and disabilities (as well as the older adult population, who are not always as able as the younger population). I know that even I am still learning, but it's personal to me because I have been very invested in my clients and their well-beings. I'm glad you're covering it, even though you stated that you're pretty new to this stuff. :-)

[trouble]

That post by Tikanji just... grrrr.... I've blogged a bit about my issues with the general progressive blogosphere's lack of attention to disability, specifically with feminism because I'm a feminist blogger. I felt I was pretty much told to shut up. (This is likely unfair. But I'm still pissed off about it.) here and here, if you're curious.

[aquaeri]

I hear you.

I got into a totally pointless argument with someone during RaceFail about "blind". Because I hadn't thought about it before, but it was suddenly obvious to me that there's a huuuuuuuuge difference between someone who was born blind and has been all their life, and a sighted person saying "I was blind with rage". And it's really offensive to imply that blind people are illogical/unobservant/swept away by their emotional state. Even if the sighted person temporarily could not see/wasn't processing what was coming in their eyes, that's not the same as being a blind person.

But no way was this person ever going to get my point. What's the saying "none so blind as those who will not see"? (heavy irony markings ahoy!)