Disabled Inspiration

Disabled Inspiration

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-03/young-inspiration-porn/4107006

CAN'T YOU TAKE A JOKE?

Can't You Take A Joke?

http://higherunlearning.com/2012/11/11/cant-you-take-a-joke/

HOW TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT PRIVILEGE

HOW TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT PRIVILEGE

http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/12/how-to-talk-to-someone-about-privilege/

ableism

You learn that ableism is oppression, discrimination, and prejudice against the disabled or those presumed disabled.

Ableism is the word that puts a name to every time that journalists, who are supposed to be objective yet committed to compassion and justice, say that people with psychiatric disabilities are inhuman and a problem of society, or that autistics like me are incapable of experiencing or understanding feelings. Or when they say we're a public health crisis. Or when they say we're monsters who need to be locked up for the good of society because we're dangerous. Or when politicians and universities and news producers consult everyone but actually disabled people on disability issues, hold panels on multiple perspectives on disability, and do all of this without any actually disabled people, and say that that's because a we have nothing valuable to say.

Ableism is the word that puts a name to every time that parents and caregivers murder disabled children, or when the media exculpatory them, or when hundreds of non-disabled parents flock to their defense. And when actually disabled people are called heartless, incapable of empathy, and not understanding someone else's perspective when we mourn for the loss of those disabled people.

Because when people can say, "autistics should be killed" with impunity and hardly more than a second glance from the public, that's ableism. And when people can say those are just words and they can't hurt, and they're ignoring the actually real, actually present danger to Autistics who dare to speak up -- death threats, rape threats, actual assaults, and murder -- that's not merely privilege; that's fucking privilege.

And allies -- understand that ableism is not a game. Ableism is not being offended. Ableism is abuse and violence and murder. Ableism is what gets us killed and our killers acquitted in the court of public opinion and often the court of law. These are our lives, and that's exactly what's at stake.

http://www.autistichoya.com/2013/02/autistics-shoulddear-allies.html

Response to audism

Asking Change dot org to avoid endorsing less than optimal language, and even asking people to think about issues of culture and choice, does not equal "demonizing" anybody's parents. The sooner that conclusion-jump goes away, the better off we will all be.

a mother, who gets that when people teach me what it's like for kids who are not white, that is not the same thing as me being attacked/demonized/silenced etc.

Also, I'd like to say that as someone who is disabled, I am very much in a position to judge non-disabled parents for what they do to their disabled children. And it is my RESPONSIBILITY to speak up for the disabled child.

Thing is, when we point any parental decision, motivation or mentality out as being problematic, or even less than an absolute and indisputable truth, we get accused of "judging." And sometimes that, or even actual calling out and judging, needs to happen. Parents aren't universally perfect and benevolent by virtue of being parents.

Also, what someone chooses for themselves making an informed decision and what a person's parents or other relatives want and choose for them are two completely different things, especially when it's stuff that isn't lifesaving or preserving existent functioning.

"parents are not benevolent because they are parents, and parenting decisions are not made in a vacuum separate of oppression. No disabled or Deaf person should be shamed or judged for their decisions, but able-bodied and hearing people can and should be. If you benefit from a system of oppression, the power is on your side, so it is not a 2-way street where everyone is equal. This culture of calling oppressed people "judgmental" for calling out stuff that upholds their own oppression is fucked up. Nondisabled people, even parents, get to be and should be called out on ableism. Also, calling people heroic just for existing as disabled people is hella creepy. Like, cool we don't get to have autonomy (get institutionalized), so being your inspiration is like what? our consolation prize?"

I am not Deaf and I don't think it would be right for me to speculate on what I would do. However, I am disabled, and on that level, I can say that my body is complex and I am more interested in a world that respects that than a cure. Deaf and disabled get to decide what they want for their bodies.

Science and what is pursued under the rubric of science is influenced by social norms and beliefs.

Science also does not exist in a vacuum, and science has been used to hurt and kill marginalized people, such as scientific racism and eugenics. Again, maybe folks should defer to Deaf people on this issue.

A parent telling their child that the child needs to go through surgery to be accepted/acceptable, rather than fighting for their child against an unaccepting society, can hurt like hell.

Instead of empowerment there is the constant need to feel like you have to be fixed.

medical vs social: deaf

There are several important points to consider here that I think you are completely missing. 

1.) Most doctors and most parents are operating within a framework that already medicalizes and pathologizes biological, physical, and mental differences and deviations that do not need to be medicalized and pathologized. While any individual doctors and parents can be perfectly well-intentioned (and I will be quite generous in extending this benefit of the doubt to "most" doctors and parents, as, make no mistake, there ARE abusive parents and doctors), this does not mean that their decisions, ideas, and attitudes are free of social context. For example, a father who is a member of the Ku Klux Klan might not be physically or emotionally abusive to his children, and may in fact be otherwise a very good parent, but if he decides to indoctrinate his children in racist ideas, keep his children in segregated schools or homeschool groups, he most likely believes very strongly that this is in his child's best interests, but his decisions are most certainly informed by his racism. 

Likewise, parents choosing forced medical procedures for their children on the assumption that their quality of life will or must necessarily be better if their bodies or brains functioned in the same was as most people's may very well have the best of intentions and believe that they are doing what is best for their children, but it does not in any way detract from the fundamentally ableist and audist attitudes that are pervasive in U.S. society, which is the context in which these parents are making those decisions. 

2.) The presumption that to be hearing must automatically be better or worthwhile or valuable than to be deaf, hard of hearing, or otherwise "hearing impaired" (a phrase I've heard some people use), is one that is profoundly audist and ableist, because it completely ignores and denies the real, lived experiences of many thousands (millions?) of d/Deaf people around the world. The Deaf people that are in this thread, and those who have written very eloquently on these issues, would argue very much that their lives and experiences are valuable and worthwhile, and certainly not lesser or diminished by virtue of deafness. 

3.) If you were then to argue that those people are simply biased by personal experience, can you then argue that the "doctors and parents" who oppose Deaf rights, disability rights, etc. are not biased by personal experience? This goes to the question of sociological privilege. Those who are privileged by being hearing, temporarily able-bodied, and neurotypical are also privileged in that their opinions and experiences are not merely centered as normative, but presumed to be objective and detached from personal biases. Conversely, those who are marginalized, who are deaf and disabled, are presumed to be utterly subjective (and not even truly capable of holding a "rational" opinion or thought to begin with at worst) and always tied to personal biases that de-legitimize and invalidate those opinions and experiences.-Lydia

Cochlear Implant

" Why would you trust the doctors and the parents over the experience and perspective of people with disabilities? Is it an attachment to the soothing prescriptive nature of the medical institution? These comments endorsing the implant for the child demonstrate a willingness to accept this prescription based on fears of deaf and preference for hearing. Cochlear implants do not restore hearing, they do not always work, there is no guarantee the child will learn speech and language, and these parents are saying they will use an auditory verbal therapy approach- which excludes sign language. 

Also- this child has auditory neuropathy, not cochlea hearing issues. Implanting AN children is experimental at this time. How many of you have consoled friends with failed CIs? Taught students with failed CIs, watched them fearfully be pressured into surgeries? Watch students with failed CIs, side effects, language delays and other issues come into the classroom? 

You can trust the ableist institution of medical treatment- but some of us are cleaning up after it and do not appreciate being disrespected here."-Julia