1 MAy

01 May 2007
Blogging against disablism
As I'm sure everyone knows, today is interesting for 3 reasons:1. It's the 10 year anniversary of Tony Blair becoming prime minister 2. It's my mum's 60th birthday 3. It's blogging against disablism day Blogging against disablism dayThere's a snazzy image that goes with it, but I can't work out how to get it on to here - so you'll just have to go and have a look for yourself!
I'm planning to ignore 1), might blog more about 2) after tonight's birthday dinner, and like the good disability activist that I am, join in with 3) by blogging (briefly!) about some random thoughts on disablism.

Disablism is discrimination against people on the grounds of disability. Just like we have the race relations act that supposedly protects people from racism, the disability discrimination act is meant to protect the rights of disabled people. Leaving aside the question of whether either act actually manages what it sets out to do, social attitudes are at least as important as the law. Recent reports have shown a) a high level of social discrimination against disabled people (questions were along the lines of 'how would you feel if someone with X impairment moved in next door/married your sister) and b) that employers basically think it's too much effort to employ disabled people because "they don't know what words to use to describe disability". Right.

Part of last nights housegroup discussion about Selfish Young People went on to talk about how people don't have any time, that they're constantly busy with jobs, kids, houses etc. And though the discussion didn't go there, one of my big things is that people use this 'i'm so busy' thing as a marker of status, that the 'correct' answer to 'how are you' is 'oh, stressed, lots going on, you know'. But last night one person sat up and said, "I have too much time, what is there to do?" And weirdly that felt like a courageous thing she did - which is ridiculous, when did it get to be brave to admit you're not busy?
This may be a random leap of thinking, but to me the last 2 paragraphs are connected. When society only or mainly values one particular way of being (i.e. the multi tasking superhuman), people who can't for some reason live up to that ideal are going to be seen as less valuable. Obviously some disabled people are great at being superhuman multitaskers, but some aren't. Some disabilities mean that people do things a different way, or they do it a bit slower, or they need some assistance doing it. But instead of being seen as different ways of getting to the same place, it's seen as not quite 'right'. We've started valuing people as human doings, not human beings. I have friends who feel that they're not important, that they lack value, just because they don't have a salaried job... How does that happen??

Admittedly these thoughts are coming mainly from my experience in the worlds of mental health and learning disability, both of which often carry an even greater stigma than physical disability, so I might be a bit biased. But I do find it quite worrying when even in a church setting, the talk immediately turns to what people should be doing (generally for the church or community, depending on the christian persuasion!) - we talk about a faith that says every person has innate value, of a creator who knows the whole of creation intimately, of loving god and other people, and then get side tracked into focusing on what people are or aren't doing. That's a risky strategy in my opinion - it's letting culture dictate faith... Not that I'm arguing that christians should just sit around navel gazing, but that takes us away from disablism and will have to wait for another post I think!
10:10 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove