Ableism

Remember this?

Trump mocking a reporter. His behavior was inappropriate. His excuse? I was just being funny. Millions in this country still think this is ok. 

A form of discrimination

From Ableism 101 by Ashley Eisenmenger, accessliving.org:

Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. At its heart, ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and defines people by their disability. Like racism and sexism, ableism classifies entire groups of people as ‘less than,’ and includes harmful stereotypes, misconceptions, and generalizations of people with disabilities.

What form does Ableism take? 

Again, from Ableism 101:

• Lack of compliance with disability rights laws like the ADA
• Segregating students with disabilities into separate schools
• The use of restraint or seclusion as a means of controlling students with disabilities
• Segregating adults and children with disabilities in institutions
• Failing to incorporate accessibility into building design plans
• Buildings without braille on signs, elevator buttons, etc.
• Building inaccessible websites
• The assumption that people with disabilities want or need to be ‘fixed’
• Using disability as a punchline, or mocking people with disabilities
• Refusing to provide reasonable accommodations
• The eugenics movement of the early 1900s
• The mass murder of disabled people in Nazi Germany

I've jumped to major aggressions with major consequences, but there are everyday micro-aggressions. Many of them are part of how we interact with people through the language we use, including people in authority.

• “That’s so lame.”
• “He/she seems retarded.”
• "Is he/she slow?"
• "Is there something off about him/her?"
• “That guy is crazy.”
• “You’re acting so bi-polar today.”
• “Are you off your meds?”
• “It’s like the blind leading the blind.”
• “My ideas fell on deaf ears.”
• “She’s such a psycho.”
• “I’m super OCD about how I clean my apartment.”
• “Can I pray for you?”
• “I don’t even think of you as disabled.”

Phrases like this imply that a disability makes a person less than, and that disability is bad, negative, a problem to be fixed, rather than a normal, inevitable part of the human experience.

Many people don’t mean to be insulting, and a lot have good intentions, but even well-meant comments and actions can take a serious toll on their recipients. (Ableism 101)

Turning Around the Micro-Aggressions

According to Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar writing for the Harvard business review in 2020, ableist language largely influences us in three ways:

1. It reveals our unconscious bias.
2. It makes us internalize harmful bias about disability. 
3. It stigmatizes already marginalize people.

Ravishankar suggests we can start with a conscious effort to improve our vocabulary.

Acknowledge the disability around us. More than one billion people worldwide, around 15% of the population, have some type of disability. People with disabilities make up a quarter of the U.S. population. Pro-tip: Don’t try to fix disability; instead fix the oppression.

Learn! Listen more than we talk. become aware of our own biases — many of which we’ve picked up from the people we’ve met, the experiences we’ve had, and the media we’ve consumed throughout our lives — is the first step to educating ourselves. Our biases are learned behavior. That means we can learn new behaviors. Pro-tip: Educate yourself, and don’t rely on others to teach you.

Don't make assumptions about someone's identity.  Focus on the fact that people with disabilities are first and foremost, just people. An example of this would be saying “a person with a disability” instead of “a disabled person.” Pro-tip: Golden rule is: When you’re unsure of someone’s identity, just ask.

When you make a mistake, genuinely apologize. Saying something like, I'm sorry if what I said may have hurt you is not an apology. Pro tip: This isn’t about your opinions; it’s about how the other person feels.

I remember mom saying, "Watch what you say," and "Keep a civil tongue in your head." The rebukes may have stung a little, but she was right. I hope part of what she was trying to teach me stuck.