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12:10pm August 11, 2013

➸ Trying to find the right words: youneedacat: Trying to find the right words: I am anti-cure josiahd:...

youneedacat:

Trying to find the right words: I am anti-cure

josiahd:

But you know what else I’m against?

Refusing to acknowledge that impairments are a thing and being super judgmental of people who do things in order to be less impaired. Or to accommodate their impairments in…


I really, really hate the way some people try to apply appropriation to disability.

It’s not appropriative to use a wheelchair. Even if you just LIKE them and aren’t disabled.

It’s not appropriative to use aug comm, no matter what your reason. You can use it because you have a sore throat. You can use it because you just feel better typing than speaking. You can use it for the TINIEST degree of speech or anxiety problems.

These things are not appropriative. And people who say they are, don’t know what real appropriation is.

(This is also why I don’t buy into “if an oppressed person says something’s oppressive it is."  Not true at all. Oppressed people can be way, way, wrong.  And disabled people calling those things appropriation, don’t need to be listened to just because they’re disabled.)

The thing is, these things are tools. You don’t say a person has to be unable to walk five miles to use a bicycle or car. Wheelchairs aren’t some kind of special medical thing that inherently differ from a bicycle. So I don’t give a crap who uses them.

And often people say things like, "I couldn’t walk if I tried, and I’d never use a chair if I could avoid it. So people who can walk at all shouldn’t use a chair. They’re hurting me.”

Except most people who need a wheelchair can stand or walk a little. And some people don’t need one at all but just like them the way some people like bicycles. And I don’t think either group of people is hurting people who can’t stand.

The hurt is from some pretty selfish feelings, so I see no need to cater to it. There are many things I can’t do at all, and I don’t give a shit whether people more able to do those things use the same tools I use.

Many things started as assistive technology and then caught on with nondisabled people. Typewriters (and thus all keyboards) among them. I don’t think it’s right to restrict tools to disabled people unless there’s a serious shortage. But normally there’s no need for a triage mentality. Or a “look how much I suffer, if you don’t suffer like me you don’t deserve it” mentality.