as small as a world and as large as alone, Hi hi hi, friend, I have kind of a stupid...

11:00am October 6, 2013

foood-glorious-foooood-deactiva asked: Hi hi hi, friend, I have kind of a stupid question-- what exactly does ableist mean? (Again, I'm really sorry if this is stupid. ._.)

andreashettle:

:

Ableism is the discrimination and oppression against people who are mentally and/or physically disabled.

Wikipedia has a quick run down of it.

For example, your ask includes the word “stupid” which is considered to be ableist language. (I’d shy away from using words like that in a negative sense.)

Works like stupid, moron, idiot, etc. originated as ways to describe people who were mentally disabled. If I remember correctly (it’s been a while since I’ve researched this, so please correct me if I’m mistaken) these words were originally just used as descriptors. They were a diagnosis of sorts, to describe people who were deemed “unintelligent.” However, because of this, they’ve become nasty slurs and insults that can be used against people, regardless of whether or not they’re disabled.

Same things with words like “lame” used to describe something as uncool. It’s ableist because it insinuates that there is something terrible wrong with people who are not able bodied.

Here is a longer list of ableist words.

I hope this was helpful.

If I’ve said anything problematic, or phrased something in a problematic way, please let me know so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Ableism (known in the UK as “disableism”) is much much more than just a list of words to avoid. Although it’s good to avoid words that have a hurtful history behind them (many of which are still used as insults toward people with disabilities), this only barely scratches the surface of what ableism means in the daily lives of people with disabilities.

Ableism is when a new building is constructed with accessibility barriers, even though integrating full access into the design costs less than 1% of the cost of construction in order to accommodate the 15% of the population who are people with disabilities.

Ableism is when an employer realizes that an applicant is a person with a disability and quietly stops returning their emails and phone calls even though, just hours earlier, they had invited them to an interview and had seemed to think the applicant had outstanding qualifications. Ableism is when an employer simply assumes that “clearly” a person with a disability cannot possibly do the job without even taking the time to learn the truth. Without even ASKING, “so this job would require you to do X, how would you accomplish X”?

Ableism is when a teacher doesn’t bother to correct a student’s mistakes or confront a student on making poor excuses because they think, “the poor child is disabled, she can’t do as well as the other kids, I can be nice and just leave them be”.

Ableism is when a store allows clutter in their aisles that allow walking people to pass through but without leaving enough room for a wheelchair user or crutch user to pass through.

Ableism is when a TV show or movie is made without bothering to caption it so deaf people can understand what is said and be aware of tone of voice, sound effects, back ground noises etc in the program.

Ableism is making the same TV show or movie without providing audio description to allow blind people to know what sighted people are seeing on the screen.

Ableism is when important information about a serious emergency situation is conveyed only via sound (such as spoken words or an alarm/siren) without providing captions or sign interpreters or any other visual access for deaf people.

Ableism is when important information on how to protect yourself from AIDS or other conditions are only provided in print without any audio files or Braille for blind people.

Ableism is when a government establishes policies and funding in such a way that it is far easier to get funds for certain care that some people with disabilities may need inside an institution than it is to receive the same services in one’s own home in the community. In other words, ableism is when funding systems essentially force people with disabilities to be confined to institutions against their will because they may have no other way to receive the care they need. Even though receiving the same services at home is usually much cheaper.

Ableism is when people with disabilities are disproportionately targeted for violence at home, in institutions, and everywhere else.

Ableism is when people with disabilities try to bring complaints to the police and the police decide not to pursue their case because, “She’s blind she can’t identify the attacker” (without considering that the blind person may have known the person, or could recognize their voice or even their smell). Or, the police fail to provide a good quality interpreter when interviewing a deaf person trying to bring a complaint. Or decide that a person with intellectual disabilities or psychosocial disabilities can’t be competent to bring a complaint and don’t take them seriously. Or maybe the police are okay but the court system fails to provide adequate accommodations for their disabilities like sign interpreters for deaf people, or taking more time to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities understand what is going on.

Ableism is when people with disabilities are afraid to bring allegations of abuse against their carer because they fear it will result in their being confined to an institution: some people with disabilities fear institutions more than they fear further abuse from the person they depend on for daily care.

Ableism is when doctors ignore complaints from people with psychosocial disabilities and instead blame all physical symptoms on their psychosocial disability even when there is no logical basis for making this assumption and a lot of evidence that there really is a physical problem that should be investigated.

Ableism is when a doctor finally listens to a person with psychosocial disabilities and tests them, and finds out that they really DO have a very very serious physical illness. But it’s too late to treat it because the illness has been neglected for the past 10 years, since the patient started trying and trying to bring it to doctor’s attention. There’s a reason why people with psychosocial disabilities, and people with intellectual reasons often die as much as 10 to 25 years earlier on average than the general population, and this is why.

All the videos and reports at this website provide documented evidence of ableism in practice: http://www.disabilityrightsintl.org/ (Click on media gallery)

Ableism can come in all sizes, small and large. Many forms of ableism are microaggressions (there are a few disability-related microaggressions at microaggressions.tumblr.com though they are not always tagged in a way to make it easy to find them.) Most of the time, using ableist language is a microaggression (though people with disabilities who are targeted for harassment or hate crimes may also have ableist insults thrown at them while they are attacked, beaten, etc.: people who have experienced harassment or hate crimes may feel more strongly about ableist language because of it.) Other forms of ableism can lead to torture, violence, institutionalization, or death, or all the above. And there are all shades in between as well.

For personal stories of various types of ableism that people with diverse disabilities have experienced, try exploring some of the many blog posts submitted each year to the Blogging Against Disableism Day on May 1: the 2013 edition is at http://blobolobolob.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blogging-against-disablism-day-2013.html

And if that’s not enough, check out the archives for the same event in past years: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Or if you prefer documented, empirical research, check out the World Report on Disability from the World Bank and the World Health Organization. It doesn’t use the word “disableism” but many of the things it covers (such as negative attitudes toward people with disabilities and the marginalization and exclusion we often experience from society) certainly fit into the definition of ableism.

You can find many more resources on the human rights of people with disabilities at http://gdrl.org (All the various information portal linked at this page were created as part of the Global Disability Rights Library project. Any violation of the human rights of people with disabilities is, by definition, a form of ableism)

Of course it’s up to you how far you want to delve into this. But if you do, I think these resources, particularly http://gdrl.org, can take you a long way.