10:51pm July 20, 2014

Reclaiming Ableism IMPORTANT NEW NOTE

IMPORTANT NOTE: People are telling me the #ableism tag gets trolled. So anyone who doesn’t want to get trolled, should maybe only post in #this is ableism. And people can choose whether to tag their posts #ableism or not. All other parts of this post remain the same.

I want to invite everyone who has had an experience with ableism, to post it to the #ableism tag. Not just now. But as an ongoing thing. Not just ourselves, but also when those we care about face ableism, as long as no privacy is being violated. This would be not just on the #ableism tag, but maybe also a #this is ableism tag as well. Both tags together, and any other tags we felt fit.

Why do I want this so badly? Because when I first went on the #ableism tag, easily 95% of the posts were people arguing about whether certain language was ableist. And then when nondisabled people would list their lists of oppressions, they’d talk all about the oppressions different oppressed people faced. And then at the end, they would mention ableism. And their description of ableism would be something like “Don’t say stupid, retarded, or crazy, because it’s ableist. Countering ableism is about avoiding ableist words.”

That’s why I was so angry. Not because people were focusing on words, but because it was all people were focusing on. Meanwhile I’d almost died because of ableism, and people weren’t talking about those kinds of situations much at all. Not on the #ableism tag anyway.

So here’s what I suggest we do, and I’d love if this really took off:

Any time that we remember, and can write about, and want to write about, an instance of ableism in our lives, whether big or small, past or present. Then we do so. And we tag it #ableism. And we also tag it #this is ableism. And whatever other tags we find relevant. And we see what happens. We see whether the tag grows to represent a much broader range of ableist experiences than it currently does.

Mind you, right now the tag is better than when I first saw it. But there’s still a lot of people who have only linked to it because they’re trying to get someone to quit saying ‘stupid’ in their ask box. Which may be legit for them, but when it’s half the posts on the #ableism tag, and half the rest are troll posts, there’s something wrong. And I’d love to see the tag be more representative of the ableism faced by disabled people in everyday life, around the world, every single day.

By the way, if it matters, I’m physically disabled, cognitively disabled, developmentally disabled, learning disabled, congenitally disabled, acquired disabled, stably disabled, progressively disabled, chronically ill, and psychiatrically disabled. And I’ve had experience in most communities associated with those things, most notably the DD community since that’s where my services come from. All my family and friends are disabled almost without exception, and I see ableism constantly as a result in my life and theirs. And while ableist words are part of that ableism, they’re only one part, and not the biggest or the worst, in our lives anyway.

So, go ahead, post your memories and current experiences, about yourself, about other disabled people (if ethical to do so), about current things, about past things, even fears for the future, if it’s about ableism, then #ableism and #this is ableism are the tags for it. If your experience does have to do with words, that’s fine, too – ableism does happen with language, after all. And we’ll see what happens. Any takers?