My scrap of dirt

Through an NPR report that a friend recommended, I started reading chaoticidealism's journal, and I suggest you all do the same. In my own time I've focused more on the type of marginalization that non-whiteness, non-heterosexuality and femininity/femaleness bring onto people, but obviously marginalization isn't limited to these particular experiences. Disability studies is an entire big field that I've only been able to dip into briefly, but which I find fascinating because it speaks to me on the same level as the stuff that I'm more familiar with.

The experience of oppression at the hand of a dominant group has much potential for enabling people with different experiences to connect and empathize with each other (that doesn't mean equating the experience of being black with the experience of being gay, but rather it means recognizing the different forms that systemic oppression can take). I love to be reminded of that by reading thoughtful, non-essentialist reflections from someone else who's been thinking about this sort of stuff.

I particular enjoyed this post entitled "Joining the Disability Rights Movement", on the place of the neurodiversity community (which includes people with autism) within the larger disability rights movement.

As a sidenote, I love when people in the majority group get labeled, the way that Lisa is using the word 'neurotypical' to describe people who aren't part of the neurodiversity community. It feels weird, but it's an important experience to have when you're part of the dominant group and thus are most likely not used to being labeled constantly (including by people who barely know you). I think we have a lot to gain from being able to recognize the parts of us which enable us to access certain types of privilege.

EDIT: From a new post of chaoticidealism, not the one I was mentioning, but it sums up the argument wonderfully:

But sometimes, I see people who say, "I'm high-functioning. I'm not like those low-functioning people over there." And then they advocate for the rights of high-functioning people only, by whatever arbitrary standard they're using today to define "high-functioning", because at some level down deep, they're still trying to justify their existence. They feel like they've got to say, "I'm valuable because I can do X, Y, and Z", and distance themselves as much as possible from "disability". They don't realize that the solution is to challenge the disability stereotype that they're taking for granted. And they don't realize that it's valid to say, "I'm valuable," no strings attached, with disability or no disability completely irrelevant.

First, arcadiane wrote this excellent post on Where The Wild Things Are (the movie). I realized I'd never written about the movie and what I thought about it but she's said it all, pretty much, and I'm still not sure I have my own words to talk about it. I can see how people would hate the movie and find it boring, but if you can let yourself be taken by the beauty, the quiet, the kid's point of view, and not look for a plot, it's exactly what I would have wanted this movie to be, I think.

Second, I actually discovered this a while ago but I don't think I've ever linked to them: ASL songs. They're vids that put songs into ASL language (I'm assuming you can do the same with other sign languages, but as in the world of hearing, American stuff dominates online) and they're damn cool. Two awesome guys who do them are CaptainL0ver (his version of If You Seek Amy is particularly awesome, but check out more) and CaptainValor (I love him in Party in the USA). And then there's this adorable teen (and the girl he learned it from) doing it on Hot 'n' Cold (they're not super fluent or putting the rhythm into it as much, but he's super cute). (They're all a little gay and effeminate, too, which, <3.)

Third, not so much with the fun and funny, my f-list is awesome and shared links with me about James Cameron's Avatar that I wanted to share back with everybody:
- About the white privilege perspective in the movie, check out When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?, which is dead-on throughout the entire article, but I want to highlight this paragraph:

These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the "alien" cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become "race traitors," and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It's not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it's not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It's a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

- About ableism in the movie, read Future of Portrayals of Disability in Movies? Cameron’s Avatar. I thought about a lot of that as soon as I saw Jake in a wheelchair. :/

I wanted to share a paragraph in a book that really spoke to me on the topic of why the notion of impartiality actually reifies the dominance of certain perspectives over others. I haven't read the chapter where the author develops her point, but I thought this was nice to share as a starting point for thinling about this.

From Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (p.10-11):

Some feminist and postmodern writers have suggested that a denial of difference structures Western reason, where difference means particularity, the heterogeneity of the body and affectivity, or the inexhaustibility of linguistic and social relations without a unitary, undifferentiated origin. This book seeks to show how such a denial of difference contributes to social group oppression, and to argue for a politics that recognizes rather than represses difference. Thus Chapter 4 argues that the ideal of impartiality, a keystone of most modern moral theories and theories of justice, denies difference. The ideal of impartiality suggests that all moral situations should be treated according to the same rules. By claiming to provide a standpoint which all subjects can adopt, it denies the difference between subjects. By positing a unified and universal moral point of view, it generates a dichotomy between reason and feeling. Usually expression in counterfactuals, the ideal of impartiality expresses an impossibility. It serves at least two ideological functions, moreover. First, claims to impartiality feed cultural imperialism by allowing the particular experience and perspective of privileged group to parade as universal. Second, the conviction that bureaucrats and experts can exercise their decisionmaking power in an impartial manner legitimates authoritarian hierarchy.

652€ disability cheque: How am I supposed to live?

I've been thinking and talking about disability quite a lot these past couple of days, so it's a happy coincidence that today is Blogging Against Disablism Day (or should that be Ableism?). I wish I had more time to do one coherent post based on the discussion that I had following my post on the deaf kid storyline in House, especially since a lot is in French.

I'm not extremely familiar with ableism (which is defined as "discriminatory, oppressive or abusive behaviour arising from the belief that disabled people are inferior to others"), but from having worked on other forms of discrimination and privilege, I think I would rather use and think about able-bodied privilege than ableism. The difference is important to me.

Ableism, like homophobia/heterosexism or racism, tends to refer to specific actions or thoughts, and assumes that disability is a clearly-defined state, an objective fact if you will. Ableism may be unconscious, but it is still the result of what an individual person did or said.

Abled privilege, on the other hand, invites us to think about the context that makes ableist behavior possible. It challenges not individuals who -unconsciously or not - engage in abileism, but in a system that favors and rewards being able-bodied (in the larger sense, including mental disabilities). Focusing on the consequences of living in a world that privileges the able-bodied is not unimportant, it is a very practical concern. We need to think about how our world and assumptions constantly silence, marginalize and inferiorize the disabled, and to think about the practical and very real changes we can make the world more welcoming for people with a disability. But it's even more important that, as we make efforts to enact changes, we think of the framework that we are working with. If we don't, we run the risk of supporting changes that are in fact still embedded in a way of thinking that posits that being able-bodied is better. And while that might still make the world more physically accessible to people with disability, it doesn't change how we make them feel in this world. Trying to address the consequences (ableism) without thinking about the context (abled privilege) runs the risk of having the very presumptuous and conceited attitude of thinking we know better, and thinking we are doing disabled people a favor, instead of correcting something that is our fault.


Because I've been mostly reading up and talking about deafness and deaf culture in the past few days, I want to finish by focusing on this particular "disability" here. I'd like to invite you to read on controversial issues within the deaf community, for example why attempts to integrate deaf students in general-education might not serve deaf students as much as ourselves and what we like to believe about our culture of "inclusion".

Also, this really only works for French people, but here is a visual lexicon for LSF (French Sign Language) for people who are interested in learning more than the alphabet. It doesn't replace actually taking classes, of course, but it's an interesting resource. Maybe we could at very least learn to say "hi", "sorry" and "bye" - bare minimum to say the least, but it's a first small step.

I'd also like to take advantage of this post to highlight some links that lounalune shared with me. I haven't had time to read them but I already know they will be good food for thought. :)

And to finish, a poem that I found here and really liked, and lyrics from a song I've been listening to too much and seemed appropriate.


Thoughts of a Deaf Child

My family knew that I was deaf
When I was only three, and since then fifteen years ago
Have never signed to me.
I know when I'm around the house,
I try and use my voice,
It makes them feel more comfortable;
For me, I have no choice.
I try, communicate their way-
Uncomfortable for me.
My parents wouldn't learn sign
Ashamed or apathy?
I never cared about the sound of radios and bands;
What hurts me most is, I never heard
My parents' signing hands.

-Stephen J. Bellitz
Reprinted from Senior News, July 1991




This one's for the lonely
The ones that seek and find
Only to be let down
Time after time

This one's for the faithless
The ones that are surprised
They are only where they are now
Regardless of their fight

This is for the ones who stand
For the ones who try again
For the ones who need a hand
For the ones who think they can


- Greg Laswell, Comes and Goes in Waves

Throwing a bunch of random links at you:

- How to Suppress Discussions of Racism by coffeeandink.

- Prop 8 related: the SoliHairity Project, with photos of people I know (all the white backgrounds).
- Prop 8 related, 2: California's Attorney General on why it should be overturned.

- Un article du Monde sur une étude faite par le MAG sur les jeunes LGBT.

- An awesome-sauce interview by Joss Whedon (as usual) (for people outside the U.S. the transcription is beneath the video). Some of his answers literally made me laugh out loud.

"If you have a good idea, get it out there. For every idea I've realized, I have ten I sat on for a decade till someone else did it first. Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.
As for my success, well, I'm for it."

"The West fascinates me because it's the creation of culture and morality out off nothing but remnants. But it lacks spaceships! Solution: Firefly."

And of course: "DON'T TELL RHODE ISLAND."

"See, if we can't notice color, if I'm not allowed to notice color, I'm not going to have a very easy time understanding or acknowledging the consequences of color."

If you're white, and ESPECIALLY if you feel concerned by racism, but even if you don't, I BEG you to watch this presentation by Tim Wise. I know it's an hour long. Every minute of it is worth it because this is something we don't talk about. Not in those terms, and it's extremely important that we do. That we understand what whiteness and white privilege is, that we understand what we gain from it and how it hurts us, because it does.

(People of color should also really, really watch this to familiarize themselves with the argument and because it's a really fascinating presentation. It's just that for white people it really should be close to an obligation.)

This, by the way, touches upon why I think France's approach of "we're all equal! we can't distinguish one another by skin color! this is racism!" is problematic at best. In the words of Time Wise (and to repeat the point made by the quote above) "if we're colorblind, we can't discuss white privilege". We need to acknowledge color so we can deal with the consequences.

Interestingly enough, this morning on metaquotes someone quoted nightengalesknd talking about the phrase 'I don't think of you as disabled' and why that's actually offensive to disabled people. It is the exact same mechanism at work here.

When we don't acknowledge difference and inequalities, it's always to the advantage of the dominant group.