My answer would be no. When I was a child I did have ableist tendencies. I experienced a few wake up calls around the age of 14 which helped open my eyes to prejudicial and ignorant attitudes I had.
A fair portion of the discussion of ableism does get brought up by disability rights advocates and I’m sure depending on how far the definition gets stretched that some of my views would be considered by some as ableist. For instance I don’t oppose terminating pregnancies of children likely to be born disabled, as much as I may find motives unfortunate if that potential life is seen as an inconvenience or inherently worth less. I think there are altruistic and practical reasons for doing so. I also am in favor of exploring scientific breakthroughs which would lead to detection of autism in the early natal stages, which puts me at odds with some of their advocacy community.
You’d have to define ableist, but many folk would likely consider me so.
I am concerned about the resources directed towards profoundly impaired individuals, such as special education. I also question healthcare resources directed towards impaired infants/children, who will never become contributing members of our economy. Same on the amount of resources directed towards the aged and infirm.
I’m also opposed to the seemingly ever-expanding definition of disabled, to include as treatable and accomodatable disabilities what may be personality traits or the results of poor choices. The very term “disabled” contributes to a perception of the individual as permanently impaired and deserving of ongoing assistance.
Finally, I find I’m often troubled by the idea of what accommodations I consider “reasonable.”
In short, on many issues, I fail to go as far as disability-rights advocates urge. My disagreement is generally with respect to the extent of assistance/accommodations, but if that disagreement makes me ableist, I guess I am.
Actually, I skew toward the opposite of “ableist”. My dad was born with only one arm. He was raised on a farm and was expected to do the same chores as his “able” brother. In high school (big city, urban. No longer on the farm) he lettered in football as a linebacker and track as a pole vaulter. Yes, a one armed pole vaulter. I have newspaper articles, clippings and the letters to verify both. He made his living as a mechanic, working on everything from passenger cars to fire trucks. He never asked for nor accepted any accommodation for his “disability”. Well, when he ate at Burger King he did ask that his Whopper be cut in half (the burger, ya gutter minds!.
“I can’t” just didn’t pass muster for him, nor from his kids.
I think that cuts both ways though. Having expectations either too low or too lofty of handicapped people can be problematic. It’s important to listen to people, a wide variety and get their input on institutional accomodation. I have to say it because I know there are those out there who only want to hear about the stories like your father’s and then assume to themselves anyone who looks on the outside no worse off than him needs little to no accomodation. Thanks for sharing.
I took one of those consciousness-raising exercises, and sat in a wheelchair, at college, for three hours. It’s NOT EASY to get around! Everything is just plain hard to reach. Doors are darn hard to open.
Others in the same class were “blind” for three hours. I didn’t have the courage to try that.
We who are able take a hell of a lot for granted, that some others are denied entirely. The very least we can do is try to make a few engineering concessions – like walk/don’t walk signs that speak aloud, and wheelchair ramps wherever possible.
Wow. I’m rendered speechless. Ableism is, in my opinion, is the most insidious of the “isms”. Unlike sexism and racism, which have accessible (no pun intended) platforms upon which to address and combat them, ableism is never really discussed and has an even larger obstacle to awareness. Our experiences and voices are marginalized before they are even heard in a genuine matter. Nobody would admit to being an ableist, handicapped people are pitied and treated with kid gloves. It’s taboo as hell to admit, for example, that someone would be adverse to dating a person who uses a wheelchair. 99% of people enthusiastically say they would in fact date a disabled person when the truth is nothing even resembling that.
Our experiences of “otherness” are boxed in by a unspoken belief that the disabled are less complete people who operate on a different plane than “normal” people. For example, while most pepole would never think it was appropriate or ok to totally violate a fellow able bodied person personal space or put their hands on a their bodies, its a very common occurrence to have a disabled person’s personal space and autonomy ignored. Whether it be basically reaching inside a disabled person’s car (to “help” of course) without even asking or not seeing them as humans with a sexual identity, the underlying belief is that disabled people have different priorities in their lives and they’d APPRECIATE the assistance and because of their reduced sexual function, they have a corresponding reduction in sexual desire/frustration.
I will not keep rambling but I could discuss this issue for hours. But the heart of the insidiousness of ableism is the fact that NO ONE even thinks they are guilty of mistreating disabled because they have “good intentions” and are just trying to help. We are evaluated in a very different light than non-disabled people.
I don’t think I would ever be mean or callous towards the disabled, but I do admit to not being 100% thrilled when I’m approached by a person with obvious mental disabilities. And when emotionally disturbed people sit next to me on the bus, I feel uncomfortable. I don’t get up and move away. But I still feel a certain way. Afraid.
I wish I could say that I’m not, but I can guarantee that I have at least some habits/ingrained reactions that could be labeled as ableist.
I will also admit that I have had some thoughts along the lines of Dinsdale’s, although not as extreme.
I don’t believe that every activity and every location need to be accessible to everyone.
I will never play pro-basketball (to short)
I will never be a runway model (lots of reasons)
My SO will never be a professional electrician (color blind)
I will never be fluent in 5 languages or memorize the complete works of Bach (my brain just doesn’t work that way)
None of us can do everything. And we only hamper those that can do something well, by demanding that it become accessible to all (you probably don’t want tickets to hear a choir that I’m part of)
Yes, some people have a much harder row to hoe. Yes, we need to make reasonable accommodations, but we also need to be able to say that I’m sorry, but it’s unreasonable to require some changes in some cases.
I will never be able to perform certain tasks due to my physical disability. This is unrelated to whether or not I am afforded accessibility to realize my potential. Its simply that no potential even exists. Things that are inaccessible to me due to a lacking of external pathways are the things that are part of Ableism. For example, I don’t have impairment of ability to use a public bathroom (meaning im not unable to successfully urinate).
But I don’t have the same access to realize my potential of using said restroom. My sole option is constantly inaccessible because other able-bodied people choose that option, leaving no option for the disabled. What would be ideal is recognizing that stall to be selected out of necessity, not choice. Yes, sometimes the able-bodied have no other option than to use the handicapped stall. Its a necessity in that circumstance. While its a uncommon necessity for ABs, its a necessity for the disabled every-single-time. We should be afforded a comparable ability to use the restrooms.
The phrase “an ableist” strikes me as weird. I don’t know of anyone who actually promotes ableism in the same way some people promote racist ideologies. I’ve heard some people say “survival of the fittest,” but not in regard to the actual disabled. I just don’t see there being anyone who is primarily pro-ableism, even if I do see a lot of ableism. It mostly seems to be out of ignorance.
Do I personally have some ableist tendencies? Yes. Am I fighting them? Definitely. Because ableism is the one form of bigotry actually directed my way, I’m more aware than most. You’ll note my use of “bigotry against the mentally ill” in plenty of places on this board, even.
That sad, a lot of what is said to be ableist isn’t. It really does get into “don’t say any of these words,” which is weird. I give them “retarded” because of how it is used. But “crazy”? Sorry, but the mere use of that word doesn’t work. And “lame”? Who even uses that to mean people who can’t walk? Same with “dumb.” I do tend to avoid using these terms about people (except as a joke). But to say the words themselves are ableist flies in the face of my own personal experience.
I do acknowledge, however, that those who do freak out over those words have their hearts in the right place. I do not get turning them into some sort of villain. They’re just wrong. Though, if they are personally offended, I will avoid that language around them. It’s easy enough, so I don’t get why some people act like it’s so hard.
This is the first time I’ve heard the term, but I’d say I’m not an ableist. My daughter (who’s twenty-five now) is in a wheelchair, my brother-in-law has been in a wheelchair for about the last four years, and my cousin was in a wheelchair until he died this summer. So I’m pretty well steeped in non-ableism or whatever.
In fact, I still reflexively fret about disabled access anywhere I’m going even if I’m not going there with either my daughter or my brother-in-law. So I’m not an ableist though forced education, I suppose.
Guess I spoke too soon. Because that’s pretty much ableism. It’s one step away from eugenics, considering whether someone is productive to society to decide whether they deserve medical care. You’re just killing indirectly instead of directly.
People do not have value based on what they can contribute to society. Now, I can argue that you have less value if you actively make society worse. But the default is that you have the value of a human being.
Viewing their value based on their ability is indeed a form of ableism.
A belief, subconsciously and/or consciously held, in the inherent inferiority of the disabled. As found with “isms” such racism, ableism manifests in individuals as well as in structural, societal barriers.
What do you mean by “inherent”? Like, just for example, I think that deaf people are inherently inferior when it comes to hearing compared to non-deaf people. Is that ableist? How about the belief that neurotypical people are generally smarter than those with Down Syndrome?
I cannot walk, so I’m inherently “inferior” as a walker than my able-bodied counterparts. Ableism becomes a factor when that specific handicap is extrapolated into much wider issues unrelated to the actual disability. For example, due to the real and/or perceived sexual-physical limitations of people with disabilities, much of the world sees us as asexual beings who do not have the same biological and physical needs and drives as ABs.
Someone who can hear has an advantage over people who can’t hear. But the former is not superior to the latter anymore than a rich person is superior to a poor person, or a white person is superior to a black person.
I like you, Ambi, so please don’t take this the wrong way. But I don’t understand how you can understand the unconsciousness of abelism so well, but in the other thread you struggled to understand unconscious racism. Seems like if you understand one, you’d automatically understand the other.
Personally, I think racism and ableism have close parallels. People think because they have friends or significant others of different races, they are immune from racism–which is stupid. Also stupid is the notion that people can’t have racist beliefs about their own race. The same applies to abelism. You can have family members who are disabled. You can be disabled yourself. And you can still have some fucked-up beliefs about people with disabilities because we are all bombarded with the same stereotypes (“Crazy people is dangerous.” “Everyone who is a fucktard has Asperger’s.” “People in wheelchairs are all weirdos who can’t get laid.”) We all hear the same subtle messaging (“People with intact hearing are superior to people with hearing impairments.”) It would be real difficult NOT to have some abelist tendencies living in this society.
The same goes for racism.
Personally, I suspect my abelism comes from childhood bullying. No one ever teased me over my race or gender, but they did give me a hard time over my odd movements and my weird speech. I didn’t grow up hearing “nigger” or “slut”. But I did hear “retard” and “crazy” and “flickted” all the time. So yeah, when I encounter people who ping as “retard” and “crazy” and “flickted”, I feel a certain way. I don’t think I act on these feelings (I’m not put in any situations where I would need to act a certain way). But hell yeah, the feelings are there.
If a person is a resource burden on family and is a constant source of stress, and everyone in the family is kinda secretly hoping that the person just dies already so the family can move on, is it wrong to assess that person’s life as having little value? If a person’s life creates more havoc than good, then can’t it be argued that their life is making society worse–even if the impact is just limited to the scale of a family unit?
People with messed-up amygdala often have psychopathic tendencies. They don’t all grow up to be serial killers though. They may just create hell for their families. Is it wrong to call such people “worthless”?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I don’t think all lives are valuable just because they exist.
