sekritly a social justice radical

Last Tuesday night I was at a visioning session [and yes, I would like a less ableist term for that] for a group I've been involved with for much of this year, and I repeatedly said that social justice isn't where my passion is. And just about every time I said it, I felt a little twinge like I was lying -- because fat pol and disability pol and mental health pol ... these are all issues that have become very important to me. But they're not issues where people are going to say, "Yes, I'm totally on board with that -- or at least as a good liberal I feel like I 'should' be."

And so I frequently don't speak up and advocate for these things I care about, because I am, contrary to how I may appear, frequently a risk-averse confrontation-avoidant person. (Reasons I don't self-identify as an activist.)

So I am owning the things I care about.

I care about healthy sexuality -- and about being inclusive of various manifestations of sexuality, including the asexuality spectrum, polyamory, and kink.

I care about being inclusive of a variety of gender identities and gender expressions. (In a Christian context, I want the diversity of humanity to be represented in the ways we talk about ALL persons of the Trinity, because we are ALL created in the image of God, and we are ALL part of the Body of Christ.)

I am growing to care more about the negative effects of rape culture and cultural appropriation.

I care about disability, including chronic pain and mental illness. I care about accessibility and about resisting the culture of shame in which we live. I care about models of disability other than "you are broken, and you would be happier/better if you were 'fixed.' " I care about not using language like "lame" or "crazy" as synonymous with "deficient" or "ridiculous." (See also: "mental illness as boogeyman.")

I care about Health At Every Size -- about not treating weight numbers as indicators of health.

I care about DBT -- about not using "should" language, about recognizing that we always have choices in how we respond to situations but we can't magically wish ourselves out of those situations. (This latter piece I think has a lot of utility in justice work -- about working with what we have right now, rather than solely bemoaning that we don't live in a better world.)

I want to be aware of the multiplicity of human experiences.

And I can't help analogizing that to the radical hospitality that Christians are called to.

I care about drawing the circle wider.

As someone who has visited many churches, I care about making church as hospitable as possible -- clearly articulating our choreography, offering gluten-free Bread and non-alcoholic Cup, taking cues from people about their level of comfort with touch (Passing of the Peace!), etc.

Returning to social justice as more traditionally understood, I've been thinking recently about setting the terms of the debate -- about being proactive rather than reactive. ... And I don't have a useful conclusion to this.

[BADD] we live in a culture of shame

Today I emailed a friend of mine (who is queer and mentally ill), Subject "~closeting," telling her about how a casual friend and I were having a conversation on Facebook Wall about making plans to get together, and she suggested next week and I thought, "I don't know when my therapy appointment next week is," and I opted to move the conversation to private message rather than continuing it on our Facebook Walls. (Yes, some of that was about a desire to streamline the conversation, but that was only part of it.)

The friend I'd emailed said: "I have been really impressed that you posted about therapy both on FB and LJ."

I was so thrown by this. I mean, I have posted barely anything about the substance of the therapy I've had (all ~10 sessions in ~4 months), so it's not like I'm revealing much at all by publicly disclosing this information.

But if anyone were to ask me about my being in therapy, my honest answer would be something along the lines of, "Well, I'm experiencing a lot of grief and transition." This isn't anything that's going to make anyone think me less employable. This isn't anything that's going to make anyone uncomfortable to be around me.

People would in fact be sympathetic. I woudn't be perceived as "broken" or "less than" or "other."

There would in fact be a sense that I don't "need" to be in therapy -- that it's sort of a luxury item, like going to a spa or something, a nice thing to do to take care of oneself.

I would be perceived as still being a healthy, whole, high-functioning person at base.

But I wouldn't be perceived as someone who "isn't really sick" and is cheating the system. (This is connected to race, class, etc. privilege that I have.)

My "luxury item" doesn't preclude me doing my job. Would people's stance change if I had a condition (mental health or otherwise) that required specialist care far away and so I had to miss a lot of work?

Possibly a better title for this post would be, "we live in a culture of perfectionism."

Last Friday, Scott and I were talking about how chronic conditions are stigmatized, whereas temporary injuries aren't. But even so, I think there's a sense (at least in white, middle-class, culture) in which even when you're only temporarily "broken" you're not supposed to ask for "too much" in the way of "special accommodations." And that's one of the ways in which dis/abism affects all of us. If resources aren't provided for "those people" and then you become one of "those people," whether temporarily or permanently (and yes, I'm thinking of physical disability now, but you can make the parallel for mental health, too), you suffer too.

There's other stuff I want to talk about, too -- particularly about the "joking," dismissive, and pejorative things people say about people with mental illness (and with physical disabilities -- especially invisible ones) -- but that's a whole nother post.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2010 was this past Saturday (May 1, as it is every year), and I had some posts in mind which I never made, so this is in some ways this my post for that day (even though there is a sense in which every day should be Blogging Against Disablism Day).

on language that marginalizes (part one of possibly-more-than-one)

One of the things I've been thinking about recently is the use of the word "lame" as a derogatory adjective.  Which gives me an excuse to link to a blogpost I read a while back -- "Why Not to Use the Word Lame: I Think I’m Starting to Get It" [Posted by Mandolin | June 16th, 2009]

Excerpt:

Let’s start with that point from earlier that it DOES suck — in this society — not to have the same freedom of movement an abled person. (Although of course, here, we’re already starting in with ableist assumptions, because a big portion of the reason it sucks is because society is set up for people with bodies we consider normal.) OK, so let’s rephrase. Having functional legs is useful. Therefore, the state of having legs which are not as functional as other legs is not as nice as the state of having normally functional legs. (Again, there’s some ableism around the concept of normal, but moving on.)

But even accepting that impairment to mobility is itself a sucky thing, MAYBE DISABLED PEOPLE DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING THE CULTURAL GO-TO FOR THINGS THAT SUCK.

The first commenter (Lexie) points out:

You are on the right track, but here is the thing about saying something like “the logic of having a mobility impairment totally sucks is self-evident.”

It’s not, really. People with disabilities most of the time do not go around saying, God! It sucks so bad that my legs don’t work! They are just who they are, a whole person with varying characteristics, some of which society has labeled as a disability.

Take being gay, for example. One could argue, and some have, that this is a form of disability and that it sucks. Gay people inherently have things to deal with, like fertility issues or the fact that they have to find different ways to socialize within a smaller range of people (the arguable 10% of the population that is gay). Or, to get really technical and TMI about it, they might have to find different ways to be intimate with each other. Doesn’t this inherently suck? Isn’t it logical to think that being gay is inherently inferior to being straight? Isn’t it easier to be straight? And that isn’t even counting the artificial attitudinal barriers of being gay. They can’t marry, or get on each others health insurance plan, or adopt as easily as straight people. It must suck so bad to be gay! Its logical that gay must mean sucky!

Right?

Well, no. What LGBT people have done exceptionally well (and are still working on) is to show people that their lifestyle and sexuality is on a continuum of normal. That gender does not have to be binary and people should be able to express gender in a way that feels comfortable for them and that is a normal part of the human condition. They are not mentally ill, or some kinds of freaks who have a horrible condition, they just are who they are…humans.

So, people with disabilities are the same way. The body comes in all shapes, sizes and conditions and all are part of the normal condition of human existence. Disability is a normal part of life. Do some things suck about a specific disability? Sure. Just like it must suck for LGBT people who want to have children and can’t go about it as easily or as cheaply as heterosexual couples can. Just like everyone on the planet has something about themselves that they can’t control that sucks. (Run faster, be better at math, sing better, not be bald, whatever.) It goes beyond saying that logically, being lame sucks but we shouldn’t hurt disabled people’s feelings by using that word. It goes to trying to get people to stop singling out one physical (or mental) aspect of ourselves as being sucky and having that thing define who we are–our entire life experience. To us, whatever characteristic we have that makes us disabled is just a part of our whole selves, and most of us are quite fond of our whole selves, thankyouverymuch. Many people will tell you that being disabled has given them experiences and opportunities that they wouldn’t exchange for anything.

In my case, my PC word peeve is “blind”. (I’m deaf blind) I’m not talking about the word “blind” itself. I’m fine with people calling me blind and prefer it to all the many euphemisms people come up with like “sight impaired” or whatnot. I hate it when blind (or deaf for that matter) is used in place of the words unknowing or stupid. i.e. She was blind to the fact that her use of the word “lame” was offensive. Blind people actually do not walk around in the dark completely unaware of what is going on around them. We actually know stuff. My point is, I think it is a matter of looking at the word (lame, blind) and really understanding what you are using that word to mean (sucky, stupid). Is that a fair use of the word? Does it really represent the people that are usually defined by that word? If not, maybe it is time to think of some better, more fitting words to describe things.

Ableism is something I really don't think about much, which is a problem.  (This also connects to conversations my best friend and and I were having recently about church accessibility -- ASL interpreters, gluten-free communion bread, stair alternatives, bathrooms, etc. -- which I need to make a separate post about.)

More food for thought (via coffeeandink's ableism tag): jesse_the_k's "(Color) Blindness as Metaphor to Racism"