Pizza Diavola

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD). Check out Diary of a Goldfish for links to many, many interesting posts. Over at Shakesville, Liss wrote “BADD: Out of My Closet,” a thought-provoking piece on living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from sexual violence.

This, Shakers, is disablism in a nutshell: I’d rather call myself “fucked up” than disabled. And I’ve been doing exactly that for most of my life.

I have post-traumatic stress disorder as the result of a series of sexual assaults which began when I was 16, committed across several years by someone who started out as my boyfriend.

It is disabling. It’s it a disability. I am disabled.

SKM wrote “Domestic Work is Real Work,” a post on how living with a disability, feminism, and labor intersect:

Now that I live with chronic illness, I can feel the cost of domestic labor; it’s taken out of my hide, as my grandmother would have put it. I studied my spoon theory (PDF) first-hand. I should be way ahead of those whose understanding is limited by chronic wellness. But sometimes I still find myself surrounded by homemade food and freshly washed clothes and lamenting, “I haven’t done anything today!”

In addition to being BADD, today is also International Workers’ Day. It is fitting, therefore, to think not only about the work we do, but also about who gets the privilege of being counted as a worker and why. …

The work we do to support the wellbeing of ourselves, our families, and our dwellings is real work. Asserting that truth is not only a feminist act, but an anti-disablist one as well. It is an ongoing struggle for me; one which I don’t have the privilege of ignoring.

I first ran across Christine Miserandino’s The Spoon Theory (PDF) in 2004 and found it extremely educational, as an able-bodied person that had spent most of her life without even considering the existence of spoons. amandaw’s post “What Can I Do?” was similarly eye-opening and made me think about how my able-bodied privilege isn’t an abstract concept. It doesn’t exist only when I’m consciously aware of it or run into, say, broken escalators and out of service elevators at BART stations and think, “I can still make it in, but what about someone with mobility issues?” It exists every day and takes up space every single day. I wrote a post on this topic at my other blog, “Taking the Stairs“:

Elevator closures and station infrastructure as a whole are an example of ableism working at a high level. It’s not something that I or any one individual can fix. However, it’s a result and a reflection of a society full of many people who don’t think about ableism, disability, and making things handicapped-accessible. As with any society-wide prejudice, it’s the responsibility of everyone in the dominant group, even if you or I don’t think that we’re actively the cause of it, because society is built to accommodate the desires and needs of the dominant group, which in this case is able-bodied people. And so ending prejudice and able-bodied privilege requires work both in the individual and group levels.

I take the stairs. It’s not about whether it’s faster (sometimes) or easier (never) for me than the escalator, it’s about thinking and being mindful that although the escalator is convenient for me, it’s not necessary. It might be necessary for someone else, and by joining the clogged-up line, I contribute to that clog and make their day, their participation in society, that much harder when it doesn’t need to be.

Taking the stairs isn’t just about taking the stairs and thinking that’s enough; taking the stairs is about examining the idea behind taking the stairs and applying it to everything else. It’s about noticing what’s ableist and what is and isn’t accessible and working to change that rather than ignoring it or accepting it as the way things are.

That post deals specifically with the problems with the accessibility of public transit in SF and with the need to be mindful that people can have invisible as well as visible disabilities. Lauredhel touches on a similar topic in “Can I Have A Seat?“:

[B]ecause this library has put in a couple of obvious bits of effort, I feel like they are more likely to be receptive to other suggestions. Places that make no effort I just can’t deal with sometimes – once I’ve managed the effort of somehow negotiating the obstacles, I have nothing left for standing around having a conversation with strangers, especially strangers who may be clueless and obstructive.

This is the huge barrier to the “Why don’t you just ask them?” approach to disability accessibility. I’ve tried bringing this up in the course of a transaction before, and been variously ignored, insulted, belittled, lectured, stared at blankly, and offered unsuitable solutions.

Leaving accessibility enforcement to individual people with disabilities means that a whole lot of time, it just isn’t going to get done. Because we’re already running on empty from dealing with life. Sometimes, another five or ten minute conversation that could be thorny and confronting just isn’t at the top of the priority list. Sometimes we just run out of tolerance for being insulted or deliberately ignored one.more.time. And sometimes we’re just too bloody tired. When we need to sit down RIGHT NOW, standing around chatting about it doesn’t help. When we’re bled nearly dry, we have to avoid even papercuts.

Sometimes, I really just want other people to educate their own ignorant selves. For it to no longer be my job.

As someone who is able-bodied, it is my job to: educate my own damned self. To proactively be mindful of disabilities. To not default to the assumption that everyone is able-bodied. To advocate for accessibility. To take the stairs.

Reading through today’s BADD posts is a good place to start.

ETA: Check out Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, a useful resource for making your blog or website more accessible.