We are tired of “Eventually”

By Derek Newman-Stille

“Eventually” is a word disabled people become accustomed to regularly. We are told “eventually this space will be accessible”, “we will put in ramps eventually”, “it’s not one of our top priorities right now, but we will get to it”, “we are hoping to one day be accessible”. These tactics of delaying things to the future, to later, are methods of maintaining the status quo while pretending that people care about accessibility. Instead of saying “we aren’t accessible and won’t be”, instead people say cast accessibility into the future, into “eventually”. It is a promise that doesn’t have to be kept and it is a method for getting us to stop asking about accessibility.

I’ve been in far too many circumstances where people have told us that accessibility “is the plan for down the road when we have more resources” while in the meantime, I am not able to participate, to be in physical spaces, or to be included. Commonly these are city commentaries about “eventually” having accessible sidewalks, “eventually” putting in ramps, “eventually” making public spaces spaces that I can access. But if asked “when can I count on that happening by?” the only responses tend to be “we already have it planned for the future” or “right now we don’t have the funds available, but we will get to it soon”.

People don’t (or don’t want to) realize that when they make a space inaccessible, they are sending a very explicit message that we disabled folks don’t belong and CAN’T belong in that space. They are explicitly saying that we shouldn’t be there.

By telling us that things will “eventually” get better, they are casing things into an unforeseeable future where, inevitably things will happen that mean that funds are re-allocated elsewhere.

As the COVID outbreak has meant that various cities are taking over public sidewalks for outdoor patios, these patios are being placed across the only accessible walking spaces. When I have asked business owners in my own city, Peterborough, Ontario, what they plan to do about making spaces inaccessible, I have been told that the city will “eventually” put in ramps and “eventually” create ways to move into spaces that the patios have made inaccessible. I have responded with “what do I do until then?” only to get shrugs back. This sends a message that disabled access is always a thing for the future, never a priority. Abled people are literally being prioritized so they can eat outside while disabled people are being told that they will “eventually” get to be able to walk downtown. There is a clear message here – disability always means a de-priority.

Another issue that occurs is that when accessibility measures are made, they are still ignored. In the photo below, I share an image of a restaurant in Peterborough who put garbage bags across the ramp that the city eventually made, thus continuing to block disabled access. I have permission to share the photo anonymously, but the friend who shared this with me pointed out that he approached the business owners and asked them to remove the garbage bags so that there could be disabled access and was told “don’t worry about it”.

Image and caption above this photo by a friend who prefers to be kept anonymous. Photo shows garbage bags across the only accessible ramp to the restaurant. The post above reads “spoke to the good folks at Ariyana about maybe not blocking the ramp. Was told not to worry about it. Said it would impede people with canes or wheelchairs or walkers but was again told not to worry about it”.

This sends a strong message that accessibility is not a worry by this business and I don’t think this is limited to one business. This is something common – treating disability as an inconvenience and disabled people as though we don’t belong. We get this message at every location that doesn’t put in ramps, that doesn’t create accessible toilets, that doesn’t make their venue accessible. “Don’t worry about it” speaks to us of “I don’t value you enough to care about your needs”. “Eventually” sends the same message while pretending that something will be done in the future.

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Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD (They/Them)

Not Your Bogeyman

By Derek Newman-Stille

I don’t know if others had this experience, but during high school, we had assemblies where disabled people would come in to give us “inspirational” and “cautionary” talks. The school would always invite people who had acquired their disability through accident and injury.

They would come into the school, come on stage in our assembly room and say “kids, don’t end up like me” and then they would start a tale of how they were being silly and taking risks they shouldn’t have and became disabled as a result. They would tell us about diving into a shallow pool or driving while drunk… and becoming disabled as a result. The message was supposed to be “be safe… or you’ll be disabled”… The “be disabled” part was the implied threat. Somehow we were supposed to view disability as the largest tragedy that could happen to us. Disability was portrayed as the Bogeyman to get us to do what we were told.

Disability was portrayed as the fate worse than death. It was portrayed as the ultimate punishment, the Bogeyman, for taking risks. These seminars suggested that disability was the worst fate that could befall anyone… and more than that, that disability was generally CAUSED by people taking risks, by being careless. For weeks afterward, people would ask the disabled kids at school “what did you do to become like that”… People still stop me on the street to ask the same question. Complete strangers ask it. And I know that my experience is not unique. Disabled people are constantly asked by strangers “how did you become disabled”. We all know what the question is really asking – it’s asking “can you please tell me that you did something wrong to become disabled because I don’t want to be like you” or “can you please let me know that you are justly being ‘punished’ by your disability”. They want to see blame. They want to believe that disability is a punishment and that it can’t happen to them. They do it to distance themselves from disability.

Disability has been constructed as a punishment in so much of our media. Our society wants to blame disabled people for being disabled.

Now, imagine being the disabled kid in the audience hearing someone say “now, don’t take risks or you will turn out like me”. Imagine hearing disability talked about as a punishment. Imagine watching the horror cross the faces of all of the other students as they consider that they could become disabled instead of dead from their actions. Once again, we hear that being dead is better than being disabled.

At the same time as these assemblies were taking place in school, we were bombarded with “play safe” videos featuring people becoming disabled because of taking risks. For example, the War Amps played this commercial of a robot, Astar from Planet Danger, who in the commercial had his arms and legs cut off. At the end of the commercial were the words “I can put my arm back on, you can’t, so play safe”. Disability was the spectre of horror that was presented to us.

Disability has been constructed as a fate worse than death, as something to be afraid of. Disability has been constructed as horror.

As a disabled person, and one who is immunocompromised, I am concerned about COVID. I am worried that if I contract it, I won’t survive it. I am worried that if I contract COVID, I will have life saving equipment withheld from me to instead give it to an abled person because too many hospitals have policies that suggest that those with “existing conditions” are to be de-prioritized and their equipment is to be given to abled people because “they have a better chance of surviving” or “they have a likelihood for a better quality of life”. However, I am once again seeing the rhetoric of disability as the Bogeyman being deployed by health care agencies, by the news, and by people who consider themselves liberal. People are now saying, even if you don’t die of COVID, you will likely become disabled. Once again, disability is considered the fate worth than death. Articles are warning that people came in with COVID and left with permanent disability. Articles are even warning that because of COVID, there are likely to be increased taxes because of more people needing disability supports.

People should be encouraged to be cautious about COVID. People should be encouraged to wear masks if able. People should be encouraged to socially distanced…. BUT disability should not be used as the worst possible outcome of COVID. Disability should not be used as a Bogeyman to scare people into compliance. I am tired of seeing my body used as a threat, my life used as an example of the worst case scenario, my life used as an example of what could go wrong. Disability should not be constantly equated with tragedy and horror. Disability shouldn’t be the thing to inspire fear.

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Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD (They/Them)

The Problem of “Burden”

By Derek Newman-Stille

For anyone, being called a “burden” is painful. It suggests that that person doesn’t contribute anything, that they are a drain on resources, and fundamentally that they don’t matter… worse than don’t matter, it suggests that they actually make things worse for those around them.

The word “burden” causes extra pain for disabled people. It is a word that we hear often in reference to disability. We are actively told that we are a social burden, an economic burden, a burden to our friends and family. We are told that living with a disability is a burden. We are told that the people who kill disabled people – “angel of mercy” medical practitioners and family members who kill their disabled family members are doing so because they can’t handle the burden. When people want to adopt a disabled child or when they are going to birth a disabled child, people ask them if they are prepared for the burden it will represent. We live in the cage of “burden”. The word forms bars around us, shaping everything we encounter in our world.

The word stays with us. It sinks into our flesh, deep into the core of us. It becomes part of us… and on some level… many of us partially believe it. We internalize it, just like we internalize so much ableism. The bitter taste of the word shapes how we enter into the world.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been called a burden. Whether generally from social texts like newspapers and even the WHO (World Health Organization), or even by friends and family. And every time, it tells me that I am not only perceived as not worth anything, but am actively perceived as a deficit, as a drain, as something negative. Sometimes people use synonyms, telling me that I am a “frustration” or that my needs are “just too much”, or that “maybe this job will be too much of a strain on your health”. Sometimes I’m told that I’m an impediment – literally that I am in the way, an obstruction, a wall.

What does it mean when you call a disabled person a burden? It means that you invalidate everything that they are. It’s a form of violence. It reinforces the narrative that we aren’t worth anything. It’s a word with heaviness affiliated with us, a weighted word, and one that we constantly have to carry with us.

“Burden” is the inaccessible house that you’ve built around us. We can’t get out of it, and you blame us for not being able to. You tell us that “things would be better if you had a more positive attitude”, you tell us “stop bringing everyone down”. You tell us that even voicing our frustration about this violence is “too much and unfair”. We aren’t even allowed to speak back when you tell us that we are a burden because that, too, is perceived as placing a burden on you.

“Burden” is a word with history – personal and political. It does harm to the disabled community whenever it is uttered.

Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA PhD ABD (They/Them)

Canada Needs A Disability Pride Month

By Derek Newman-Stille

In a severely ableist society, finding pride in disability is difficult. We are constantly being told that we don’t belong, that we are a drain on the system, that we are a problem. We live in an inaccessible world.

An act of pride is a powerful assertion that we belong, and, more than belong, that we matter and that we should take joy in our disabled bodies.

Although the United States has a Disability Pride month in July, Canada doesn’t have a Disability Pride month and I think that we need one. We need to have an assertion of Pride in our accomplishments. We need to celebrate disabled history. We need to celebrate disabled futures. We need to celebrate DisArts and De’VIA (Deaf art). Pride can be an act of transformation and remaking the world.

LGBTQ2IA Pride has been an act of powerful visibility over the years – an affirmation and an expression of equality and open opposition to shame. Pride is an act of resistance to the self loathing that society tries to apply to us.

Having a Disability Pride Month would be a powerful way of building on the visibility of Disabled people and our rights. The visible presence of disabled people is an act of defying the attempt to make us invisible, to try to de-voice us and disempower us. As disabled people, we can use a Pride Month to showcase our disabled arts, culture, and the power of our disabled presence.

Although most LGBTQ2IA Pride events tend to revolve around marches and often take place in inaccessible places, a Disabled Pride Month can push beyond the idea that we need to “march”, because that act is itself ableist and exclusionary. We can find new methods of celebrating our identities as disabled people in ways that acknowledge the need for accessibility. As disabled people, we have always had to be creative about making spaces for our accessibility. We’ve always had to find new ways to find our way in the world. So, Disability Pride Month could be a way to showcase the possibilities of an accessible celebration and an accessible assertion of Pride. Pride doesn’t have to be a parade. It can be multiple celebrations that include our bodily diversity.

So, Canada… how can we start showing our Disability Pride?

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Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD (They/Them)

Being Told ONLY Disabled People and Ageing People Will Die From COVID and the Visibility of Eugenics

By Derek Newman-Stille

Early in the COVID-19 outbreak, most of the rhetoric going around was that COVID-19 was only really affecting disabled people and ageing people. This demonstrated very early on that disabled people and ageing people were viewed as expendable and were viewed as less worthy of life. We were perceived as people who were expendable.

We disabled people are constantly treated as expendable bodies and as worth less than the abled population. We are constantly told that our existence is a strain on the economic system. We are written off by an ableist society as a burden. It therefore isn’t a surprise that people were commenting that “Only” disabled people and ageing people were dying of COVID-19 and therefore that it wasn’t a disease to take extra precautions about.

As COVID continues, we still encounter the rhetoric of “only” disabled people and ageing people are dying of disease. As people protest being required to wear masks, refuse to social distance and refuse to respect space in stores, they demonstrate a complete lack of care for the vulnerable population. When we point out this fact, often the response is “this isn’t my issue. If you are vulnerable, you should stay in your home”. This grossly neglects the fact that most disabled people live in poverty and simple things like getting groceries delivered are often out of the price range of many disabled people. Disabled people are already isolating – our abled society makes accessible spaces rare and contributes to our isolation. Yet, the expectation is once again that we will isolate – that public spaces are NOT our spaces.

On twitter, @fondfaun states “wearing a mask in public, even if you yourself are at low risk of severe covid, is an act of community love & care! a simple practice of disability justice, expressing that public space belongs to sick, disabled & otherwise vulnerable people as much as anyone”. This tweet powerfully associates the simple act of wearing a mask (something that is of low levels of inconvenience for most people) is a simple act of disability justice and a way to demonstrate disabled belonging… and yet it points out that the majority of people are still not willing to engage in this simple act of disability justice

Indeed, people are actively suggesting in response to tweets like this calling for disability justice that disabled people should stay home and that we don’t belong in public spaces. Twitter user @captaincanucklives tweets about wearing masks in public “Nope. If people are afraid to go out and worried about a virus they should stay home and make other kind of arrangements. I will wear a mask in the hospital. Clinic. Old age home. And to any of my friends that have a compromised immune system”. This sort of rhetoric reinforces the idea that disability is perceived as not a public issue and instead that it is the responsibility of disabled people to survive despite abled actions. Indeed, it reiterates the idea that public spaces are spaces for abled people and that disabled people’s only places are homes, hospitals, clinics, and old age homes. Geographies of disability are presumed to be non-public and access to public spaces is presumed to only be available to abled people.

Moreover, we are now observing people say that our society needs to pay attention because COVID has been proven to affect the “young and healthy”. It is interesting that the rhetoric is being used that people should become cognizant of COVID-19 only because it has been proven to impact everyone. The focus on the idea of having to make people be cognizant of others only because it affects younger, healthier people illustrates an awareness that people will only care about an issue if it affects abled people.

There are multiple issues related to this de-prioritizing of disabled lives. Because of the devaluing of disabled and ageing people, over the course of the COVID pandemic, there have been issues in long term care homes involving unsafe conditions that have allowed for unnecessary deaths. Furthermore, health authorities have stated that they wanted to put in place policies prioritizing access to life-saving equipment for abled people over disabled people. We have also witnessed the Canadian government offer CERB (Canadian Emergency Response Benefit) benefits at what they consider to be the lowest amount possible per month to live off of $2000 while simultaneously Ontario is still offering less than half of this amount per month for people on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Programme), sending a clear message that disabled people aren’t even worth enough to survive.

Michael Prince points out that COVID disability benefits continue to lack and continue to be treated as non-essential: “Where are the COVID disability benefits? Sleight of hand and twist of fate, parliamentarians make ppl with disabilities wait”

Sarah Colero points out that even though CERB continues to be renewed, disabled Canadians are not getting access to emergency supports when she says in a tweet “CERB is renewed for 2mth to ensure no abled person falls into poverty. Thats 6mth of CERB. Meanwhile disabled Canadians have received no emergency support in this crisis, even though we are disproportionately impacted by this crisis”

Disabled Canadians and disability activists in Canada are aware of the disparity between the supports given to abled people and the supports provided to our disabled community. The Canadian and provincial governments have given a clear message that they are not willing to give disabled Canadians survivable income.

During the COVID pandemic, we are receiving clear messages that our lives are being viewed as of less worth than public access to a haircut. Simple precautions like wearing a mask or wearing gloves are viewed as too much of an inconvenience. We are once again receiving a message that our lives are not worth abled inconvenience.

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An Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

Being Told Accommodation is Not Possible… Until COVID

By Derek Newman-Stille

For many of us who are disabled, we have been told that accommodations for our disabilities would not be possible or feasible. We have been told that we couldn’t use technologies like Zoom, Skype, or Messenger to do our work remotely. We have been told that we couldn’t access conferences by remote technology. We have been told that we couldn’t attend workshops and creative community opportunities because the locations were not accessible and they would not be able to provide remote access.

So, imagine how we, as disabled people, feel now that all of these accommodations have been made in light of COVID-19. What is the difference between the impossibility of access before and the new “we want to make it visible that our company/workshop/conference/university/government job is accessible”? It’s a matter of which populations were affected. When it was only disabled people who were requesting access, these requests were denied. Now that the abled population is in need of accessibility too, not only are they immediately given access through remote technologies, businesses, universities, and governments are investing money into those technologies, providing workshops on how to use those technologies, and actively ADVERTISING that they are using these technologies to seem more cutting edge than other companies. Why is it that things that were “not possible” when disabled people asked for them are now not only abundantly possible, but also have money being thrown at them to make sure that they are the most accessible? The answer is ableism. When it is just disabled people, our needs are treated as an inconvenience. When abled people also need those points of access, they suddenly become a priority.

From personal experience, I have encountered this again and again with past jobs, with academic conferences (even some that highlight disability), and with writing conventions and workshops. I have been told that the accommodations I have requested would not be possible. I have been told that in-person presentations are essential to conferences… and those same conferences have now moved to an entirely online format. I have been told that no accommodations could be made at writing workshops and retreats (which are physically inaccessible)…. and those workshops and retreats are now online.

When I was being denied accommodations that were necessary for me to be able to participate, I knew that this was largely due to ableism. Early on, I tried to share technologies that would allow myself and other disabled people to participate and was told that these technologies would “complicate things”. I was aware that no one wanted to put the effort into making a space actually accessible. I was aware that they didn’t think it would be a loss to have disabled people unable to attend.

However, it still hurts to know that as soon as abled people are in need of accommodation — as soon as access is seen as not ‘just a disabled person issue’ — immediately companies, conferences, conventions, etc. invest resources into learning how to accommodate people and provide finances to achieve that accommodation. Moreover, the frustrating thing is that many of these accommodations had never actually involved cost on the part of these organizations. They were cost neutral and could be provided by free services like Skype.

This lack of accommodation is certainly not something new or unique, it is part of systemic ableism and part of a devaluing of disabled knowledge, experience, and personhood. Abled society tends to immediately think of disability and accommodation as an “inconvenience”. It is built into everyday rhetoric. We, as disabled people, have to constantly negotiate being viewed as inconvenient, frustrating, as impediments, and have our concerns viewed as frivolous.

Many of us are now asking what happens next. As many abled people are looking for a return to normal, many of us are seeing an opportunity for change, an opportunity for abled people to learn about the needs for accommodation and learn that workplaces should be flexible to provide for multiple needs and multiple forms of access.

Alice Wong talks about the fact that “the pandemic has brought about changes to accessibility for things that disabled people have been advocating for forever” in her Esquire article ‘Normal’ Was Actually Not Great for a Lot of People . She highlights writing opportunities that have been unavailable to her because she was told “you can’t do that. It’s too hard” and “there are too many issues” for her to access these spaces by Skype. Wong tells readers “My hope for coming out of this pandemic is that we don’t return to the status quo. Many people don’t realize that ‘normal’ was actually not great for a lot of people.”

Dorothy Palmer points out that as COVID-19 restrictions are being removed, so are many of our accessibility features and that disabled people are getting attacked for asking for a continuance of access when she states “Disabled writers in the US and CanLit are getting attacked for simply wanting to keep the same accessibility abled people had during the pandemic” in a tweet on June 12.

So how do we maintain access after COVID-19? How do we ensure that people can gain access to events and work places and accommodations in general when it goes back to being “just a disabled problem”? What can we do to make sure that things DON’T return to normal?

…Because normal was already exclusionary.

…Normal has ALWAYS been exclusionary.

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Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

Characteristics of Disability/ Symptoms of COVID

By Derek Newman-Stille

One of the challenges of being someone who has a disability and chronic illness is that many of the characteristics of our disabilities may overlap with the warnings that we are receiving about signs of COVID. Many of us manage these symptoms daily and it becomes difficult to differentiate between every day symptoms and new symptoms associated with COVID.

I am currently participating in an online research questionnaire that provides me with questions each day about how I am surviving COVID and each day, it asks me if I have experienced: “Dry Cough, fever, shortness of breath, and muscle aches and pains”. These are characteristics that I experience every day and that are part of my life as a disabled person, yet the questionnaire inquires why I haven’t had a COVID test.

Many of my friends in the disabled community are experiencing similar issues, often being tested for COVID when they go to a doctor’s appointment because even when we say that these are aspects of our everyday life, they are often treated as extraordinary. So our concerns are often ignored because medical practitioners focus on the possibility that we might have COVID even when the reasons why we went to an appointment are not due to COVID.

The similarity of COVID symptoms to some of our experiences as disabled people or chronically ill people came up early on Disabled Twitter as a concern amongst us, with people asking how we are supposed to distinguish our every day experiences from COVID. For example, activist Imani Barbarin states in a tweet from March 12 “I don’t think you understand the level of fear disabled and chronically ill people have right now. Not only are you making us sound expendable, but the symptoms of the virus are things we experience on a normal day. Aches, pains, chills…” Similarly, Twitter user @dropoutninja tells us on March 12, “I always have the symptoms. ‘hmm. Is this headache my blood pressure or Imminent Death?’ ‘Is this stomach issue my regular irregularity or the Plague?’ ‘I can’t breathe. But is this a NEW KIND of not breathing?’ For some, the symptoms are red flags. For me, they are Tuesday”

Because so many of the symptoms of COVID that have been listed are representative of our everyday life as disabled people, it is difficult for many of us to discern if we should be worried about infection OR if this is just another day of disabled life. This has a toll on disabled people, leaving us with a nascent worry that we are infected without knowing…. or if we get tested that we are putting too much strain on the already limited tests available for the population. As Twitter user @la_kimitsu says on March 12, “Let’s all play, do I have CoVid-19 or my normal illness/es? For the next 3 to 7 months. Sounds really psychologically healthy. (I don’t see that we have a choice though)”

As disabled people, many of us are already experiencing stress about COVID because of our increased vulnerability and because of systemic ableism that has already allowed some countries/hospitals/care homes/provinces to put in place policies that privilege able-bodied people over us when it comes to access to life saving equipment (which I will talk about in another post), we also live with the personal and persistent worry that we may be infected without knowing it because for some of us, our disabilities already present with characteristics of COVID-19.

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An Editorial by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

#UHateDisabledPeople

#UHateDisabledPeople

By Derek Newman-Stille

Twitter may seem like a strange place to create community with its short word counts and inclination toward simple answers rather than complex explorations, but it has become a space for disabled people to share our experiences with one another and to share experiences that we may have felt were ours alone. Disabled stories by disabled people are rare. Frequently publishers would prefer stories ABOUT disability written by abled people rather than narratives about disability by those of us in the disabled community. Yet we know there is a need for us to share our stories and to use our stories to advocate for change.

Frequently when people say that we need our stories to advocate for change, the assumption is that we are writing for an abled audience rather than a disabled one, however, one of our biggest tools for advocacy is our community. We have been able to achieve change through uniting as a disabled community and collectively engaging in activism.

Often we are expected to fight for disability justice quietly and accept what the abled majority tells us we are due, however, that hasn’t been effective in the past. We have never had rights “given” to us by a “compassionate” abled majority, we have always had to fight for our rights with committees, with demonstrations like climbing up the stairs of congress, and through legal action by disabled people. Being quiet has never served us, so we need to speak up and we need to make change loudly as a community. Disability justice comes from disabled anger.

Imani Barbarin has been a key figure involved in Disabled Twitter and has been devoted to disability justice through multiple fora including the Twitter hashtag #UHateDisabledPeople. Barbarin is a conversation starter, coining various twitter hashtags in order to begin conversations between disabled people and evoke change. As a disabled black woman, her work is intersectional, drawing on disability studies, but also a critical race perspective, and a feminist outlook. Barbarin has been a key figure in exploring disability representation, disability culture, and inclusion.

Barbarin’s hashtag #UHateDisabledPeople is in-your-face, powerful, and expresses the NEED for change. She expresses the idea that acts of ableism ARE acts of hatred toward disabled people. This hashtag has allowed people to come together in expressing our common experiences of ableism with a lot of responses by the community stating “I’ve experienced the same thing”

Some key tweets that have come up are:

Dr. Laura Dorwart points out in her Tweet “If you hear that a violent crime has been committed against a disabled person and your first thought is that the loved one who did it must have a good reason or deserve sympathy, #UHateDisabled People.

Dr. Dorwart points out that people often dismiss acts of murder against disabled people as “for the best” or “an act of love”, thus excusing the family members who murdered them. Frequently this is used as an excuse to get people out of murder charges when the victim has been a disabled person.

Gregory Mansfield points out further serious crimes against the disabled population in his tween “#UHateDisabledPeople if you believe that sterilization, insitutionalization or filicide of disabled people are explainable, acceptable or justifiable.”

Yet these tweets don’t only express radical acts of violence against disabled people, they also illustrate everyday ableisms and the way that the language of ableism is entrenched in every aspect of our society.

Charles Hughes points out that ableist society can only view us as “good cripples” when we are being “inspirational”; “If you love us when we’re adorable or ‘inspirational,’ but try to shut us down when we’re assertive or uncompromising, then #UHateDisabledPeople”. Hughes brings attention to the common trope of the “good cripple”, and the notion in ableist society that disabled people constantly need to be grateful for even the basics of accommodation or support afforded in our society.

Eli points out in their tweet issues around the unemployment of disabled people and the fact that it results from ableism and the entrenched belief that disabled people can’t work while ablist people still say that we disabled people should “get a job”. Eli states “When you think disabled people should get a job but you won’t hire us #UHateDisabledPeople” Eli illustrates the contradictory messages from our ableist society that we SHOULD work, but simultaneously that we CAN’T work.

Imani Barbarin observes the entrenched idea that disabled people don’t need to leave their houses and therefore don’t need to be accommodated by public spaces or public services when she states in her tweet “If you can’t think of a reason for disabled people to leave their house, other than to go to the hospital, UHateDisabledPeople”. This is a key issue since Barbarin and others on Twitter have been recently talking about rideshare and other services denying access to disabled people and then leaving us bad reviews because those services refused to accommodate our needs as disabled people (for example, denying access to people with service dogs, refusing the delivery of food to people with mobility disabilities).

Several people have brought attention to the assumption by the public that disabled people are “faking it”. For example, “Lilo the Autistic Queer” states in their tweet “if you harass strangers because you don’t think they should park in the accessible spot and/or sit in the accessible section on the bus/train #UHate Disabled People.” “Lilo the Autistic Queer” observes that people often act as though if they can’t immediately see our disabilities then we must be “faking it”.

Catherine Paul elaborates on this entrenched belief that disabled people are faking it, stating “If when you see a chronically ill person having a good time, you think they must be faking their illness, #UHateDisabledPeople.” The social assumption that we disabled people are “faking it” means that a huge amount of money is wasted on investigations into our claims of disability and often results in huge amounts of money that should be allocated to disability supports instead being allocated to investigations into our disabilities. So strong is this entrenched belief that disabled people are “faking it”, that people on the streets frequently believe they have a role in telling us they don’t believe we have disabilities or attempting to kick our canes out from under us or push our mobility devices. Indeed, Kaitlyn @BlytheByName points out the experience of purposely being bumped into in this tweet: “When you purposefully bump into me while I’m walking with my cane to test if I ‘really need it’ UHateDisabledPeople”.

Walela Nehanda illustrates how often disabled people are assumed to be “faking” their disability or trying to “scam” or “cheat” the system by saying “If you beleive disabled people are ‘faking’ our conditions because our disabilities don’t present in a way you’re accustomed to or because you think we are trying to ‘scam’ people or ‘cheat’ the system #UHateDisabledPeople”. Frequently abled people assume that they should be able to immediately look at us and then diagnose us with a glance and dismiss us as non-disabled when they can’t see our disabilities at a glance.

Not surprisingly, abled responses have varied from dismissing disabled people’s experiences to threats and doxxing.

“Diary of a Disabled Person” states “Okay, now I’m getting actual abuse from people over #UHateDisabledPeople, mocking my assumed lack of intelligence and inability to speak. Is it going to stop me? No fucking way. Is it going to get you reported? Damn right it will. Each and every one of you should be ashamed”. “Diary of a Disabled Person” is not the only person to receive threats, comments about their intelligence, and comments about their right to speak. This is happening across the hashtag.

“Dame DuhLaurien” dismisses the experiences of disabled people by saying “I think ‘hate’ is an awful strong word for the kinds fo things I’m seeing complained about in the #UHateDisabledPeople tweets but regardless cant we get #ULoveDisabledPeople.” In this, “Dame DuhLaurien dismisses the experiences of disabled people as minor, even though many of these tweets involve discussions of physical violence, exclusions of rights, and outright murder (as illustrated above). “Dame DuhLaurien” calls these experiences “complaining”, reinforcing the idea that disabled people shouldn’t express our frustration with everyday ableisms. “Was God In The O.R.” responds to “Dame DuhLaurien” by saying “Because y’all don’t love disabled people Lauren. Disabled people are denied access to food delivery, rideshare services, and public transportation, DAILY. And when we get on the internet to vent amongst ourselves, we’re made fun of, threatened, and doxxed. #UHateDisabledPeople”. “Was God in The O.R.” points out that people often use the words “we love disabled people” while continuing to perpetuate our oppression on a daily basis, illustrating that we, as disabled people feel the constant hate from an ableist society.

“TheDisabledEnthusiast” responds to “Dame DuhLaurien”‘s post with “If you think disabled people have to call out ableism in a way that’s more comfortable to you, #UHateDisabledPeople. You didn’t even bother to understand or sit with the meaning of the hashtag before you decided you were too uncomfortable and needed to shut it down.” “TheDisabledEnthusiast” points out the snap response that abled people have when being called out for their ableism and the instant response of tone policing disabled people rather than listening and thinking about what we are trying to express.

Imani Barbarin “Crutches&Spice” responds to all of the violence against the #UHateDisabledPeople hashtag by saying “people can troll my hashtags all they want. 1. They’re contributing to the numbers. 2. They’re proving my point. 3. The people who didn’t believe us can no longer ignore how widespread the problem is. Thank you for your time”. Barbarin powerfully points out that all the people who are denying the violence against disabled people only need to look at the violent responses to our tweets in order to see the entrenched ableism against us. Yet, she also points out the power of disabled twitter by observing that when our voices come together and we express the violence we’ve experienced – even if it is only by re-tweeting or liking a post – we are illustrating the common violence that we all experience.

Hashtags like those created by Imani Barbarin illustrate the power of our collective voice as disabled people. They are a way of creating community and collectively pouring out all of the violence and hatred we have experienced. Sharing a Twitter thread like this is confirmational for us, illustrating that we are not alone in our experiences. #UHateDisabled people is a strong hashtag because strong language NEEDS to be used. We are experiencing systemic violence and are constantly told to be quiet and accept the violence we are experiencing every day. Hashtags like this illustrate the power of collective storytelling, the power of sharing our narratives together and giving voice to everything that has happened to us. They create community as they advocate for change. As Barbarin states “The people who didn’t believe us can no longer ignore how widespread the problem is”.

Disability Tropes 101 – The Magical Cure

Disability Tropes 101- The Magical Cure

By Derek Newman-Stille

While the Spoonie Authors Network is on a temporary break, I wanted to briefly move my Disability 101 posts to my own site – Dis(Abled) Embodiment. If you are interested in checking out the rest of my Disability 101 posts, please go to https://spoonieauthorsnetwork.blog and read them on the Spoonie Authors’ Network. In the meantime, please enjoy my exploration of the Magical Cure Trope

Authors writing about disability frequently have difficulty with the idea that we can live life happily with a disability. This is something that is not limited to literature, and, of course, there are elements of this trope that shape people’s perceptions of disability. For example, when writing a tweet about the problem of people assuming that our lives as disabled people are shaped exclusively by tragedy, I wrote that we can be happy AND disabled. In response, several people send messages that this was impossible and telling me to “f-off” and suggesting that disabled people’s lives can only be filled with suffering and that death is therefore a blessing to us. This ideology is, of course, highly problematic, to the point where it also is cited as the motivations for so-called “angel of mercy” killers to kill disabled people, believing that we are better off dead.

Frequently, abled authors who write about disability feel that they need to either have their disabled characters die as part of their narrative, or have them become magically cured so that they become completely abled. They do this largely because they can’t imagine that one can live a happy life with a disability, so in their wrapping up of their narrative to provide a “happy ending”, they feel the need to either eliminate the disabled character and thus “end their suffering” or to suddenly find a cure for them. There is a term for the first trope that I mentioned – the “Better Dead Than Disabled” trope. However, that isn’t the focus of this particular post. Instead, I want to focus on a related trope, the “Magical Cure”. Both of these are a form of erasure of disability, but the Magical Cure trope relies on the idea that somehow someone’s disability is suddenly erased. Frequently these erasures happen because of the marvels of science, the exertion of willpower (because frequently authors decide that if we want to be abled enough, it will suddenly occur), or because of literal magic. All of these possible cures fall under the “Magical Cure” trope even though only the last one involves actual magic.

Isabel Brittain refers to this trope as the “Happy Endings?” Trope in her article “An Examination into the Portrayal of Deaf Characters and Deaf Issues in Picture Books for Children” (Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol 24, No 1, 2004). She states that in this trope “The author fails to see a happy and fulfilled life being a possibility for a character with an impairment”. She questions the notion of the happy ending by adding a question mark at the end of her title for this trope. She observes that the issue is the failure of imagination of the author to consider that one can have a fulfilled life while also being disabled, but I would also add that in addition to the failure of imagination, the author is also embedded in a culture where ableist ideas about disability are the norm and where it is assumed that disability is the personification of tragedy and “mistake”. Tanya Titchkosky characterizes this well when she states that “What is wrong is seen to belong to disabled people in a more intimate and personal way than it does to others” (Disability, Self, and Society, 2003). Disabled people are perceived as a personification of mistake and tragedy, assumed to be lesser than an able-body. As a result, disability is often conceived of as a fate worse than death and the notion of a happy life for disabled people is not possible for most abled authors to imagine. So disability is perceived as something to be “solved”, as something that is in need of fixing, and therefore abled authors frequently tie up their narratives in what they believe is a happy ending – an erasure of disability entirely.

There is a genre that is particularly wrapped up in the notion of the Magical Cure, and it is the genre that often has an interest in the topic of magic – fantasy. In her paper “Devices and Desires: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Disability in Literature for Young People” (Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol 24, No 1, 2004), Jane Stemp points out that the ease of magic in fantasy means that often disabled people’s bodies are made able with the flick of a wand and a few magical words. But she also points out that fantasy has an interest in the notion of the perfect body and that frequently in fantasy, the imperfect body is also portrayed as an imperfection of moral character. Fantasy has, as she suggests, a pattern of replicating “mythical, perfect archetypes” and as a result, has a fascination with ideas of “perfection” and its relationship to the body and ability.

Frequently the Magical Cure in fantasy is connected to the idea of the quest and the notion of suffering and triumphing over evil in order to finally be rewarded with a cure and live happily ever after. This problematically reinforces the idea that able-bodiedness is not just an ideal state for any body, but can be a reward if one works hard enough.

The trope of the cure can be particularly damaging for disability rights since it also suggests that disabilities can and should be fixed, which is particularly problematic for people whose disabilities are not aided by medical or other interventions. It also reinforces the idea that funding should be given to cures rather than to accommodations to disabled people, suggesting that our disabled bodies should be changed instead of changing the social and physical environment that provide barriers to our access. So instead of working to include us, this trope reinforces the idea that we should change our bodies in ways that are painful or impossible in order to fit into a one-body-type-fits-all ableist system and environment.

I want to highlight some fantasy works that resist this trope, particularly Alison Sinclair’s Darkborn Trilogy, in which there is a world where magic exists and where half the population is blind, but they never try to modify themselves through magic in order to see. Their blindness is part of their culture and their cultural interactions. I talk about this extensively in my article “Where Blindness Is Not (?) a Disability: Alison Sinclair’s Darkborn Trilogy” (Mosaic Vol 46, No 3, 2013), so I don’t want to replicate that here. I also want to highlight a fantasy story published this year in the all disabled anthology Nothing Without Us (Renaissance Press), titled “The Descent” By Jamieson Wolf. In this story, Wolf’s narrator, Jefferson, initially sets out to learn magic in order to “cure” his disability, even dissociating himself from his disability by naming it “Max Shadow”. Despite learning magic, Jefferson is not able to “cure” his disability and eventually seeks an oracle, once again turning to magic in order to try to remove his disability. Yet, throughout the narrative, Jefferson gains a certain intimacy with Max. Not only does he not remove his disability through magic, he gradually comes to understand Max, embracing him and shifting his perspectives on the need to be “cured”. “The Descent” deals with the internalized ableism we feel as disabled people, often assuming that the only way that we can interact with the world is through being “cured”, i.e. made able-bodied. Wolf’s use of the disability as a personified character who is interacting with the disabled person he comes from allows for an exploration of that dissociation from disability that our internalized ableism can create, but it also allows for the disability itself to be personified and humanized. Instead of othering the disability, Wolf’s technique personifies disability and brings up ethical questions around the erasure of disability.

“Truths”, Fantasies, And The Stories We Are Told About Ourselves

“Truths”, Fantasies, And The Stories We Are Told About Ourselves

By Derek Newman-Stille

 

We disabled people are asked to tell our stories over and over again. We are asked to narrate our bodies and the difference of our bodies again and again. When we meet with doctors we have to tell the stories of our bodies (and often have to retell them until they fit the medical model that doctors need to understand our bodies). The same happens when we meet specialists. We need to narrate our bodies to employers to get accommodations, to schools to get access to resources, to funding agencies, to government officials when we need additional supports, and, yes, even to strangers on the street.

 

I recently had someone follow me down the street for multiple blocks asking me what was “wrong” with my body, asking me to tell him the story of my body. This was happening despite the fact that I was having a conversation with my friends that this guy was interrupting. He believed his own demand to hear the story of my body overrode the conversations I was already having. I told him that I didn’t want to tell the story of my body to a stranger, and like most people who I tell this to, he became enraged, told me that I was rude and that he was just curious, and then he said “besides, I am a PSW, so I am an expert on people like you.”

 

This is not a unique experience. It happens regularly. I am frequently bombarded with questions about my body by strangers, and many of those strangers (who have no disabilities of their own) then believe themselves to be experts on my body and tell me that I don’t really need to use my rollator or my cane, that I can cure my disability with crystals or yoga or positive thinking or walks in the woods or “blu-ray healing”. The narratives people place on my body abound and they come from a society that tells able-bodied people that disabilities are the purview of the public, that our stories are open to their interpretations and their adaptations.

 

Often the stories of our bodies preclude us even being part of them. Frequently, when our bodies are written about by “specialists”, their stories of our bodies continue on without our own narration, telling stories about us. This seems like it should be something unusual, to have our stories told by other people, but we need those stories told by people who are “specialists” on our bodies in order to get access to many of the accommodations we need. Our stories become papered entities – accommodation letters to professors, medical notes, specialist reports. Our stories are told and retold and we are not considered experts on our own stories. In fact, we are considered inherently biased and our stories are rendered as problematic, fictitious, and yes, even fantastic. 

 

This rendering of our own stories as fictional extends into publishing about disabled bodies, where, frequently, our actual stories about our disabled bodies – told from our own experiences – are considered less authentic than stories told about disabled people by able-bodied others. Like many disabled authors, I have been told that my factual rendering of my disability’s story is not believable, that it doesn’t match with what audiences want or believe, or that it doesn’t ‘ring true’ for a disabled narrative. Publishers and editors are much more interested in the papered story about disability, the one constructed through things they have read before – the story full of tropes about disability. This isn’t surprising (even though it should be) because disabled stories are often inauthenticated, are often rendered as less worthwhile than the people who claim to be experts on our bodies. We are accustomed to this. We get it from doctors, politicians, and others who consider themselves to be experts who render our stories for others, who erase the personal in order to create a fantasy about disability. 

 

So, with all of the fantasies already created about disability, the fictions that are constructed around our bodies because these fictions are considered more realistic than our own tales, are there possibilities for us to reshape those fantasies? Can we assert our own tales through the unbelievable, the magical, the imaginative, and use these stories to reshape the way that our bodies are treated as fantasies? 

 

There is a huge potential in fantasy for operating on the level of imagination, for operating in the realm of the un-real. We disabled people have so often been told that our stories need to be retold by specialists in order for them to be considered real that there is a liberation in telling a story that we don’t have to be x-rayed, MRIed, assessed, and narrated before it can be considered true.

 

Abled people are constantly believing things about disability because they have been told that imaginations about disability are “true”, so there is a power in challenging thoughts about disability at the imaginative level, at the level of possibility, and therefore to introduce new possibilities for thinking about disability, for imagining us.

 

Although I have heard from fellow disabled people that what we need is real change, often we forget about the power of imagination as an agent of change. We create change by imagining new possibilities, by thinking up new alternatives, and by challenging what we think of as “truths” because frequently when something is portrayed as “truth”, it is stagnated, constructed as unchanging and unchallengeable. Fantasy stories about disability open up disability itself to imagination, let disability as a subject be something that is fluid, changeable, reimaginable, and adaptable. 

 

As disabled people, we already live in a world of fantasy. We live in a world that pretends that we are invisible, in a world where words – when wielded by policy-makers – can magically take away everything we need. 

 

We have the power to use those fantasies to remake our world, to reforge it as one that includes us, and, not only that, but represents us, and even, dare I say, celebrates us?