| Disablism sure isn't disabled at all |
[May. 1st, 2009|01:21 pm] |
Every person with a disability has encountered or experienced disablism/ablism. Subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination based on the fact that they are different, that they are perceived as less because something about their body is different from the norm.
As a lifelong member of the club, a visibly disabled person with my visibly disabled person wheelchair (and my other, less visible disabilities), I like to think I've done a good job straddling the different worlds. I like to think that I have a solid presence in my local disability community, appreciation of the issues that affect people with disabilities, and that in my own ways, I do what I can to make a difference and help others (particularly when it comes to my involvement with things like the GimpGirl Community and other things online). I feel like I can also exist comfortably in world where people don't necessarily know or talk about "gimpy" stuff... I try to mix well with all kinds of people, at all levels of existence. I think I do a good job.
Though my life's path has wandered a lot (not to mention my own self-image), I know that generally I am regarded as intelligent, useful, forward thinking, with potential for lots of things. I'm okay with that potential.
One of the things that's important in my life right now is my partner. He is a man with a disability, an advocate, a person currently stuck in an institutional setting, waiting to be able to live in the community with proper supports. The fact that he has to fight for it (along with thousands, millions of others) illustrates just how inherently disablist/ablist our societies are. Though there are people who know and believe fervently that it shouldn't be this way, and in the U.S., potential legislation like the Community Choice Act that could make a real difference, it will take something more to shift the way things work. The way we are perceived on a grander scale.
With my partner in the hospital for the last seven months, we've had quite a roller coaster ride. Right now, I'm his primary support system (though not for lack of trying to expand the circle), in part because he is originally not from this city. Once he is home where he belongs, I know that that will change. But now, and in the future, and always, disablism will make it so that my partner, with his sharp mind and wit, but impaired communication (and non-optional ventilator accessories), will almost never be taken seriously by someone the first time around. And I will almost never be taken seriously as his partner, as a caregiver, as someone who can do something useful, because my legs don't work either.
We'll always have some version of our recent experience with a nursing administrator at the hospital, who said, during an emergency situation, that my continued presence until the situation was resolved wouldn't really make a difference anyway, since I couldn't do X or Y or Z tasks that nurses would do. Never mind that convoluted hospital policies make it so I end up doing a lot of the things nurses won't do anyway...
We will march on. We will build our lives together, we will continue our lives as individuals, affected, shaped, and molded by our disabilities, but not defined by them. We will make our mark on the world together, separately, and with others, even if much the world chooses to interpret those marks through the misinformed screen of "ability", which in the end, only means what you make of it.
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