Blogging against disablism day
Today was Blogging Against Disablism Day, a day on which bloggers around the world unite to discuss the prejudice, discrimination and general injustice to which disabled people are subject in our societies today. I was going to write something long and profound last night, but circumstances have got in the way somewhat and I have spent most of the day feeling uncomfortably aware that I needed to write something but not having the first idea how to start. In particular, I managed to tie myself up in rather a knot trying to define precisely what disablism is.
It strikes me that disablism differs slightly from other -isms. Take racism, say. If I say or do something which can be described as racist, it is probably fair to say that I have feelings ranging anywhere between a mild dislike to an intense hatred of people from different ethnic backgrounds. It would be quite difficult to be *accidentally* racist. True, one can easily fall into the trap of using a word which used to be perfectly acceptable (for example half caste) and which now has been deemed to cause offence, and thus upset somebody without realising, but in the main if someone makes a racist comment or behaves in a racist way they are doing so consciously. Anyone who starts their comment with “I don’t mean to be racist, but” is especially conscious of it 
In its worst and most reprehensible forms, disablism can also be a deliberate act, stemming from bitter hatred or fanaticism. As an extreme example, Nazi Germany springs to mind. But on the whole, I think a large proportion of acts which qualify as disablist are actually committed by well meaning people who are trying to do what they perceive to be the right thing but through misconceptions and a general lack of understanding unwittingly doing something rather wrong. Such disablism can range from the well meaning euthanasia supporters who believe people with condition X have no quality of life and should be put down for their own good, to the well meaning tea shop lady who asks the able bodied friend of a person with impairment Y whether he would like milk in his coffee, in case he can’t figure that out for himself.
Disablism appears to be a rather slippery thing which I am still failing to define. The complexity of the issue was brought home to me recently in fact when I was travelling home from work on a bus. It was a very crowded bus, and I was sitting fairly near the back. Anyway, halfway through the journey a man squeezed onto the bus. He caught my attention immediately by virtue of the fact that he had blue hair. In fact, I was so busy staring at his hair, that it took me a good minute to realise that he was on crutches, and another good thirty seconds after that to register that the reason for that was that he was missing a leg. I immediately looked away in the embarrassed sort of way one does upon realising you have just been staring at a total stranger who may have reason to feel sensitive about being gawped at. And then, against my better judgement, I stared back again. Because it had suddenly struck me that on this bus full of perfectly healthy evening commuters, not a single person had so far stood up to offer a seat to a one legged man 
Now I must confess that I am not a fan of standing up for other people on buses. That is to say, I’ll stand up for pregnant women, I’ll stand up for the blind (especially if they have a mean looking dog) and I’ll stand up for someone who looks genuinely frail or ill, but as a rule I don’t stand up for old people. The way I see it, a lot of old people are actually quite hale and hearty and I especially won’t stand up for an old person who gets on a bus and comments about the fact that no one has stood up for them. If you can see that a bus has no seats on it and you choose to get on that bus regardless, you have to expect to stand. If you don’t want to stand (bearing in mind my bus runs every 2 minutes at peak times) you wait a short period of time until an empty one comes along… But that ranting aside, even I would stand up for a one legged man. Not because I have pity for one legged men or have indeed ever given them much consideration as a subsection of society, but because it is clearly rather difficult to balance on one leg whilst holding a pair of crutches on a bus which is being driven at breakneck speed by an Eastern European. Now I don’t mean to be racist and really, some of my best friends are Polish bus drivers, but they do drive a trifle fast 
Anyways, by virtue of where I was sitting I couldn’t really stand up myself, being penned in by a woman with a small child, but I sat there in silent indignation over the disgraceful behaviour of the people nearer the front of the bus for several minutes. To my mind, this was evidence of an extreme lack of respect towards a disabled person and I was imagining the man must feel quite outraged. I was in the middle of contemplating how many people might have stood up for him had he not had blue hair, when a lady a few rows in front of me suddenly offered him her seat. At last! 
The blue haired man looked at her and smiled. “You’re alright, bab,” he said. “I prefer to stand.”
More shocking than the strength of his Brummie accent was the fact that he had just turned down the offer of a seat. Was I then the one who was guilty of a disablist attitude by assuming that the physical impairment of Blue Haired Man meant he was incapable of standing? Was it thus patronising and insulting in the extreme to offer him a seat?
Who knows? Not having personal experience of disability myself, it is impossible to comment definitively on such things. I am, however, excited to learn through the new DWP advertising campaign that should I ever lose the power of my legs I will simultaneously develop an exceptional talent for bricklaying. Whilst I do worry I might not have the bottom for it, it is a great consolation to me to know that should I ever suffer a serious accident I will be able to give up accountancy for a glowing career in the construction industry
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
I picked up on the fact that disablism is often unintentional and unconscious in my 2006 BADD entry, which may be of interest: http://labracknell.blogspot.com/2006/04/badd-entry.html.
(See, that now looks as though I’m being really arsey and getting on my high horse because I SAID IT FIRST, damn you! It honestly WASN’T meant in that way…)
I laughed out loud about the bricklaying thing
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Oh, I’m so glad you’re thinking about it, and that you told this story. As a one-legged person, I will attempt to set your mind a little at ease by saying this: It is NEVER wrong to offer help. What is wrong is to insist upon “helping,” to ask when help is refused whether the prospective help-ee is “sure” s/he doesn’t want the help, or to assume that because a person has one leg or some other noticeable potential difficulty that s/he cannot possibly do X, Y, or Z and *must* therefore be “helped.”
I’ve used a lot of cutesy punctuation to make my point, but I hope I am clear. Wanting to help is always good, but not assuming you know what another person requires is also good, and not taking a rejected offer to help personally is just more goodness.
For a lengthy discussion on the difference between helping and objectifying someone, I too shall offer an old blog post for you to read:
http://movingrightalong.typepad.com/moving_right_along/2006/03/object_lesson.html