Blogging against Disablism Day
Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day. Please visit Diary of A Goldfish for links to some more profound posts on the theme than mine 
Disablism seems to me slightly different to other -isms (eg. racism, chauvenism) because many people still don’t seem to recognise it as a set of negative prejudices which they should be ashamed of possessing. Most people in their right mind at least realise that other people are liable to be offended by their racist/chauvenistic views, and are thus prone to preface their exceptionally racist and chauvenistic comments with the phrase “I don’t mean to sound like a racist (etc), but…”. This doesn’t, of course, ultimately mitigate the offence of what they are saying, but it does at least serve to prove that they *realise* that what they are saying could be construed as not the sort of thing which is said by a nice person. For reasons I don’t understand, disablism still seems to be lagging behind somewhat in these stakes so that people who are otherwise perfectly lovely genuinely don’t seem to twig that there is anything potentially wrong with their somewhat warped and misguided points of view 
I was talking to a relative of mine, whom I shall refrain from naming and shaming, a few weeks ago for example, and she was expressing complete consternation about the fact that the BBC children’s channel CBeebies was employing a disabled TV presenter. I have a little cousin who is about five and very much enjoys watching CBeebies, as often as his parents will allow him to. My relative was expressing abject horror at the thought that he could be forced to look at images of a disabled person on the grounds that he is “a sensitive little boy” and the sight of a disabled person was likely to traumatise him for the rest of his life. My relative was quite outraged that the BBC was allowing such a thing to take place, and declared that it was political correctness gone mad.
I was slightly surprised by the venom of her reaction, and asked why she was so convinced that my cousin was about to be traumatised. My relative explained, in a condescending sort of way, that children are very fragile creatures and can very easily be disturbed by “distressing” images. I queried quite how distressing the appearance of this TV presenter was (imagining all sorts of unspeakable horrors) and was assured that my relative had felt quite unwell when she’d turned the tv on to investigate. I didn’t have time to sit and watch children’s tv but I later googled it and discovered that the girl in question is a very pretty blonde who just happens to be missing half of one arm.
Hmmm. Okay, so it’s a little unusual to only have half of one arm, but is this something which is really going to upset a small child? It’s hard to tell because children can be upset by all sorts of random things. When I was a small child I went through a phase of being scared of men with glasses. This was quickly followed by a phase during which I was terrified of men with beards. Does this mean that all children’s tv presenters should be clean-shaven with contact lenses?
The idea is ridiculous. Yes, children can be frightened by things which are strange and unusual, but so long as adults behave rationally and demonstrate that the things they fear are actually harmless (as opposed to feeding their fear by proclaiming that all people with beards are evil and we should run away from them), children will outgrow the fear with time and grow to accept the feared characteristic as within the bounds of normality. I am now engaged to a person who has both glasses and a beard (it is a beard, Babel 
) and I don’t (often) wake up during the night with an urge to run away from him. Principally only when he snores.
I had to discontinue the conversation with my relative at this point because it was clear they just weren’t getting it and I didn’t want to have a row. I hope that maybe with time they will come to see that my cousin has not been traumatised, and that he will perhaps develop a more positive attitude towards disability as a result of positive exposure to the concept at a young age. I really hope that he and his generation will do so, and I think there’s a good chance; personally, I think “In the Night Garden” is far more disturbing than an entire army of one-armed tv presenters… seriously, what is with that programme?!
It may also be worth noting today that Archbishop Vincent Nichols, soon to become Archbishop of Westminster, missed an excellent opportunity to say something interesting on the theme of disablism when he wrote a pastoral letter on the theme last month. His main concern appeared to be that vast quantities of disabled people were dying to come to Catholic churches but unable to do so because we have too many steps, followed only by his concern that there might be Catholic disabled children who the Church is failing to properly indoctrinate on account of them not being able to attend mainstream Catholic schools, and that steps should be taken to rectify this in the said children’s best interests.
Talking about disablism and religion, which we briefly appear to be, I was rather shocked on Easter Sunday by the behaviour of my parish priest during the habitual renewal of baptismal vows. For those who are not familiar with the concept, the priest processes around the church, sprinkling water on the congregation to symbolise the renewal of the promises made for them by their godparents during baptism. Needless to say, the opportunity to flick water in people’s faces is one of the few perks of being a Catholic priest these days! My priest was doing the rounds as usual until he reached a pew with one of our blind parishoners. He sprinkled the parishoner, hesitated for a moment, then grinned and applied a liberal sprinkling to his guide dog also. The poor dog looked most bemused, and I couldn’t help thinking that that was a bit of a cheek, all the more so because the owner clearly had no idea what he had done or why the surrounding pews were trying not to collapse with laughter. It wasn’t a deliberately malicious act, but like so many acts of disablism stupid and thoughtless.
As I said at the start, please visit Diary of a Goldfish for a full catalogue of today’s posts.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:51 am
Um, a correction: Archbishop Vincent is to become the Archbishop of Westminster and thus boss of the Catholics here, AFAIK, not of Canterbury. Canterbury is the Church of England’s boss.
As for that BBC children’s presenter, it’s always the parents who get upset. The kids don’t worry. We see far more shocking things on the news than on kids TV. Apart from “In the Night Garden.” That’s a show I don’t understand either.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:23 am
OMG, I can’t believe I said he was going to become the Archbishop of Canterbury
Thanks Damon, now corrected 
100% correct about the news: when I started primary school I was subjected to assembly after assembly featuring slides of starving children in Ethiopia, far more distressing than anything which could ever feature on CBeebies.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:27 am
Ah, youze are just saying that ‘cos you don’t understand the Tombliboos and the Ninky Nonk. You’re just NightGardenists…!
As for the CBeebies thing, my son asked about the presenter’s arm. The response given (by child’s grandmother) was simply that either she might have lost it in an accident or she might have been born without a hand. Child goes “ah, okay”, not in the slightest bit concerned or horrified, gets on with watching telly…
I misunderstood what you were saying about the priest at first: I thought you were saying that the act of sprinkling water on the dog was sort of “actively” disablist, which I didn’t understand as it may simply have been that the priest was happy to sprinkle all people/animals in the church. However, upon re-reading, it’s obvious that the result of these actions was to single out the blind guy/people, and make it seem like people were laughing at him, because now not only was he the centre of attention, but he didn’t know why: as far as he knew the priest might have been specifically making fun of him.
I hope the priest spoke to him at the end to explain/apologise for his thoughtlessness – or if he didn’t realise, that someone else could explain it to him. It’s one of those moments where someone might even have been well meaning but didn’t bother to think of the consequences of their actions and their impact on other people first.
On the other hand, it’s presumably an honest mistake, and we’re all capable of making honest mistakes through ignorance…
May 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Hi Jack
It was kinda the expression on the priest’s face which made it seem unacceptable. You could see him grinning as if he was thinking, “Haha, this will be a great laugh – I can flick water in the dog’s face and the owner will never know!” I guess the point is that he wouldn’t have done it if the owner hadn’t been blind… Okay so clearly if the owner hadn’t been blind he wouldn’t have had a guide dog anyway, but you know what I mean…
May 1st, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Parents can do so much damage. And it’s a real shame when a child shows natural curiosity about something to dampen it with something negative and ill-conceived. I just hope that for every negative reaction to this presenter, there are two positive ones out there.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:27 pm
[...] Radio Clare [...]
May 1st, 2009 at 5:24 pm
In the US there are starting to be disability ministry groups in each diocese, although I think each parish needs one. There’s a need for clergy and laity to acknowledge the presence of pwd and welcome pwd to congregations -and avoid some of the kinds of oversights that go on, like only concentrating on “steps”. I’ve been interested in hearing other peoples’ experiences since the day I was asked to leave a Catholic church because I (in my wheelchair) was a “fire hazard”. Sigh.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
One thing about disablism, is that it is not yet understood, even among those of us who live it everyday! I think of silence of disablism as silence of violence! No mater who perpetrates. We need to find a way to shout it out.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:28 pm
[...] disabled, so there’s no need for accessibility. This is also illustrated by another post from Radio Clare which highlights how some people want people with disabilities to be hidden away from the rest of [...]
May 2nd, 2009 at 5:00 am
I was appalled at the outrage surrounding this TV show host, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been: parents can make anything seem dangerous or scary if they present it that way. (“Cookies… they’re poison!”) As an early childhood educator, who used a wheelchair every day that I was able to teach (in fact wouldn’t have been well enough to teach if I wasn’t using it), I learned early on that little kids do not make a big deal out of that kind of thing unless their parents do. Many a parent was shocked on PTA night to find out that I even used a wheelchair – their child had never mentioned it to them in their discussions about school. It became quite matter of fact very quickly.
May 2nd, 2009 at 5:57 am
Great post for BADD 2009…or for any time, for that matter.
That TV presenter episode sure provoked a storm of protest. Like you, I later watched the video and, even later, watched the show on TV with my 4 year old niece. I, also, was first struck about how pretty she actually was. Jessica (niece) said “How does she tie her shoelaces?”.
These parents should start listening to their children…
Thanks for sharing.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:36 am
I have to feel for the dog watering priest. He probably didn’t know what to do for the best – do I not sprinkle and get accused of not treating the dog as a member of the congregation and cause offence, or do I sprinkle and possibly cause a giggle and possible offence ?
Of course, the best idea would have been to ask the blind guy if he would like his dog sprinkled or not. It’s amazing how many times people don’t think of just that simple thing – just ask !
On another note, many people think a guide dog is public property. My s.o. has a guide dog. I’ve lost count of the times that someone has petted it without asking, or said – and this is a real corker – “I know I shouldn’t but I just had to pet him, he’s so lovely !” As if knowing they shouldn’t and admitting that will make it ok – no, it makes it worse, you damn fool ! You know you’re doing wrong – at least the little old lady who petted the dog in innocence at the pelican crossing was mortified when she was told how dangerous it could have been.