In last week's post, I introduced the concept of ableism via a personal anecdote. Then, I acknowledged that it's not easily defined, and defining it requires a lot of nuance. According to Wikipedia, ableism is defined as "discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities and/or people who are perceived to be disabled." This is the definition at its simplest, but there's still a lot to unpack. So let's start with a very simple example that damn near everybody would agree is ableism:
In Nazi Germany and its eugenics program, people with physical and cognitive disabilities were deemed inferior and executed. However, it is pretty naïve to think that ableism is limited to such extreme and obvious examples. Just as society is becoming increasingly aware of racism being a structural issue-- as opposed to something simple and obvious like "He's a racist because he's a KKK member"-- it's important to realize that structural ableism is a problem. Often, structural ableism is the result of lack of awareness and understanding rather than intentional maliciousness. A simple example is not providing a ramp for a wheelchair user to enter a building. Or, in the case of an invisible disability, such as dyslexia, not giving a student extra help or some other accommodation. While not as insidious as Nazi eugenics, failing to make accommodations for disabled people is a genuine problem.
Structural ableism is difficult to address, but part of addressing the issue involves being aware of cultural ableism. Wikipedia defines cultural ableism as "behavioural, cultural, attitudinal and social patterns that may discriminate against dignity of disability symptoms, deny, invisibilise, dismiss special needs or may make disability rights and accessibility unattainable." This is definitely a major issue for all forms of disabilities, and I would wager probably more so for invisible disabilities.
When I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, the only invisible disabilities that were well understood-- to my knowledge, anyway-- were dyslexia and intellectual disability (people with the latter, of course, used to be slapped with the cringe-worthy label "retarded"). Special education classes and accommodations were increasingly available for people with these disabilities. But as for the invisible disabilities that have been a part of my life like autism, prosopagnosia, and auditory processing disorder? Forget it. Sink or swim. Missed that social cue and made a faux pas? "You refuse to take advice and you refuse to learn from your mistakes. You're not trying." Can't differentiate between two teachers with similar mustaches? "You weren't paying attention." Didn't hear the directions because there was too much background noise? Tough shit. "These other kids all heard the directions, so why didn't you? I don't want to hear any excuses." When parents and teachers said things like this to me, they were denying and dismissing my disabilities. There was just one problem that prevents me from automatically slapping on the "ableist" judgment: practically nobody was aware of autism, prosopagnosia, and auditory processing disorder back then. Of the three, auditory processing disorder was the only condition that I was diagnosed with as a kid.
While the above scenarios are definitely ableist, I strongly believe that applying this label is contingent upon whether the person passing these judgments is aware of the existence of these invisible disabilities. A teacher today would most certainly be educated on them, and if they still displayed the same attitude, it would be appropriate to call their attitudes ableist. Teachers in the '80s and '90s? Ignorant perhaps (in a "I don't know anything about astrophysics" kind of way, not in a Donald Trump kind of way). And in some cases, assholes, because on what planet is it okay to tell a child that they aren't trying?
I let my parents and teachers off the hook somewhat because the issue was largely that my disabilities were unknown and unidentified. As I noted, auditory processing disorder was the exception to this. I was diagnosed at age eight, and every year before school started, my mother told all my teachers that I needed to sit in front of the room so that I could more easily process the directions. Usually my teachers cooperated, but practically every year there was a teacher who failed to let me do that; whether because they "just forgot" or because they dismissed it as "special treatment", who the hell knows? If it was the latter, that is definitely an ableist attitude. And invariably I would get in trouble with said teacher for "not listening," which possibly reflected an ableist attitude.
Now what about less obvious cases of ableism? Well, part of that involves acknowledging that even a disability isn't always easy to define. We'll unpack that next week. Stay tuned.
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