From Emily Titon TW: discussion of internalized and institutionalized ableism, societal pressure to commit suicide, euthanasia, gaslighting someone till they have so much internalized ableism they think killing themselves is the only morally right option A hard but necessary post. "My writing about ableism got me thinking about the way most people respond when I tell them what I and others I know have experienced. Even the worst of it. People are always trying to justify what happened to us. They respond to my stories by saying it’s understandable for people to assume I’m better off dead, and to try and refuse me medical treatment on those grounds. People have even called me selfish for wanting to be alive. And I was thinking of some of the deeply held beliefs in modern western cultures, when it comes to disability. And that is that once you become disabled, you are expendable. Being expendable is one of the worst things about being disabled. When our economies take s turn for the worse, programs and services for disabled people are the first on the chopping block, as we can see in the UK right now. People resent our very existence. They do all kinds of things to keep themselves alive, but letting us alive is seen as optional and somewhat extravagant. ... So the message a lot of disabled people take home from this is not only should we die as soon as possible, we should never have been permitted to exist in the first place. Better for nondisabled people to live in our place. We are infinitely expendable, they are infinitely valuable. And as much as each side uses us to demonize the other, this is not a left versus right wing issue. Both sides tend to view us as an expendable, optional, add on to a society meant for real (nondisabled) people. They just act on it in different ways. And when disabled people complain about it, each points their finger at the other and says it’s all their fault. Many times the left even treats disabled people as if we are stupid little kids who are being duped by the right, when we criticize ideas the left tasks for granted — but we do so from a disability rights point of view, not necessarily a right wing point of view. People fail to see the difference and pointless bickering ensues. But the idea that disabled people are expendable, is everywhere. It seems to be in the very air we breathe. And you may even have trouble imagining what it’s like to know that all these ordinary people are motivated by ideas that could result in your death. To know that tomorrow they could pass the policy that kills you. Or someone somewhere, some individual person, acting mostly on their own, could take actions that could kill you. Because you’re expendable, and when the going gets tough, we are among the first to go. And sometimes the idea we are expendable looks on the surface like pity. Or compassion. Or greed. Or practicality. Or ruthlessness. But under the surface, it’s all one thing: hate. Because only hatred can unite a group of people and then declare that they are expendable. That they are just a weird afterthought or add on to a society that is really for other people, and that therefore they can be removed from that society. Either by directly killing them, or by policies that result in death. Expendable is a terrifying place to live." - Amanda Baggs
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 03:10:19 +0000
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