Violence in Language: Circling Back to Linguistic Ableism

Trigger warning/content: Use or quotes of ableist slurs and language. (No profanity/swears in this post.)

The single most frequently-viewed page on this website is the glossary of ableist phrases. As with anything frequently shared and visited on the internet, reactions generally fall into one of two camps: happy and supportive, or else, highly critically or viscerally offended. Eventually, I prefaced that page with its own brief essay explaining some of the reasons for its existence. (It still receives a lot of criticism. Some of these criticisms are valid, and I continually revise the page to reflect my own process of learning and unlearning. Others span the gamut of accusations about my intentions or the page's reasons for existence.)

For example, a few months ago, someone pointed out that the list of alternative phrases assumed class and education privilege. The commenter said that a lot of the words seemed like SAT words. In response, I attempted to revise and expand the list of suggested alternatives to account for varying tones, moods, and access to education or linguistic privilege. More recently, another person criticized the list of alternatives for including profanity because swears are fairly common triggers. (At the same time, a lot of other people find swears to be the most easily accessible language. I have now added a trigger warning before a new, separate list of alternatives just for the swears, located at the bottom after everything else. I'm not going to outright delete them, though, because there's also a lot of baggage for many people who have been continually told that they should not use swears, abused for their language, or oppressed by a lot of classism and ableism in demonizing the use of swear words.)

One of the most common (inaccurate and mischaracterizing) criticisms, however, both from inside and outside the disability community, is the accusation that the list is a tool for policing language or censoring words.

So what's the purpose of the list? Why compile it at all? Because linguistic ableism is part of the total system of ableism, and it is critical to understand how it works, how it is deployed, and how we can unlearn our social conditioning that linguistic ableism is normal and just how things are or should be.

As important as it is to recognize and uncover the violence of linguistic ableism (how ableism is specifically embedded into our language), it is also critical to understand why this is important. (And this is where those who jump the gun and leap to accusations of pedantic, holier-than-thou, smug language-policing or censorship have not yet come to understand why this page, and those like it, need to exist.)

Linguistic ableism:

a) is part of an entire system of ableism, and doesn't exist simply by itself,

b) signifies how deeply ableist our societies and cultures by how common and accepted ableism is in language,

c) reinforces and perpetuates ableist social norms that normalize violence and abuse against disabled people,

d) actively creates less safe spaces by re-traumatizing disabled people, and

e) uses ableism to perpetuate other forms of oppression.

Language is not the be all end all. This isn't about policing language or censoring words, but about critically examining how language is part of total ableist hegemony. This is about being accountable when we learn about linguistic ableism, but it is also about being compassionate to ourselves and recognizing that to varying extents, we have all participated in ablesupremacy and ablenormativity. This is about understanding the connections between linguistic ableism and other forms of ableism, such as medical ableism, scientific ableism, legal ableism, and cultural ableism.

Language reflects and influences society and culture. That's why students of any foreign language often study the cultures where that language is dominant. (And that's not to dimiss the many valid criticisms of the ethnocentrism and colonialism in much area and language studies programs.) Language isn't important for silly semantic reasons, but because it cannot be separated from the culture in which it is deployed. Feminist theory, queer theory, and race theory have all analyzed how sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, binarism, and racism are embedded in language. This is the same process.

Using the language of disability (either directly or through metaphor) as a way to insult other people, dismiss other people, express your vehement loathing for them/their viewpoints, or invalidate their viewpoints is actually extremely ableist (and often sanist, neurotypicalist, audist, or vidist).

For example, I am talking about using the language of mental illness ("crazy," "insane," "psycho," or "wacko," for example), cognitive disability ("retarded," "slow," or "moron," for example), or physical disability ("crippled" or "completely blind/deaf," for example). In another example, I am also talking about using disability as metaphor.

Using the language of disability to denigrate or insult in our conversations and organizing presumes that

a.) people who hold undesirable or harmful viewpoints must hold them because they are mentally ill/have psych disabilities/are mentally disabled/are disabled in some way,

b.) having mental illness/psych disability/mental disability/any disability is actually so undesirable and horrible that you can insult someone that way (the same underlying reason why socially embedded linguistic heterosexism lets people use "gay" as an insult),

c.) it's acceptable to use ableism against one disability group while decrying ableism against another disability group (creating horizontal or intra-disability oppression) or another form of oppression against another marginalized group (creating horizontal oppression), and

d.) and that no one who is disabled in any way might actually share your opinion or be on your side,

thus actually actively excluding and marginalizing this part of our community, and making our spaces less safe and less inclusive.

For alternatives, try being more precise in your language. Maybe you meant to say one of the following (much longer list on the glossary):
- These people have completely ridiculous ideas.
- That person's viewpoint is extremely harmful.
- That idea is extremist.
- Those people have disturbing and concerning opinions.
- That comment was super problematic.
- I can't even engage with that person anymore.
- That person is a total [profanity/swear].

If you find yourself using this ableist language, please take a minute to re-examine how your perspective has been informed by ableism. This isn't an accusation or an insinuation that you are automatically an Evil Person. We have all participated in ableist structures, and are all continually learning and unlearning. But if you are truly committed to building more just and inclusive communities, then it is critical to unlearn how we have been conditioned into accepting ableism in all parts of our lives and societies, including in our language.

Literal Silencing

Trigger warning: Medical violence, abuse, ableism, profanity

Correction: The original version of this post stated that Kade Hanegraaf's surgery occurred at the University of Washington Hospital. The surgery actually took place at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Salon also published an article, quoting me actually, that contains more information from the surgeon.

Literal Silencing

Have you heard about Kade Hanegraaf yet? He's an autistic sixteen-year-old, who also has Tourette's, living in Appleton, Wisconsin, with his twin brother, Kyle, also autistic. And this week, the Wisconsin State Journal reported on a surgery forced upon him (link also has severe trigger warning) two years ago in 2011 at the University of Wisconsin Hospital that almost went unnoticed.

Almost.

One of Kade's tics is screaming.

His parents said of him, "It was absolutely horrific. We couldn't go anywhere." So they forced him to undergo surgery to silence him. To make him quiet. Good. Quiet. Good. Quiet. Good. Quiet. Good and quiet. Quiet and good. Good. And quiet. For them.

They made it about them. 

If screaming was a conflicting access need, there are other ways to address the issue than forced surgery. I've heard from other autistic people writing that they learned coping skills and ways to avoid some types of self-harming, for example, from other autistic people. Noticeably not from therapists, clinicians, or other professionals.

Was the screaming harmful to Kade? Did Kade want the procedure? Did Kade want to stop screaming? Even if the answers to these questions are yes, neither the news article nor the surgeon's published academic article (trigger warning on this article as well, and it's the full text as a PDF) mention anything whatsoever about seeking consent from Kade. 

(And yes, the surgeon, Dr. Seth H. Dailey, who teaches in the Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Surgery, at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Despicable.)

They claimed the surgery was reversible. Who the hell knows? That may not be true, and even if it were, that doesn't justify performing surgery without the patient's consent.

The surgery was performed because Kade was an inconvenience to his parents.

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I haven't done math in years, but the calculus seems to go a little like this:

Inconvenience + legally enforced power = medical torture

Solution: Justified.

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This is torture. To invade someone's body in total violation of their bodily autonomy and perform nonconsensual, involuntary medical procedures on the whim of another person for what amount to purely cosmetic purposes.

But because Kade is autistic, anything goes. Anything is treatment. Anything is permissible. His body is not his own; it belongs to his parents. His life is not his own; it belongs to his parents. His very existence is a burden and must be dealt with accordingly. If he creates further inconvenience beyond existing, he can be, quite literally, silenced. He is not a human being with autonomy, agency, and the ability to communicate consent or lack thereof.

His communication doesn't matter. His parents did not choose to engage in communication with their son. Instead, they chose to physically, medically, pristinely, callously, clinically cut out his voice from his throat.

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This is morally reprehensible. It ought to be appalling to anyone with even the most minute conscience or shard of empathy for fellow human beings. It is horrific and hideous. It is the epitome of selfishness on the part of the parents. This is an outrageous violation of human rights and bodily autonomy, and there is no conceivable justification for any of this.

But if we can be silenced in public discourse, erased from academia and scholarship, segregated in special education classrooms and residential treatment centers and institutions, hidden in sheltered workshops, and objectified as passive recipients of services and treatment and a future cure for who we are...

Then why not literally silence us?

Why not?

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Assault the subaltern, those who have no position whatsoever to challenge structural power, because you know we can't fight back. We must submit, quietly, without protest, to the surgeon's hands, to the parents' unilateral, selfish decisions, because we have no agency, we have no feelings, we have no choice, we have no ability to make a choice, we have no self, we have no being, we have no voice, we have no humanity, we are nothings, not-humans, simply occupying space and lucky if we are ignored as we usually are anyway.

It's when we're noticed that it's dangerous, because if we're noticed, we can be stamped out of existence, and I mean that deathly deathly deathly literally because our lives are disposable. (even especially especially especially by doctors)

I think about Kade in that operating theater and I want to cry but I already spent part of yesterday crying and I've already overused my quota because I'm not a Real Person so I don't get to cry...

And I wonder if it felt like this?

Course you gotta be strapped down and your head put in one of those things and bright lights white walls blah blah. Arms bound with thick leaden cloth. Spread like an angel. Keiya is compliant. She's always been a patient like that, so good so good, with the nurses and caregivers cooing at her like an obedient pet. 

The doctor motions. Keiya spreads her arms wide. 

I, too, am an unclaimed colony.

(Meda Kahn's "Difference of Opinion" has got to be some of the best fiction I've read about an autistic character. Part of the reason for "best" is probably "realistic." Not just with the autistic, but also what happens. How Keiya is a thing to be controlled, a thing to be made submissive, a thing to be made compliant, a thing that has to be fixed, to have an adjustment, if it ever lays claim to self.)

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It's obviously not harm if it's done to an autistic. Autistics aren't people. Doctors can't harm autistics; everything is for their good society's good their parents' good everyone's good, good, good, good.

Autistics are things objects subjects problems burdens threats fantasies fictions creatures animals things things things things things not-people things things things things things not-people things things things things things.

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But if we have no voices why not cut out the vocal cords because we have nothing to say we've never had anything to say we'll never have anything to say and even if on the off-chance we say something it means nothing nothing nothing so no problem, whoop-dee-doo, cut out them vocal chords and yay, problem solved for those Good Patient Saintly Normal People putting up with the burden of disabled existence.

Silence is their reward.

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You can reach the surgeon at dailey@surgery.wisc.edu. Be nice. After all, he's a Person, capital-p, and we're just manipulable, pliant things.

I'd say, fuck all of the people involved, but my voice isn't a real voice can be silenced all the damn time doesn't have to be listened to doesn't have to exist doesn't exist doesn't exist doesn't exist doesn't

Psychopathy: Racism and Ableism from the Medical-Industrial Complex

Trigger warning/Content: Disability-related slurs and other ableist language, mention of rape, racism, and ableism.

Edit: In the original post, I neglected to ntion the connections between Antisocial Prsonality Disorder and Cnduct Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Dsorder, nd structural racism, sxism, and ableism. typos b/c eited from pphone.

Psychopathy: Racism and Ableism from the Medical-Industrial Complex

When we commit to examining our language and our ideas and deconstructing the ableism we find in them, we must make a full commitment, no partial or half-hearted commitments allowed. When we stop using "autistic" and "retarded" as insults, when we realize the urgent need to stop scapegoating mass murder and rape on "mental illness" and "emotional instability," when we learn to stop referring to our political opponents as "blind," "deaf," or "crippled" in their ideologies, we must also critically re-examine our use of the psychopathy label.

This constructed term of art does not in fact refer to an accepted diagnostic label in psychiatry or psychology. In the recently-replaced DSM-IV (the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the closest label was "Antisocial Personality Disorder," a diagnosis that still exists in the current DSM-5. The DSM-5 also contains the newly created diagnosis of Conduct Disorder. The diagnostic criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder and Conduct Disorder come perhaps the closest to the lay definition for psychopathy that is usually intended when the term is invoked.

The lay definition for psychopathy typically goes like this:
Someone who has little or no empathy for other people and no real control over their behavior.

Psychopathy is usually invoked when referring to either

1. violent people, such as murderers, serial killers, school shooters, terrorists, or rapists, either by the mass media or by legal professionals, including prosecuting and defense attorneys, judges, sentencing advocates, probation and parole officers, and corrections officers and prison guards
2. other disabled people, such as autistics, people with mental health or psychiatric disabilities, or learning disabilities (though usually when a person in this group has been accused of or formally charged with a crime)
3. members of oppressive classes, such as wealthy people, cisgender men, or abled people, and especially when the member of the oppressive class is in a position of political power in addition to apolitical structural power

Yet, as noted before, psychopathy is not even a medical or psychiatric diagnosis. It doesn't exist in the DSM-IV nor does it exist in the DSM-5, and as much as I hate lending any further credence to the medical-industrial complex's state-sanctioned and socially-approved authority, this is important to recognize. Even the medical-industrial complex does not officially recognize psychopathy as a diagnosis. 

On the other hand, Antisocial Personality Disorder is recognized as a psychiatric diagnosis by the medical establishment. And who are the people typically diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder? They are overwhelmingly poor students of color who frequently have other disabilities. Antisocial Personality Disorder, the diagnostic category that comes closest to approximating the lay definition of "psychopathy," is a tool for criminalizing poverty, blackness and brownness, and disability. It is the diagnostic label to legitimize non-compliance as a mental health problem.

Refusal to take psychiatric medications? Non-compliant. Doing poorly in math class? Non-compliant. Stimming in public? Non-compliant.

If you are non-compliant, you are anti-social. You are mentally ill. You have Antisocial Personality Disorder. You are a psychopath.

The language of pathology, of mental illness, of disease, of disability, has long been used to reinforce existing structural oppressions like racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, binarism, cissexism, and ableism. I spoke at UC Berkeley this past Friday on the need to recognize and move beyond ableist metaphor. Ableist metaphor is all-pervasive in public discourse, in academia, in grassroots organizing, in progressive and radical movements as well as in conservative, neoliberal, and nationalist movements. Ableist metaphor draws on the language of disability to characterize, to denigrate, to attack, to rhetoricize, to politicize -- and it does so based on the presumption that deviation from typical thought, movement, emotional processing, communication, bodily/mental functioning, learning, remembering, sensing is evidence of defect, deficiency, disorder, and ultimately, moral failure. And if this is so, then it is certainly justifiable to refer to one's political opponents as blind or deaf to progressive ideas, or to refer to structures like capitalism or anarchy as social diseases, or to refer to violence visited either by individuals or oppressive systems as evidence of psychopathy.

To use psychopathy as the lens through which one views systemic or individual violence -- the violence of capitalism or patriarchy, for example, or the violence of a single serial killer or rapist -- is to reinforce the structural power of the medical-industrial complex, and to do so at the expense of disabled people, poor people, and people of color who have been victimized by the labels of non-compliant, anti-social, and psychopathic.

To defend the use of this term as medically accurate is to imply that you have knowledge that an individual has been medically assessed as and diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder or Conduct Disorder, which in itself, cedes control and power to the psychiatric establishment and the medical-industrial complex. It presumes personal medical knowledge, it reinforces the creative fictions of these diagnostic labels, and it enables the systems of violence that use the language of disability to pathologize and ultimately, to dehumanize.

Be precise in your language, and say that oppressive structures are violent and manipulative. Say that those who abuse their structural positions of power act with reckless disregard for other human beings. Say that they are callous and unabashedly wielding the power that comes with their privilege.

But don't call them psychopaths.

I've experienced enough ableism in my life to last me several lifetimes. I don't need fellow radicals feeding into ableism.

People's Coverage of Issy Stapleton's Story

Trigger warning: Discussion of violence against disabled people, murder of disabled people, mention of rape, ableism, and ableist rhetoric about violence. 


Note: I noticed it's actually Issy (with a y). I wrote Issi (with an i). I apologize for my inability to spell.

__________

This is from a letter that I wrote to an editor of People magazine who is also a Georgetown alumn:

I am currently writing regarding People's coverage of the Issy Stapleton case. Issy's mother is currently facing charges of attempted murder, and is being held without bail in the case while Issy is hospitalized with injuries sustained during the attempted murder.

The magazine currently on news stands across the country contains a blurb on the cover that reads, "Autism, Violence & Despair: A Mother's Breaking Point." It breaks my heart and those of so many people in the autistic and disabled communities to continually see such rhetoric in the news, in popular media, and in public discourse.

It is incredibly common for journalists and policymakers alike to assert directly or imply through their reporting and language that when parents kill or attempt to kill their disabled children, it is because the child was a burden on the family, because the child didn't receive services -- any reason other than that the parent decided to harm their child. 

The disparity is very striking when you read coverage of killings and attempted killings of non-disabled children by their parents. Right or wrong, headlines decry such parents as monsters and their actions as evil. Yet when the victim is disabled, as in Issi's case, we are urged to be sympathetic to the aggressor rather than to the victim. The media so often plays directly into this attitude by reporting on all of the reasons that the parents were supposedly overwhelmed and stressed and therefore justified in harming their children.

These cases happen all the time. They are not novel or isolated. They are connected by a powerful and pervasive set of ideas that form the public attitude toward disability -- that disabled people are burdens on society and their families, that disability means less quality of life and less ability to be happy, that it is better to be dead than disabled, that when disabled people are murdered, it is out of mercy and love, and it is our lives that are tragic and not our murders.

These stories should be talked about. We don't want our victims to be forgotten. But I am continually appalled and profoundly saddened to see that the pattern of reporting about these cases remains the same -- always offering justifications and excuses for murder while suggesting, horrifyingly, that if I object to this type of coverage, I am somehow lacking in empathy. I think it is not unreasonable to believe that victims of violence deserve empathy, but the kind of rhetoric exemplified on the cover of People right now only serves to constantly reinforce that I and people like me are not in fact worthy of the same consideration as non-disabled victims of murder and other types of violence. Instead, it is the perpetrators who should receive sympathy. 

Only this week, yet another case following the same pattern has hit the news. Two children, Jaelen and Faith Edge, were found dead after their mother killed both of them and made an apparent attempt at suicide. One of the children was autistic, and much of the reporting around this case too has fallen into the same old pattern of blaming autism and the supposed burden of living with an autistic child as the cause behind the violence.

I cannot go more than a few weeks without hearing of another case in which a disabled person -- child, youth, or adult -- somewhere in the world has been murdered, raped, or assaulted because of the attitude that disabled means less than. The media has a particular power to shape and influence rhetoric, and therefore ideas and attitudes. With this power comes great responsibility. I urge you to do everything that you can to combat this insidious and deadly trend in popular news reporting.

We deserve better. We deserve nothing less.

How "Differently Abled" Marginalizes Disabled People

Some people, including people who would conventionally be categorized as disabled, use phrases like "differently abled" to refer to disabled people. This phrase is used because it supposedly humanizes disabled people by focusing on our abilities rather than on our impairments. Those who prefer the phrase "differently abled" often see the terms "disabled" or "disability" as potentially hurtful or offensive. "Dis" means "not," so the argument goes, so calling someone "disabled" must mean that a person is "unable to do anything," "incapable of ever doing anything functional or useful or desirable either by others or by themselves," and therefore, it is wrong to call people disabled.

Speaking from a purely objective standpoint, we as humans are all differently abled from one another. Some people are better at math than other people. Some people are better at public speaking than other people. Some people are better at cooking or even remembering to cook than other people. Some people walk and some do not, and of those people who do walk, not everyone walks in the same way. When referring to groups of people, there is nothing inaccurate with saying that within the group, each person is differently abled. This is true regardless of how many disabled people are in the group or if there are no disabled people in the group.

The problem arises when the term "differently abled" is used to refer to an individual disabled person.

Firstly, calling someone "differently abled" is euphemistic. It is borderline cutesy and it diminishes the actual experiences of disabled people. It suggests that the term disability should be uncomfortable and therefore should be avoided. What this does is further increase stigma against disabled people by discouraging discussion about disability and what it means to be disabled.

Secondly, using the term "differently abled" to refer to disabled people actually reinforces the idea that there is one normal way to be human -- that there is one normal way to move, one normal way to communicate, one normal way to sense, one normal way to feel, one normal way to learn, and one normal way to think. It does not perform its intended purpose of suggesting that all people are different and that this is okay. It suggests that only disabled people, who must now be called "differently abled" instead, are deviant or defective from this normal human model, and it suggests that there is in fact a correct or right way to be "able." It supports the false idea of the normal body/mind, which is what "differently abled" is supposed to undermine, and thus it fails in its supposed purpose.

Thirdly, the phrase "differently abled" ignores the reality that disability is the result of a complicated interaction between individual people's bodies/minds and social, cultural, and political structures that actively work to disable people with atypical bodies/minds. This happens because "differently abled" suggests that disability is one person's individual problem while also denying the impact of systems that privilege people with typical bodies/minds while marginalizing people with atypical bodies/minds.

When I say that I am "disabled," I am not putting myself down, insulting myself, suggesting that something is wrong with me, or making a negative statement about myself. I am staking a claim in an identity that is important to who I am as a person. I am recognizing that my mind/body function atypically, and that because of this, I am constantly forced by mainstream social/cultural attitudes and the laws and policies that enforce them to choose between being othered (and then discriminated against or outright harmed) or accepting the idea that I must hide who I am by passing as an abled person.

By calling myself disabled, I am rejecting the idea that it is wrong to have a mind/body like mine.

When I say that I am "disabled," I am not reducing myself to my disability, just as I am not reducing myself to my gender or my race when I say that I am genderqueer or that I am Asian. Being disabled is one part, albeit an important part, of my multifaceted identity. Each of these parts overlaps with each other, blurs into each other, and intersects with each other; they are not separated or disparate. It is important for me to define who I am, and being disabled is an important part of how I define myself.

I do not believe in referring to disabled people as "differently abled" because this language only serves to reinforce oppression of disabled people by systems that marginalize atypical bodies/minds.

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Photo: I (Lydia) am standing in front of several people walking down a stone path, holding a large white poster with the colored block letters "Autistic & Proud" in multi-colored rainbow handwritten marker. I'm a young east asian person with short hair wearing glasses. 

How They Hate Us

Trigger warning: Direct quote of long text of extreme hate speech, use of r-word and other slurs, implied threats of violence.

How They Hate Us

Brenda Millson of Newcastle, Ontario received a hate letter on Friday about Max, her thirteen year old autistic grandson. The family have contacted the police.

If you need any more evidence that yes, ableism is actually a thing, then go ahead and read the letter below. If you're on the front page of this site, you'll have to click past the jump to see it. (Yes, it's bad and horrible enough that I added a jump line to prevent people from accidentally scrolling down from the homepage.)

Critiquing Temple Grandin

Trigger warning for ableism.

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Temple Grandin. Image description: A headshot of an older white woman with very short, somewhat curly, brown but graying hair, looking directly at the camera. She is wearing a cobalt blue collared shirt and a silky black scarfy tie thing. Behind her is a wooden fencepost with rope draped over it.


Temple Grandin is widely recognized as the world's most famous autistic person. She's written a number of books about autism, regularly travels around the globe to give talks at conferences, and was even the subject of a documentary on her early life (eponymously titled Temple Grandin). Other autistic people, as well as folks outside the community, have written on a number of aspects of the troubling things that Temple has said or the way in which she is positioned in rhetoric on autism both in broader society and within our own community.

I have several criticisms of both Temple Grandin's positioning as well as her positions.

Because Temple Grandin is functionally the world's only famous autistic person (and certainly the most famous), what she says about autism is taken as gospel, regarded as absolute truth, and frequently generalized as if representative of the experiences and views of every other autistic person on the planet. This is despite the fact that her experiences are inextricably linked to her race, her class, and the time period during which she came of age -- not to mention the inevitable tensions that come with being the first widely-recognized autistic to speak on an autistic experience.

What Temple Grandin has said about autism is frequently extremely ableist, classist, and otherwise very problematic. Because of her prominence on the world stage, her international acclaim, and her extremely high levels of visibility and name recognition, her ideas have proliferated quite abundantly. Yet this is also due in part to the fact that her positions render her an acceptable autistic, a well-behaved autistic willing to conform to hegemonic normative standards and compliance as ethics. In other words, Temple Grandin's articulated ideas about autism and autistic people fit into the pathology paradigm that dominates autism discourse.

Temple Grandin is frequently tokenized or used as a nice window-dressing -- to borrow Jim Sinclair's term, she is frequently paraded at mainstream autism conferences and symposia as a self-narrating zoo exhibit. Because she is autistic and her statements align with those articulated from an ableist sensibility, neurotypicals advancing the views that autism presents a problem of pathology can claim authenticity or legitimacy for their position through Temple Grandin's reiteration of the same sentiments.

Temple Grandin believes that "high-functioning" autistics are talented, intelligent, and necessary to human survival, while "low-functioning" autistics cannot function or live independently, and thus should be cured in the present and prevented from existing in the future. Both I and others have thoroughly deconstructed the false dichotomy of high and low functioning, but suffice it to say that such claims not only reinforce ableist hegemony, but also reinforce a capitalist notion of success and value in that only people who can produce are worthy of inclusion in society; all others are burdens.

Her belief that nonverbal autistics are tragic and pitiable evokes a sense of moral disgust and outrage, particularly when coupled with the many voices of nonspeaking autistics demanding a claim to voice, to agency, to capacity -- asserting competence, self, and pride.

Her belief that the only autistics who ought to be considered valuable and thus valued are those who have a job and learn to function within neurotypical norms is colored inescapably by classism and ableism -- the very systems of oppression that serve so frequently to reinforce the violence of capitalism.

Her belief that autistic children should be conditioned to normalize their behavior, communication, and movements for the sake of indistinguishability alone is profoundly ableist and disappointing, especially when considering the long history of violence exacted against disabled people for the crime of failing to uphold hegemonic standards of normativity.

Temple Grandin poses an answer to the question of whose bodies/minds ought to be valued and whose ought to be discredited and removed for the good of society. Her answer is a deeply disturbing one, and must concern those of us who wish to see the deconstruction of societal ableism, because both her own rhetoric and how she is rhetoricized serve only to perpetuate it.

Fighting ableism with ableism doesn't work

Fighting ableism with ableism doesn't work. In fact, it's just bad policy. Yet that's precisely the tactic that Disability Scoop, "the premier source for developmental disability news," decided to use in its criticism of the latest episode of Glee, in which the character with Down syndrome brought a gun to school. Here's the relevant part of the Disability Scoop article:

“Acting like every other teenager in doing things like sports and going to college, those are things great to portray for Becky,” said Julie Cevallos, vice president of marketing for the organization [National Down Syndrome Society]. “Taking a gun to school is something very serious and would likely come with a mental health condition. That’s not appropriate for someone with Down syndrome and not a stigma they need.”

Meanwhile, comments from viewers on Twitter criticized the characterization for being “disgraceful” and “seriously lame.”

The first bit of this is simpler to process and explain. It's in the second paragraph quoted, where one of the quotes from a Twitter used reads "seriously lame." Lame means someone who can't walk, whether because of amputation or paralysis, quadriplegia or paraplegia, or certain types of cerebral palsy. Using this word as as an insult or a criticism already denotes that "lame" is understood as a negative attribute or characteristic. This wouldn't be the case if being "lame" were not also implicitly understood to be a negative state of being. Lame can only be an insult so long as being lame is a bad thing, just as using "gay" as an insult only works with the understanding that being gay is a bad thing.

Given that the criticism in question is directed toward the (potentially?) ableist representation of a disabled character, this is particularly ironic and biting.

(I say potentially because I've never seen Glee and didn't see the episode receiving the criticism across the netscape, and so feel unqualified on that basis alone to make much commentary on the actual TV episode in question. I'll agree, though, that based only on what I've read, it was probably an incredibly poor choice at best, given the dangerous and inaccurate stereotype of disabled people, particularly the developmentally disabled after the recent media hullabaloo after Newtown, as [more] [more likely to be] violent.)

The second bit of ableism, encapsulated in the first paragraph of the quote above, is quite a bit more serious, where Julie Cevallos from the National Down Syndrome Society says, "Taking a gun to school is something very serious and would likely come with a mental health condition. That’s not appropriate for someone with Down syndrome." Unpacking this is going to take quite a bit longer to do.

Ms. Cevallos is actively contributing to the oppression of people with psychiatric disabilities. Read that first sentence again -- "Taking a gun to school is something very serious and would likely come with a mental health condition." This statement implies a) that people with psychiatric disabilities are more likely to bring a gun to school, b) that they are more likely to do this with violent intentions, c) that they are more likely to commit a school shooting or other act of violence, and that d) it would be more accurate to portray someone bringing a gun to school as "mentally ill."

These are untrue for a variety of reasons. In certain parts of the country where hunting continues to be a major part of the culture, students with and without disabilities might "bring guns to school" in the sense that they're in their cars or trucks for hunting or sport shooting after school. Further, there is no evidence to suggest that murderers are more likely to have psychiatric disabilities than not. Here's an excerpt from a recent New York Times article (and yes, the sources are linked in the original article -- if you want more, see my earlier post with links to full texts of several peer-reviewed articles on the topic):

Only about 4 percent of violence in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness. This does not mean that mental illness is not a risk factor for violence. It is, but the risk is actually small. Only certain serious psychiatric illnesses are linked to an increased risk of violence. One of the largest studies, the National Institute of Mental Health’s Epidemiologic Catchment Area study, which followed nearly 18,000 subjects, found that the lifetime prevalence of violence among people with serious mental illness — like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — was 16 percent, compared with 7 percent among people without any mental disorder. Anxiety disorders, in contrast, do not seem to increase the risk at all.

Alcohol and drug abuse are far more likely to result in violent behavior than mental illness by itself. In the National Institute of Mental Health’s E.C.A. study, for example, people with no mental disorder who abused alcohol or drugs were nearly seven times as likely as those without substance abuse to commit violent acts.

[...]

But mass killings are very rare events, and because people with mental illness contribute so little to overall violence, these measures would have little impact on everyday firearm-related killings. Consider that between 2001 and 2010, there were nearly 120,000 gun-related homicides, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Few were perpetrated by people with mental illness.

Ms. Cevallos is wrongfully suggesting that while it would be "inappropriate" to portray someone with Down syndrome bringing a gun to school, it would be perfectly "appropriate" to portray someone with a psychiatric disability -- say schizophrenia, bipolar, post-traumatic stress disorder, reactive attachment disorder, or dissociative identity disorder -- doing the same thing. If we did not live in such an ableist culture where stereotypes about disability and violence didn't exist, I would have no problems with portraying someone with any type of disability bringing a gun to school. Unfortunately, because of the cultural context in which I am writing this piece, I must urge against such portrayals of disabled people because they further affirm and reinforce existing negative and inaccurate stereotypes of all types of disabled people.

I'm a writer (of fiction, I mean -- I'm working on my seventh novel right now). Don't get me wrong; I'm all for creativity and freedom of expression. I see nothing inherently wrong with portraying someone disabled bringing a gun to school; however, the extremely heightened potential for such a portrayal to ignore current cultural realities, as well as the certainty of such a portrayal further contributing to dangerous and harmful stereotypes about disabled people, mean that I cannot condone such representations of disability.

Granted, the offending remarks are contained within quotations of things other people said or wrote, but the author and editors at Disability Scoop would have been perfectly capable of selecting quotations expressing criticism of the episode that didn't also espouse ableism. In fact, I believe that they had a responsibility to either use different quotes (especially in the Twitter case) or to distance themselves from their problematic content (more relevant to Ms. Cevallos's remarks, had they chosen to keep the quote) and make it clear why the distancing would be necessary.

In any case, it's readily apparent to me that criticizing ableism using, well, more of the same, simply isn't the right thing to do. It's not merely hypocritical; it's actually completely counterproductive. It significantly diminishes the strength and force of your arguments, and it does absolutely nothing to actually benefit any disabled people. When some of us fall, all of us fall. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from the Birmingham City Jail, "Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

Disability in an Ableist World

Disability as a constructed concept is not a commonly understood or propagated idea in the mainstream of an ableist society. The average non-disabled person, and frequently even disabled people who’ve had limited or no exposure to disability rights theory or disability culture, does not understand disability beyond something that happens to other people, thereby rendering them tragic objects of pity, scorn, and charity. The general understanding of disability among those whose professions and research lie in the long-established fields of health sciences, rehabilitation sciences, special education, and abnormal psychology is one of a highly and often exclusively medicalized model that understands disability as a pathology in need of treatment, remediation, rehabilitation, and mitigation.

For theorists in the emerging interdisciplinary field of disability studies who are increasingly disabled themselves, there are two foundational understandings of disability—essentialism posits that disability is inherent to the person, whether innate or acquired, while constructivism posits that disability is a social construct and exists only because of sociological, cultural, or political factors. Those who understand disability as a medicalized phenomenon through the lens of an exclusively biological or psychological model of disability are essentialists. Those who insist that there is no such thing as disability or that everyone is disabled in some way are frequently constructivists.

But it cannot be denied that disabled people of any particular disability or condition do have inherent differences from nondisabled people or people with different disabilities. The Autistic brain is different from the non-Autistic brain; those who are Deaf or Blind perceive the world in different ways than those who are hearing or seeing; those who use wheelchairs move differently than those who have no need to use wheelchairs. These differences are real, and the differences are certainly not social constructs. Thus, constructivism does not adequately address the lived and inherent neurological, mental, emotional, and or physical differences that disabled people of any particular group have from those outside that group.

Yet essentialism discounts the roles that lived experiences, attitudinal biases and prejudices, policy and systemic barriers to access, societal ableism, constructs and representation of disability, and hate crimes play in the lives and shared experiences of disabled people across all sectors of society. Essentialism does not address the systemic denial of equal access and opportunity for disabled people in education, housing, community and social life, healthcare, employment, and policymaking. And it certainly fails to consider the consequences of rhetorical and discursive constructions of disability and the disabled experience.

Disability is far more complex and nuanced than either pure essentialism or pure constructivism are capable of adequately conveying. The experience of disability, of being disabled, arises when a person whose neurological, mental, emotional, and or physical differences are atypical and divergent enough from the neurologies and physicalities of the majority so that this person is forced to exist and live in a society and world not constructed to incorporate natural supports and full inclusion and access for people like this person. That is, the experience of disability and being disabled is the result of the interaction of a person’s inherent differences with a society and its attitudes and policies.

On the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, it used to be that a significant percentage of the island’s population were deaf until the mid-twentieth century.[i] As a result, nearly all residents learned Sign language from an early age, whether they were Deaf or hearing, and easily switched between signing and speaking without much effort or thought regardless of who was present in the conversation. Today, there are no longer any Deaf people born into the signing tradition living on Martha’s Vineyard, yet elderly hearing islanders continued to communicate in Sign language as late as the 1980’s.[ii]

In communities where everyone or nearly everyone shares the same sensory, physical, cognitive, or emotional experiences, such differences that might in mainstream society be considered to be deficits or disability are not, in fact, disabling at all. While divergent and diverse neurologies and physicalities exist in nature and in isolation of cultural, sociological, historical, and political context, disability does not exist in the absence of a society’s rhetorical and discursive constructions of it that create attitudinal, systemic, and institutionalized barriers to access for those whose neurological and physical variances are atypical.

In order to fully understand disability and the disabled experience, and in order to effectively and meaningfully advocate for attitudinal and systems changes that will lead to equal access and opportunity in a more just and equitable world for disabled people, it is imperative to both examine and challenge the common rhetorical and discursive constructions that posit disabled people as the Other and disability as a pathology, while at the same time suggesting a radically different construction and understanding of disability and the disabled experience as natural and normal parts of the human experience.

Disability has historically been understood in the paradigm of a strange and alien other, as evidenced by the sterilization and eugenics movements targeting the disabled for fear that we might bear disabled children and perpetuate disability. Even today, disabled people who wish to kill themselves are more frequently praised as brave and courageous, and offered the option of euthanasia, while non-disabled people who express the same suicidal ideations are referred to anti-suicide counseling and support.

The lives and humanity of disabled people are routinely questioned not merely by the supposedly objective and well-meaning professionals hailed by the public as experts on disability, but also by the mainstream media. Disabled people face prejudices and attitudinal barriers such as the presumption of incompetence, infantilization, dehumanization, the belief that disabled people are incapable of being sexual beings, paternalism, and the prevailing assumptions that our lives are tragic and that it should be normal for a disabled person to seek to be cured of disability. We are frequently assumed incapable of having opinions or directing our own lives, treated as children even when we are adults, denied access to basic healthcare or education, deprived of accessible or meaningful sex education or even the opportunity to form romantic relationships, treated as though our opinions and ideas have no value, and discussed as though we are not present and cannot be.

Our experiences and lives are usually described through a paradigm of grief, pity, shame, scorn, tragedy, and fear. Our non-disabled parents are taught to mourn their disabled children’s existences and to wish for their children to be cured. Our neighbors are taught to pity us, and our families are taught to be ashamed of us. Youth who believe that their intentions are good are taught that our lives are inherently tragic and that they should be afraid that more children will be born disabled if they do not contribute money to charities working frantically to eradicate disability. If media portrayals and representations of disabled people are to be believed, we are incapable of living full, rich, and meaningful lives, and we remain perpetual children regardless of biological age. Society teaches the non-disabled to fear and pity us, and it teaches us to be ashamed of and hate ourselves.

The concept of disability pride, which has existed for decades in an organized fashion, is revolutionary in its biting response to the paternalism and discursive constructions of disability popular in our society. The idea that people with deformities, people with visible physical disabilities, and people with neurological or mental disabilities are capable not merely of accepting themselves but of publicly proclaiming their pride in being disabled is anathema to a society in which deviation and divergence from neurological and physical typicality is labeled pathology and defect. Yet it is a necessary idea, because we who are disabled must continue to reassert our necessary presence in shattering old rhetorical and discursive constructions of disability while creating and perpetuating new ones.

Without significant changes in societal and individual attitudinal barriers to access, there will be no meaningful systems change, no changes to policies and institutions that create further barriers to equal access and opportunity and full and equal participation in all facets and aspects of life. Few outside the disability community ever consider the consequences of their perceptions and limited understanding of disability, and many whose views are shaped by unsound and dangerous ideas continue to perpetuate ableism without ever having their privilege challenged and examined. Disability exists because we are largely complacent in allowing ourselves and our society to perpetuate a world where disabled people are marginalized and oppressed by attitudinal and systemic barriers to access.

We need the concept of universal design to move from small academic circles and pilot programs in public schools to a foundational principle of all aspects of life, culture, and society. We need to incorporate the language of the Developmental Disabilities Act, which describes disability as a natural part of the human experience, into our fundamental attitudes and everyday practices. We need to stop using language that marginalizes and oppresses and begin to craft rhetorical and discursive constructions of disability that recognize our innate ability to lead full, rich, and meaningful lives as disabled people across the lifespan. We need to stop medicalizing and pathologizing every characteristic belonging to disabled people, and begin to address the problems and deficits in our society and its institutions and policies rather than looking to problem-find in the disabled person. We need to stop presuming incompetence and dehumanizing disabled people, and begin to presume competence and recognizing the innate humanity and equal quality of life of all human beings.

We need to build a world in which all supports are natural supports provided unquestioningly, without the feeling of legal or contractual obligation, but because of a sense of human dignity and decency, and where those supports are not viewed as accommodations for a standard system but natural and normal facets of a universally designed system. We need to educate young students, young researchers, young clinicians, young educators, and young service providers about the diverse and rich history of disability cultures and communities in the context of a disability rights activist movement and a disability studies interdisciplinary scholarship, and we need to encourage and support young disabled people to empower themselves and their peers to demand equal access and opportunity and full and equal participation and inclusion. We need to educate our children and youth about disability as diversity, and we need to incorporate our history into mainstream history.

Ultimately, we need to challenge the constructions and institutions that continue to perpetuate ableism across all facets of society, and we need to promote this radical notion that disability is natural and normal—not something to be feared or pitied, but something to be welcomed and proudly proclaimed.

---

[i] Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[ii] Sacks, O. (1989). Seeing voices: A journey into the world of the Deaf. Berkley and Los Angeles. California: University of California Press.

The Dangers of Misrepresentation

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist gunman who killed seventy-seven people in one day last summer, appeared in court yesterday morning as a psychiatrist declared that he likely "suffers" from Asperger's Syndrome and Tourette's Syndrome. One news article claimed that "Asperger's is a developmental disorder on the autistic spectrum that often is characterised by a lack of empathy."¹ Another article paraphrased the psychiatrist and wrote that "Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik has a rare, high-functioning form of Asperger's that has left him incapable of empathy or real friendship."²

And so, it is happening again. Those who write such news articles fail to understand the devastating and frightening impact that their words have on our lives. Language is imbued with power as it both reflects and shapes the society in which we live by creating rhetorical constructions that we readily transform into objects of presumed fact. People study this phenomenon in graduate school, and analyze it with the same scientific eye applied to mysteries of genetics and quantum mechanics.

The representation of disability in the media and in popular culture has a profound impact on cultural perceptions and prejudices, attitudinal barriers to equal access and opportunity, service provision, and the individual self-concept of millions of disabled people. Ableism inherent to the language used to represent disability and disabled people readily seeps into attitudes and actions directed toward us, leading to increased stigma, prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination on the basis of disability.

Although even a peer-reviewed paper published as early as 1991³ found no evidence for any correlation between violence and Asperger's Syndrome— further finding that the incidence of violent behavior in those with Asperger's is lower than the incidence in the total population—the media has continually and repeatedly conflated being Autistic with a propensity toward violent or criminal behavior. Because of the fallacious and damaging assumptions still widely held today that Autistics lack empathy, do not recognize that other people have minds, and are incapable of expressing emotions, especially concern for others, it is very easy for the uninformed journalist to hear "autism spectrum disorder" in reference to a criminal defendant and jump to the unfortunate conclusion that serial killers, murderers, rapists, and terrorists must be Autistic because of their apparent lack of empathy for others and any other traits that fit neatly onto a checklist of Stereotypes about Autistics.

Of course Autistic people are capable of committing violent crime, but it is in no way a reflection of their identity any more than when Jews, Blacks, or Muslims commit violent crimes. The neurology of an accused criminal defendant generally has little to do with the actual meat of the accusation and everything to do with ableist attitudes and legal defense strategies. When journalists write with obvious fascination and perverse curiosity about accused violent criminals and when those same journalists attribute every known characteristic of the accused to autism, they are painting a very clear picture for the public— Autistic people are dangerous. Autistic people are violent offenders waiting to happen. Autistic people are the psychopathic murderers of horror movies who are completely incapable of recognizing that other people have lives and minds, and who are therefore capable of committing heinous crimes that any good, sensible, non-disabled person could not possibly commit.

This troubling trend exists not merely in the mainstream contemporary media whenever a particularly egregious case of murder or rape comes to trial, but also in the scientifically questionable practice of posthumously diagnosing prominent historical figures as Autistic— a number of historical criminals, mass murderers, and serial killers have been speculated to have been Autistic for many of the same reasons given when journalists speculate about contemporary criminals, including reasons that lack any basis in reality, such as false stereotypes and misconceptions about Autistic people.

This concept is not new to autism nor is it new to the present age. All marginalized and underrepresented groups have been subjected to the cruel process of othering, much of which is defined by the lengths to which a society will go to demarcate a marginalized group as an Other, not worthy of the same life, not worthy of the same rights as those who can fit into the privileged mainstream. Privilege is everywhere in journalism; it is a hallmark of the successful, well-read news media, and always has been. Most privilege is subtle and unrecognized by those who possess it, but its insidious influence taints journalistic objectivity with the cultural baggage of isms that demonize and dehumanize.

Those who report the news have a duty to report the facts, to make every effort to educate themselves about the dangers of misrepresentation, and to represent the subjects of their writing fairly. Until our journalists learn that their language can have significant and severe repercussions for the lives of the people whom their language maligns and misrepresents, we will continue to face attitudinal barriers across all spheres of society that have been reinforced by the imagery and language used to describe us and construct perceptions of who we are and what our disability means. We will continue to suffer the consequences of dangerous words.

For as long as journalists conclude that every violent criminal must be "an Asperger's sufferer" or "autistic and incapable of empathy," we will be viewed through the lens of aberrations to the moral fabric of society, potential mass murderers and rapists waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. For as long as journalists conclude that every parent or caregiver who killed an Autistic family member was a loving, caring individual who "snapped" in the heat of the moment because of the stress of caring for a disabled person, we will be viewed as tragedies and burdens to society whose lives are expendable and subject to the caprice of those who are "heroic" enough to tackle the "burden" of taking care of a poor, helpless individual.

For as long as journalists unquestioningly accept untrue and dangerous stereotypes as truths, we will be seen as less than people, less than human, our lives not worth living or protecting, our very existence a barely tolerated abomination. And that is unacceptable.

_________________________________________
¹ "Expert says Norway gunman has Asperger's, Tourette's" ninemsn. 9 June 2012. <http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8481127>
² "Mass killer Breivik may have rare forms of Aspergers and Tourette’s syndromes, says Norway's leading psychiatrist" Daily Mail. 8 June 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156530/Anders-Behring-Breivik-rare-forms-Aspergers-Tourette-s-syndromes-says-Norways-leading-psychiatrist.html?ito=feeds-newsxml>

³ Ghaziuddin, M., Luke Tsai, and N. Ghaziuddin. "Brief Report: Violence in Asperger Syndrome, a Critique." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 21.3 (1991): 349-54. Print.

You are not a burden.

To the person who found my blog by searching Google for "feel like i'm a burden aspergers:"

You are not a burden.

You are a human being, and your life can be rich, full, complete, fulfilling, and meaningful on that basis alone.

You have the same natural right to life and equality and access and opportunity as anyone else does, and anyone who claims that you are a burden is insecure and ableist.

You are beautiful beyond vision, talented beyond measure, intelligent beyond comprehension, and bursting with the amazing capacity to live well and meaningfully and to share your unique perspective and way of existing in the world with everyone you encounter.

You are not broken or defective or lesser. Don't believe anyone who tells you so, whether explicitly or implicitly, because anyone who says that you are less than because your neurology is divergent from a constructed norm is lying to you.

Your neurology is divergent from the accepted "norm" of human neurologies, but that's not a bad thing. You are okay the way you are. Your brain is beautiful.

You may learn differently than your peers, need certain supports, accommodations, or services in order to have full and equal access, think differently than your colleagues, communicate differently than your family members, or experience sensations differently than the other people around you.

But those differences are not bad. They are part of what makes your experience of life unique and beautiful.

You have the capacity for deep, unbounded empathy. You may be moved to action by egregious injustices, and you may be the first to speak up in the face of wrong. You may form brief connections with others that will impact them for a lifetime without you ever knowing, or you may find comfort and trust in only one or two friends over your own lifetime. You may take intense pleasure in solitude, and you may have the potential for wild creative exploits.

You will have struggles that non-Autistics won't face. And you will share some of your struggles with your non-Autistic peers. You may find community among other Autistic people, knowing that there are people with whom you can share space and communicate shared struggles and joys without ever speaking a word.

Your only debt to society is to change the world for the better, even if all that means is a perfunctory encounter with a stranger that leaves another's life a little bit better, another's worries a little bit less daunting and frightening.

You don't owe society anything else.

And you are not a burden to society if you need any form of accommodation to navigate this world. The society in which we live was not constructed around the needs and experiences of people like you and me. In fact, it ought to be the basic, minimum standard of human decency to ensure that you and I have equal access as everyone else. And sometimes that means making accommodations for us.

If a person in a wheelchair wants to enter a building, there should be a ramp long before he ever gets there. And if a Blind person wants to read a book, there should be an audio version long before she ever searches for it. Because that's making the world accessible for everyone instead of keeping the world accessible only for a few.

If I need written, visual instructions with clear deadlines to do my job, there should be no argument about it. That's not me creating a burden. That's me demanding my equal right to full participation. There's no one correct way to do things or experience life. To exist differently in the world does not make you a burden on society.

Society's burden is to compensate, however slowly, for its long train of abuses, disenfranchisement, marginalization, discrimination, dehumanization, and paternalism perpetrated and perpetuated against those who have been denied power, equal rights, and self-determination. That is the burden that society bears.