I recently read a good article about disablism. It made several valid points:
Most people haven't heard of disablism, or if they have, they think it is a silly word which means society is not being "politically correct" enough.
Even if people have heard of the word...they honestly don't believe disablism really exits.
The majority of discriminatory behavior is done unconsciously.
In my work with young adults with disabilities as well as in my experience parenting my own 17 year old son, one of the ways I notice disablism the most is when we don't give people the opportunity to communicate in their own way and in their own time. Somehow we don't realize how incredibly disrespectful it is to not give someone who needs time to process what they are going to say....time to process what they are going to say. We are uncomfortable with waiting in silence. We try to fill it up. Or worse yet, we just move on. Because we fear the person doesn't understand, we may say the same thing a dozen different ways causing the person to become overloaded and shut down.
Children with communication delays learn early that most people won't give them the time they need to answer a question...so why bother? Just learn to smile big.
Disablism is real. It's all around us. Let's bring attention to it. Let's examine how we can make changes. Let's start with ourselves.
(By the way, according to the spell check on Blogger...disablism is not a word...hmmm.)
4 comments:
[O]ne of the ways I notice disablism the most is when we don't give people the opportunity to communicate in their own way and in their own time.
So true. Also, communicating that you need more time can be thought of as rude, especially if you don't have the words [right then] to couch them in "niceness" ("No." "Wait." "Stop").
On a related note: I have some problems with understanding tone of voice, facial expressions, etc. So I can have problems understanding how people are feeling in speech; I don't have this problem in writing. Many people are the opposite. But it's explained in terms of writing itself causing the problems ("In writing you can't hear tone of voice or see people's facial expressions"), whereas my having the exact same problems with speech is explained as "You have this particular impairment."
Gah! Sorry for the rambliness. Great post.
Excellent piece! I like to think that a lot of disablism discrimination happens unconsciously... but that still doesn't excuse it from happening!
Well done!
Love your post, please come by. I also posted for Disablism day. At age 8 my childs communication is really coming along but she often needs assist with people who don't know her and it's hard to let her find her own way to communicate without interpreting for her/interfering:)
"The majority of discriminatory behavior is done unconsciously."
Exactly. Hence the need for consciousness-raising exercises like BADD, right? Thank you so much for this contribution. :)
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