Reflections on the Acceptance of Disability in Society
Filed Under (Acceptance, Autism History, Autistic Self Advocacy, Critical Disability Studies, DSM V, Disability History, Ethics, Inclusion, Research) by Estee on 06-10-2012
Is there a place for the disabled in society?
The purpose of the title is from historical readings that the disabled in history were displaced and living on the margins of society. Who were considered/are considered valued members of society? Socities have been obsessed with placing the disabled into a variety of contexts that justifies human existence, or fears (demons, monsters, mad, deviants) making the normal the privileged members. Without a comparative measure, as it were, what would we humans deem ourselves to be?
I have a series of questions that I’ll be considering (probably for a lifetime). Feel free to try and contribute thoughts in the comment box.
Pro/claiming Autistic Identity:
Is claiming biological identify leading to another possible eugenics movement? Is there a danger to biological self-identification? How important are self-identification and self-advocacy and pride-movements?
Are pride movements perpetuating the dis/abled dichotomies that already oppress? Do you think they have a positive purpose? Should there be a point at which we stop advancing pride movements, in other words, move beyond them? When is a good time to do so?
How important is the label autism to accommodation if autism is a social construct? (It is). Where “special” and enforcing “inclusion” have already proved challenging, maybe even impossible thus far, is it so because we continue to place the disabled out of the confines of the norm. In other words, are we continuing to perpetuate a false dichotomy that does little to value and serve, but more to segregate and isolate? By wanting inclusion, we are saying we are excluded? Does this stance further the goal itself, or not any longer?
Who Gets To Produce Knowledge About Autism?
The DSMV, behavioural analysis and observation, and the categorization of people.
Who gets to diagnose whom? Who gets to produce knowledge and categories about autism? In the past, and to a large extent today, it is non-autistic or “normal” people and we now witness a gradual inclusion of disabled “voices” to this mix. Do disabled individuals appropriate notions of impairment and abnormality enforced by long-held categories made originally by people who have not had disabilities? After all, autistic people are still largely tokenized minorities among autism charities, autism committees, and as participants in autism research studies.
Accommodation and Acceptance:
To what extent is the citing of needs/impairments an important part (or not) of acknowledging that we are all part of the abled-disabled continuum, which herein, I have already parsed?
Do you think the term autism and/or disability will exist one hundred years from now? Or are we a society that simply wears the same dress, just in different colours?
Have we learned anything from autistic self-advocates that assist us to simply accept autistic individuals and value the right of all people to exist, be educated, and be valued, no matter what level of disability, in society?
Utopias and ideals have perpetuated individual and societal notions about what we should be – what we are versus what we aspire to be. To what extent may this continue to be a driving force (as in survivial of the fittest) under an capitalist/economic lens, and where are we now with this “force” in viewing the disabled as part of this? As disability has always been a part of human existence, despite eugenics movement’s attempts at normalizing society and eradicating “deviant” people from the norms, how far have we come to accepting, embracing and valuing human difference? After all, while the eugenicists caused great harm to many people, and have continued to do so as a legacy, they didn’t succeed in eradicating human difference.*
Reference:
*In reference to the eugenics movement from Davis, “Constructing Normalcy” in Enforcing Normalcy: Disability Deafness and the Body, pp. 23-49, 1995:
“The conflation of disability with depravity itself expressed itself in the formulation ‘defective class.’ As the president of the University of Wisconsin declared after World War One, ‘we know enough about eugenics so that if the knowledge were applied, the defective classes would disappear within a generation.’ At it must be reiterated that the eugenics movement was not stocked with eccentrics…Rockefeller, Churchill, Roosevelt, H.G. Wells, John Maynard Keynes”…among a longer list. Some food for thought when thinking about such questions.
ESTÉE KLAR
Estee, You ask many questions about which I have been thinking – almost ruminationg – lately. One thing you have added to my thinking is the idea that eugenics has not been successful in eradicating human difference. It leads me to ask you to offer your opinion as to how pride movements reinforce dichotomies.
I am at a place in my life in which I want to celebrate disability. Almost like an affirmative action approach to having the faces of people on the margins brought into the group. But not about tolerating those faces but actively welcoming them and including them and expecting something from them.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about “disability pride”.
Thank you.
Sheila
Hi Sheila, It’s certainly been on my mind a lot lately. (I didn’t miss the disability pride parade on Saturday on purpose either…I just mixed up my dates).
My first reaction to this question when I thought about it a while back was that I agree, it does reinforce dichotomy. However, might we have a dichotomy to discuss if we didn’t have pride movements?
I don’t think we have to abolish the pride movement becuase we think they perpetuate a dichotomy, necessarily, but I think that we might consider “taking back identity,” and “staring back” (as in gimp identity), “to being part of.” I’m still under the impression that there is a place for many different kinds of politicking and that pride is important as much as it can be problematic. I think we have to keep marching on while acknowledging and discussing the polemics.
I wish I was at Disability Pride on Saturday. Sometimes simply being with, and walking alongside, people is the most important thing we can do to become familiar and comfortable with one another.
After writing that comment, I also feel compelled to add that I don’t think oppressed populations have to capitulate or apologize for pride activity, and hopefully it came across that I feel that pride is important as much as understanding pain and suffering. I do think, and I want to be specific only because the nature of this blog is about autism, that autistic people are some of the most oppressed in our society today. It’s not unlike other populations (autism used to be labeled “feeble-mindedness, idiocy, mentally retarded, intellectually disabled….) and the history is grim. Putting forth something positive about oneself has been seen as important for recognition, but also, I think we feed into neo-liberal notions of individualism and productivity that has also oppressed the disabled. I am speaking in this context from the 19th century to this day. I think the ideas of having to be independent and economically self-sufficient poses great problems and challenges in the way we treat, regard and educate autistic people. I also am considering the advent of the iPad and the accommodations we praise also as tools of oppression — in other words — they are normalizers. To what extent to they enable and disable? As long as society believes that people are to become normal by them, I think we have a problem. I do believe in a person’s right to be disabled and to be treated equally without the caveat that you have to prove your worth, in economic terms, to become a citizen. I also would like to hear more thoughts on the topic.