#ableism

[druidshollow]

When Descent learns of Flowers' involvement in Fire's demise, it is the last straw and she knows she can't stay with him any longer.

mmmmmmmmmm theres probably so much to fix here but i Really REALLY just want it to be done. another behemoth comic and as always its not a very fun one. here we see the most volatile her relationship with flowers ever got, peaking in an act of violence on flowers' end

it was. straining, to say the least, to draw her hurting so badly so this one took a long time to work on. i had to take multiple breaks, haha. i hope you guys can get some enjoyment out of it anyways????? atleast we can all be happy knowing that this is it for her having to deal with him! (until later when rivers happens but weve got a couple hundred years its fine)

[crippled-peeper]

The thing about disability being a social construct is largely true, because when you have a physical issue but receive accommodations + care such that they can do everything able-bodied people can, you're no longer considered disabled. Case in point: glasses. If glasses fix near-blindness, you're not considered disabled, even though you're basically blind without them.

In a hypothetical world where mech suits existed, were cheap and comfortable and accessible and worked well, and were normalised such that people didn't even notice, even quadreplegics wouldn't be considered disabled (although of course that's distant science fiction).

That's what "disability is a social construct" means. In the same way gender being a social construct doesn't mean boobs aren't real, or money being a social construct doesn't mean physical cash doesn't exist.

I don’t agree with this analysis at all.

What hypothetical disabled people might be able to do in the future holds no meaning in the current reality I occupy

You say that quadriplegics will be “considered” abled with exoskeletons - but then you fail to elaborate on the relationship between these devices, their users, and the people who supply them

My father has had type 1 diabetes for 30 years. 30 years is an entire lifetime for some people. The cost of his insulin increased literally that ENTIRE TIME until last year when the Biden admin put caps on insulin prices

Furthermore, his insulin pump retails for 4,600$, and if it breaks, he is still diabetic at the end of the day and will slowly and terribly die without it.

I noticed a lot of people on here have lots of ideas and hypotheticals about how disabled people should and could navigate the world, but their arguments fall flat and topple so easily because you’re not connecting these ideas to anyone’s intrinsic reality

This is why so many physically disabled people are fatigued by the entire “disability is a social construct” conversation. It’s overwhelmingly used by uneducated 17 year olds to minimize and downplay and discredit the real-life, life-or-death interactions and experiences many physically disabled people live with

[quitblamingnarcissism]

Everywhere I look, I see people saying that people deserve the bad things that happen to them.

Whether it's being spanked as a child, being imprisoned, being killed by police, being bombed, being paid a poverty wage, being in debt, being homeless, being bullied, being raped, there's no shortage of people who are so devoid of compassion for others that they think it's possible to deserve that.

Mentally ill people are demonized for "lacking empathy" while neurotypical people pretty much compete with each other to see how cruel they can be and get away with it.

[monachopsis-11]

[stories-by-starlight]

Too many people don’t take visibly disabled people’s emotions seriously. Not just in way that they don’t care about how feel, although that true for many people too. But also in way that they treat their/our emotions, especially negative emotions, as a spectacle.

A punchline to a bad joke.

We seen this for long long time, but the right words describe it never came until recent.

Many people do things bother or hurt us, then laugh it off when we get upset because: “What are you going do about it?” Because they know can’t yell back or fight back or make them stop, and it’s funny see us try because we look so odd.

Because don’t look “right/normal”, human emotions stop being real emotions and start being entertainment. Or maybe they confusing, to them.

Ask everyone to please respect boundaries of others. And if you do/done these things to people, please stop. It’s not funny, just cruel. Disabled people not your entertainment.

[spookietrex]

I hate the look on able-bodied people's faces when you can't do a thing that you could do the day before. The look of disappointment, confusion, the "Oh but you could do it before. Are you SURE you can't do it?" Like yes, Brenda, I'm sure that I am in too much pain to function/move from my bed right now so going for a walk when I could move 50 feet yesterday without my cane IS too much.

[a-little-revolution]

If someone wanted to make a remake of wizard of oz or willy wonka or snow white and the seven dwarves, what would you say would be the best way to fix the stereotypical depictions of magical or inhuman little people? Would it be to just make them Not little people anymore, make them another creature, or to make them like, people with dwarfism? I've heard some ppl bring up the idea of having dwarves in snow white be actual in-world little people as opposed to a mythical race of 'dwarves', but it seems that would carry its own problematic connotations to extend that to what is clearly a race (munchkins) or a pseudo enslaved/servant populace (oompa loompas) would it be better to just remove these characters entirely or have their roles reprised by non-little people? On the one hand, it seems that many of them do not need to be little people, but on the other hand it seems a shame to remove roles for little people.

(i kind of feel oompa loompas are a bit hard to make work at all given they are explicitely black slaves in the original and clearly carry a sort of enslaved populace connotation in most adaptations, but I'm legitimately curious about munchkins, whose size doesn't seem to matter very much in most stories.)

Hello! My answer is to simply stop retelling these stories. The very fact that we hold onto them so dearly when they're as harmful as they are is a huge problem. We need new stories! Depicting real, complex dwarfism. We need a wide range of disabled characters and better representation for little people - and Snow White is not going to be who saves us. Fixing these stores will not undo the harm they've done. We need to leave them behind and write better pieces.

And we as consumers have done that with so many other pieces of media. We've discovered that they're harmful to a certain group, no longer supported it, and moved on. So why not with little people? Why can't folks give us the same respect?

If you can understand that the oompa loompas are problematic because they were based off black slaves, you can also understand that they were problematic because they were dwarf slaves. The two intersect in the films, and they shouldn't be so beloved in my opinion.

And the answer is not to just recreate these stories without us in them - they were built on our backs and that is their legacy. Sweeping it under the rug wouldn't change the decades of harm they've done and the oppression they're a result of.

Just 👏 stop 👏 making 👏 more 👏 of 👏 them

Leave them behind and make better pieces with LP characters!!! Make them complex and loved and diverse and human!!!

[662607015]

i've been too busy to post about it lately but the current situation surrounding disability rights in the uk is horrifying in a way that most people have zero awareness of. i would appreciate it if more people could spread awareness of this, because the situation is dire to the point that the united nations have officially recognised it as a human rights violation, and there is still little to no discussion about this present online that i'm aware of.

on march 22 this year, the united nations published a follow-up report - found here - on its 2016 inquiry into the human rights of disabled people in the uk. the original inquiry found "grave and systemic violations" of the human rights of disabled people, and the follow-up concludes that no significant progress has been made concerning the situation. the report details "deep poverty" becoming increasingly common for disabled people; media rhetoric "aimed at raising hostility against welfare claimants, including disabled people"; increasing rates of institutionalisation of disabled people; concern about ai tools being used to automate fraud detection in social security with little oversight; and reports of "benefit deaths": the phenomenon of disabled people resorting to suicide after having their social security removed by the state, which has evidently become so common that they have a name for it.

on april 19, just 28 days after the un's official condemnation, the uk government published a new press release announcing a "moral mission" to "reform" our disability welfare system - meaning plans to even further reduce or entirely remove what little finanical support is available to disabled people, in addition to removing the ability of gps to issue sick notes and the introduction of a "fraud bill" which would enable warrants for seizes, searches and arrests in addition to increased digital surveillance of any welfare claimant suspected of fraud. again, this comes less than a month after the un announced that the uk has taken no action to address human rights abuses of disabled people - and the only action they're taking on this is to actively make the situation worse. i don't know how to end this post other than that it's legitimately terrifying to be a disabled person here at present, and this is made even worse by how little media attention the situation is getting - if you're able to speak out about this, please do. the human rights of disabled people are being violated and our government needs to be held accountable.

[phleb0tomist]

i blocked anon but im still posting this so i can say: disability is a regular part of life and i love normalising it. anon’s desperation to separate Normal from Aberrant is a eugenicist mindset

and while i’m on my soapbox, I’m so fucking over the use of ‘brain damage’ as a sensationalist troll buzzword. you can say it’s not that deep, but cmon. insults do not exist in a magical vacuum outside of social context. insults are a common means to further socially punish marginalised groups. anon is a prime example of someone capitalising on social imbalances to use as insult currency (usually to make up for a poor sense of self—anon might feel worthless, but at least they can prove they’re better than the Abnormals). ableism is a suuuper cheap way to exert power over others using existing frameworks of bigotry. anon didn’t put work into this ask, they just took glee in furthering a stigma that was already there. it’s clear to me that when ppl throw around language like this, the ableism isn’t a side effect, it’s the whole point. anon isn’t saying “I hope something bad happens to you!”, they’re saying “i hate disabled ppl, also i’m describing you as a dog because i think disabled ppl are less than human”.

anyway it’s 2am and i’m rambling. disability is a normal part of life. brain damaged people are whole, complex, beautiful humans. ableism is an oft-socially-sanctioned tool of hatred. bye

[crippled-peeper]

pointing out that ozempic causes bone density loss and joint problems and major depression isn’t a “violent ableist attack against people with eating disorders” it’s literally a warning on the fucking packaging for the meds

[transfaguette]

i went to a store the other day that said “service animals welcome” on the door and like,

[quitblamingnarcissism]

If someone "lacks empathy" and is unable to detect how their actions affect others, they're just as likely to be good as they are to be bad.

They could be an abusive shithead who hurts others on a regular basis and still wonders why people don't like them. But they could also light up any room they're in and be completely unaware.

[nondivisable]

I'm disabled. and sometimes I find myself thinking ableist thoughts. you know what I do?

I stop. I don't say them. and later, I stop again and think. did this thought come from a place of genuine concern or was it just an automatic reaction I have ingrained?

and if it came from a place of genuine concern, how can I actually offer help or a solution without invalidating someone else's experience? if there's no answer to this question, I simply shut the fuck up

this system has yet to failed me