Your Ableism is Showing

We don't need sugar-coated fluffy terminology to make us feel better about our lived experience or let’s be honest, to make you feel more comfortable talking about Disability.

Stop telling us we're not Disabled, we're enabled.

Stop telling us Disability and Disabled are negative words.

Stop labelling us as differently abled, or special, or diversely abled.

Whatever ableist word or phrase you are going to come up with, just don't.

You can tell yourself you are putting a positive spin on the word because you think it's a negative thing, but at the heart of these words are real people, people with lived experience you don’t have. People who know all too well what being Disabled means. People who know it’s not always rainbows and butterflies. People with real challenges. Who face and overcome real barriers, that we must endure and overcome daily.

So stop trying to put a positive spin on our lived experience just to make yourself feel like a positive saviour riding up on your white horse.

And stop reinforcing ideas that our lived experience is a bad thing that needs to be covered up. We don't need your ableism. We don't need you to tell us how we should identify, and we heck as hell don't need a reminder of just why so many of us experience internalised ableism.

Ableist intent. Whether laced with good intentions or bad, is still ableist intent.

Ableism is still ableism no matter your proximity to Disability

Society for too long has allowed ableism to go unchecked and unaddressed. We don't teach young people about ableism. We didn't teach adults about it. In fact, a lot of Disabled folks learn what this is through experiencing it firsthand. But despite this, whenever we address ableism, a lot of the time people react as though we've personally attacked them, and we get a privileged defensive or gaslighting response.

"I know Disabled people, so I can't be ableist."

"Maybe you read too much into my words."

"You're looking for problems that don't exist."

"This isn’t my intention, don't twist my words."

Actual responses from non Disabled folks when challenged on their ableism.

We must address ableism.

Otherwise, the alternative is a society that continues to foster the internalized ableism of Disabled People. Young Disabled people, who grow into adults ashamed, embarrassed, and feeling like less than. Or adults who, when they acquire Disability, will experience what so many failed to acknowledge or understand before.

When we said were Disabled by Society.

That ableism is so ingrained in our language. In our beliefs. In our culture. In our behaviours, in our thinking, and there's no escaping it.

Online. In-person. In classrooms. In offices. In workplaces. In our healthcare systems. In a society that's trapped in a web of ableism.

In education, I learned exclusion.

I learned that being Disabled meant people changed or acted differently around me. A change of tone, a change in body language, a change in the way I was treated. But not a good change. A burden. A joke. A victim of bullying. A feeling of less than.

I learned being Disabled was a bad thing.

It took years of suffering, depression, anxiety, binge drinking, self-harm, exclusion, and unlearning not to push the ones I care most about away, to understand that a lot of this was down to that young Disabled boy.

The boy who heard others mock Disabled people, turned us into the punchline of their jokes, their amusement. The window licker or the gay blind boy, nicknames from classmates.

The boy who fostered internalised ableism which when grew to a man harbouring it.

So next time you feel like telling a Disabled person, that wasn’t your intent to make a joke, use the wrong terminology or tell them how they should self-identity, just don’t.

Think of the consequences this might have on someone who already doesn’t go a day without experiencing some form of ableism. ?Someone who most likely, is already dealing with their own internalised ableism and the ableism imposed unwillingly on them by society.

When you think of telling us we aren’t being positive about our lived experience, check your privilege.

When you think of making a joke at our expense our using outdated damaging offensive language, check your privilege.

When you want to ablesplain your way out of our challenging your ableist intent, check your privilege.

Ablesplain is a word I created to describe the behaviours of non-Disabled folks when they try to explain away their ableism. A word I felt was needed because of the daily occurrences I and many others experience. ?

When we tell you something is ableist and you don’t have lived experience yourself, check your privilege.

You do not need to get defensive.

You do not need to get angry.

Listen, acknowledge, learn, and make a change.

It is that simple.

And if you have lived experience yourself, this does not make you exempt from ableist intent.

This only means you are more likely to have been trapped in its web and fallen victim to the poisonous toxin which is internalised ableism.

#MondayMotivation #Ablesim #DiversityAndInclusion #DisabilityInclusion