Ok, as you all know this is the last blog! Aren’t you guys excited?
I am the semester is almost over! Last week we discussed social justice issues
by reading Social Death by Lisa Cacho and “Biopower, Reproduction, and the
Migrant Women’s Body written by Jonathan Inda. We also went to a workshop
hosted by Eli Clare about the struggles of disable individuals. On this blog I
would like to reflect on how stereotypes and discrimination is the root to
social death. Prime example of how language can be defensive as well as stereotyping
and discriminating was in Cacho chapter three that stated “Although Bush
intended for the audience to equate “evildoers” with terrorists,” he did so
with descriptors that could easily refer to gang members (‘people who strike
and hide”), undocumented immigrants (‘people who know no border”), the disabled
or mentally ill (“people who depend upon others”), and their allies (‘people
who harbor them and finance them and feed them.”) (pg. 97, Cacho).
In this blog I would like to reflect more on Eli
presentation because it was very interesting and relatively related to this
weeks reading with social justice. If you missed Eli presentation I will
summarize it briefly. Eli presentation discussed some cons of what disable
individuals face around our campus and ways of bringing disability awareness
and politics into work on-campus. The speaker spoke on identifying stereotypes
of disability, better understanding of the medical/ social model of disability
and how disability is a social justice issue. As the speaker spoke on
stereotypes it made me think about what we have been learning this week on
social death. Disable individuals suffer from negative stereotypes such as
low-class, helpless, the belief of having a disability effecting your cognitive
behavior, and how many people treat disabled individuals as if they had a
disease so they do not want to touch them. All of these examples are examples
of discrimination just like the immigration/civil issues or the discrimination
towards others for not having “white privilege”.
Eli also talked about non-disable individual’s vocabulary
and how it can grow to be very defensive. Lame, spaz, crazy, retard, pyscho,
and other words are most commonly used in everyday life conversations that are
defensive to people that are disabled. Another interesting stereotype many believe
to have logic to is that children that are disable “deserve it” because their
parents were unethical and this is punishment for them, which is really a
horrible logic. Many disable individuals would like to be treated like everyone
else but because of them having a disability many think they are all not
capable of doing everyday things. During the presentation a disable woman
expressed her fears of her drivers license or gun permit rights being taken
away because of the stereotype of “not being able to handle it.”
Lastly, below I found a YouTube video that deals with
discrimination. Throughout this class we have discussed discrimination from
every aspect (race, gender, and class) but never from a person that is disabled
standpoint. I chose this video because it helped me along with Eli presentation
to be more aware of what people with disability go through. I hope you guys
find this video interesting too, let me know what you think.
That was an interesting video, Brittany. This week’s discussion in class and Eli Clare’s lecture really helped reveal and give relevant examples that illustrated the “social death” that can occur on a daily basis. Eli Clare’s lecture was especially informative and eye- opening because it exposed the disadvantages disabled individuals must face as people viewed as having less social value, or being “ineligible for personhood” similar to the criminalized populations Cacho points out in Social Death. Like criminalized populations of color, the disabled also are often disadvantaged and limited from certain rights that are afforded to more privileged groups. Eli Clare used Carrie Buck to illustrate this claim when she had to undergo forced sterilization after being declared “feeble-minded.” Sterilization and controlling the reproduction of “less valuable citizens” is based in the ideas of biopower.
ReplyDeleteWe also see these motives expressed in towards immigrant women who are denied prenatal care. The idea is to limit or deny all together necessary healthcare to discourage or prevent unworthy members becoming a part of the population (Inda 107). For disabled and racial groups, they are both often synonymous with the language of illness, contagion and disease, which paints them as a threat to the population as a whole. This leads to their dehumanization and oppression.
While these stereotypes are difficult to break down, Eli Clare closed his presentation on a hopeful and uplifting note that people would be able to join together to improve our society. In his closing lines he expressed the hope that women of color, the poor, disabled, etc. who have undergone forced sterilization could join together in a kind of solidarity to end the oppression that sprung from the beliefs of eugenicists and the ideas of biopower.
Great blog to end the semester with Brittany! The video was a great way to demonstrate the daily oppression that happens in every day society. It occurs everywhere schools, work, and even church. People who claim to not discriminate, do it without even being aware of it like not wanted to touch a disabled person because it's like they have a disease and it's contagious. Eli Clare himself is a great example of just how much disabled people are capable of and just because they seem to have something wrong with them doesn't mean that they cant achieve the most for themselves. Eli Clare wrote a book and is speaking at schools everywhere over a topic which personally affects him and he is passionate about changing how people view disabled people. The high school i went to there was a girl that graduated with me that had down syndrome and I felt like everyone was friends with her and the fact that she had a disability didnt stop people from treating her any differently. It was great seeing how my classmates treated people with disabilities and how there are a lot of people out there who dont treat people differently because of a disability. This girls parents were far from deserving a disabled child like you mentioned that, that is something is believed and only people who are unethical have disabled children. Very sad that some people believe that is true. This topic reminds me of a story i read awhile ago that caught a lot attention and even hit the news. I found a link to it if everyone wants to watch the video and read the article because some people in this world are very touching. The link isnt turning blue on here if you just want to copy and paste it on another tab because it really is worth watching.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wsmv.com/story/23317889/mystery-diner-pays-for-familys-dinner-leave-encouraging-note
Hey y'all this is our last blog, this is kind of sad.
ReplyDeleteDisability is something that I have been wanting to talk about in class but I never found a way to tie it into what we have been learning. I agree with you on how people discriminate against disabled people but I am not really sure how that correlates with Social Death. In Chaco's book, she did not touch on the criminalization and rightlessness of the disabled, which would have been very interesting but I think what Eli Clare and the youtube video was trying to put out there is privilege.
Because we are able-bodied, we have the privilege of not worrying about the day-to-day lives of people who have a disability. Think of this scenario: say we are in class and there is a fire at the end of the hall. The smoke detectors and fire alarms go off and we rush out the room. We look for the nearest stairs and run to safety. We, as able-bodied people, do not have to think about how we will escape because the stairs are always accessible, but what if someone is wheelchair bound? People with disabilities always have to think about how they can maneuver between floors of a building and how they can escape if a building is on fire if they are not the first floor. It is our privilege that brings on discrimination. It is because our luxury of obliviousness that we do not have to think about the disadvantages disabled people go through on a daily basis. In addition to our privilege, we use many microagressions in our everyday language that further discriminate the disabled like using "you are so stupid" and "that's retarded" in our everyday discussions.