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Been thinking a lot--well, more than usual--about discrimination and bigotry and other such things lately. Most of this has to do with the controversy around the HBO show "Girls" which is pretty much self-deprecation porn for pampered, white urban hipsters. (See my quasi-legit blog for more babble on that.)
Have also been thinking about my own stuff on this. I tend to focus mostly on the three big things--size, orientation, gender--I get the most crap for, but there's really quite a lot of other stuff, too.
In particular, I've been thinking more about my various health crap, and reconsidering whether I need to think of myself as someone with disabilities. I've avoided that concept for a long time, because I've always thought it was presumptuous to think of my "minor" issues that way when others suffer so much more, but ... dang. I really do have one hell of a laundry list of stuff that gets in the way of having a normal life. I've managed quite a lot of it, and am considerably more capable now than I was 10 years ago, but I still do have some very real limitations. Now that I'm wearing hearing aids (as of yesterday's fitting for them) there's one more to add.
( Authentication failed: Access to services denied )
It sucks that there are so many areas in which people can fall through the cracks. If you're able to help yourself even a little, people assume you don't need any help at all, and that's just not right. You shouldn't have to be completely fucked in life in order for people to want to help you. Of course the people who are completely fucked need help, but so do people whose fuckedness isn't entirely complete. Someone earning minimum wage still needs help to get by even though they have a job. Just being able to stand and move your legs doesn't mean you can climb eight flights of stairs to get to a workplace.
I realize that if I start thinking of myself as a person with disabilities, there may be people with more serious ones who think I'm being obnoxious about it. But I suspect the reason they'd think that is that they've come to believe that justice and aid are limited commodities, and therefore only the people who need them the most ought to be helped.
But I don't think that's the case. In terms of how we manage social services budgets, for instance, yes, we need that kind of triage. But the reason that's so fucked is because the people holding the purse strings have for decades tried to convince us that unless you're entirely incapable of caring for yourself, you can do your own bootstrapping. Our concept of charity is completely bass-ackwards. We give handouts to the people who are in desperate need, and then don't actually do the hand-UP aid necessary to help people help themselves. Somehow, the teaching a man to fish principle has been completely lost, and our culture only supports those who have their own fishing fleets and those who can't even hold a rod. That's so incredibly broken.
It unnerves me that I'm so conflicted about thinking about myself this way. I've obviously been pickled by the same poisoned brine as the people who would deny me help. But I can't exactly expect them to change their minds about me if I don't change my mind about myself. Maybe if I stop expecting myself to do things at the same level as people who don't have my limitations, I'll become more confident about asking others not to have the same expectations of me.
Have also been thinking about my own stuff on this. I tend to focus mostly on the three big things--size, orientation, gender--I get the most crap for, but there's really quite a lot of other stuff, too.
In particular, I've been thinking more about my various health crap, and reconsidering whether I need to think of myself as someone with disabilities. I've avoided that concept for a long time, because I've always thought it was presumptuous to think of my "minor" issues that way when others suffer so much more, but ... dang. I really do have one hell of a laundry list of stuff that gets in the way of having a normal life. I've managed quite a lot of it, and am considerably more capable now than I was 10 years ago, but I still do have some very real limitations. Now that I'm wearing hearing aids (as of yesterday's fitting for them) there's one more to add.
( Authentication failed: Access to services denied )
It sucks that there are so many areas in which people can fall through the cracks. If you're able to help yourself even a little, people assume you don't need any help at all, and that's just not right. You shouldn't have to be completely fucked in life in order for people to want to help you. Of course the people who are completely fucked need help, but so do people whose fuckedness isn't entirely complete. Someone earning minimum wage still needs help to get by even though they have a job. Just being able to stand and move your legs doesn't mean you can climb eight flights of stairs to get to a workplace.
I realize that if I start thinking of myself as a person with disabilities, there may be people with more serious ones who think I'm being obnoxious about it. But I suspect the reason they'd think that is that they've come to believe that justice and aid are limited commodities, and therefore only the people who need them the most ought to be helped.
But I don't think that's the case. In terms of how we manage social services budgets, for instance, yes, we need that kind of triage. But the reason that's so fucked is because the people holding the purse strings have for decades tried to convince us that unless you're entirely incapable of caring for yourself, you can do your own bootstrapping. Our concept of charity is completely bass-ackwards. We give handouts to the people who are in desperate need, and then don't actually do the hand-UP aid necessary to help people help themselves. Somehow, the teaching a man to fish principle has been completely lost, and our culture only supports those who have their own fishing fleets and those who can't even hold a rod. That's so incredibly broken.
It unnerves me that I'm so conflicted about thinking about myself this way. I've obviously been pickled by the same poisoned brine as the people who would deny me help. But I can't exactly expect them to change their minds about me if I don't change my mind about myself. Maybe if I stop expecting myself to do things at the same level as people who don't have my limitations, I'll become more confident about asking others not to have the same expectations of me.
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