It is interesting that a thread on obstacles to identity formation, for
many posting in the thread morphs into a discussion of the negative
merits of identity formation.
I just forwarded a few of these postings to a friend who is an diabeld
rights activist who just completed his Master's of Social Work degree
(he's aiming for counselling work in public schools, not teaching)...
and I ralised I needed to write a few introductory words to say how thie
named topic had somehow morphed into this opther topic, and I found
myself at a loss for words to explain it. On a list serv of this type,
that is.
-----
Then there is using the merits angle to pit one part of PWDs against
another. Like born disabled against those with acquired disability.
Saying that those aquired ones think wrongly because of who they are. I
can think of a lot of diverse ways to constructively discuss disability
ana progress towards human rights for people with disabilities, but this
is not one of them.
Then there is what I would call the "pecking order" stuff. Being told
that disability is a latecomer to identity politics, the highest turf
has already been staked out long ago, and so don't get uppity and think
this identity is "primary" even in your thoughts about yourself. Stay
in your place (at the bottom of a left-liberal pecking order.) As if it
is taken for granted that there must be a brutal competition between
various forms of identity, winners and losers, high rank and low rank.
Darwinian hierarchy. Not overthrowing hierarchy, just revising it. Dog
eat dog. We can't have a disability studies course because that takes
money away from my minority studies course which got established first
(see one paragraph in Simi Linton's "Claiming Disability" for that.)
The retail rhetoric for this may take the form of "How dare you
compare...." (often the emotion of the delivery makes it clear the word
"compare" is being used to mean "equate" which is to meant to be code
for insensitivity)... to which I once replied (in that sociology class
in which I was verbally harassed at great length for coming out) is "The
word 'compare' is not the word 'equate' And there is no reason to set
up one form of "ism" as the gold standard of bias and then say that
everything else is nothing. Why does one 'ism' have to be identical to
another, to be important? Unless you actualy hold all those other
prejudices and are trying to make a clever argument to perpetuate them.
Compareing one thing to another is what intelligent people do, it's a
big part of what thinking is all about."
---
Not to equate the following quote with all of the above...
Jan. 7 Sarah Supple wrote:
"However I feel there is a problem ... much of the positive disabled
identity literature seems to presume seems to presume that such an
identity should be primary... I don't think in order to identify as
disabled it should have to take over other aspects of oneself."
I have never seen the word "primary" in any disability studies or
disabled rights literature, at least not used in the competitive
hierarchical manner that you report. Would you please cite the examples
behind your statement?
I am also unable to imagine what is meant by "take over other aspects of
oneself." "Other aspects"?
---
In the documentaty fim by I think it was a brother and sister team both
named Adair, "Word Is Out", interviewed a number of LGBT people,
including Pat Carrol. I hope I remember that last name correctly; I do
clearly remember one quote from the film that really had the ring of
truth to it. Carrol, a comedian who had also starrred in a one-woman
play about Gertrude Stein) said that in the earliest days of her young
circle who were forming lesbian identities meaning that they began to
think they had a right to exist, and a right to give themselves a name
out loud.... she said that the underlying fear was "Ohhhh... I'm going
to get swatted down for this."
Isn't what these discussions are about, then one PWD sayd to another
that "you're too much of an activist", or "I'm not really disabled
because that would mean (insert here -- pretzel-logic of choice)....."
or the ultimate "I've never been discriminated against for having a
disability (easily proved false; just look at the design or much public
space wherever the person lives). Isn't it realy about "Ooooh, I'm
going to get swatted down for this (if I say this or that to
able-bodiesd people)"
Isn't this sort of remark not so much about a real philosophical or
viewpoint, but really all about "These are the words that I have found
work best when talking to able-bodied people."? And "I'm afraid to use
any other words with them."?
If you have a visible disability or disclose a disability to a
non-disabled person, nothig makes them happier than when the initial
shock is mitigted by something that shows them that you only half as
impaired (or half as blocked by any barriers) they first imagined.. If
you say "I have a disability, but...." I think they dread everything
before the "but", ad like everything after it.
I think this is just the basic everyday reality almost any PWD lives
with at certain times in one's week; we all know the rules of that game
as we haev experienced it.... even if we are not all articulate in a way
that involves universally synchronised definitions of "impaired",
"disabled", etc.
How to speak to able-bodied people and negotiate that terrain, without
putting down other PWDs? How to do it without saying or implying "Don't
worry, I'm not one of the bad ones, I'm one of teh good ones."
The clinging to forms of expression of disaiblity status that backstab
teh larger group, is perhaps not so much simply an expression of
personal priviledge, as it is an expression of fear. Abstract DS / DR
theory is fine as far as it goes, but in the real world when the topic
of your disability comes up, it's very specific. You have to chose
exactly how to put one word after another and make those conversations,
and make them work for the best outcome you can get. In each person's
localised social / workplace environment, whatever works, works.
Whatever ulocks teh door, unlocks the door. Even if one cringes a
little, saying it.
When my several kinds of artiritis suddenly became much worse and
climbing steps became torture, I discovered that some elevators are open
to all, and some elevators or 4th-class lift devices are locked, adn you
have to negotiate to get the key or to get pasage into the store's back
troom to use the freight elevator. Or to get a store employee to go get
the item you need on that floor that is only accessible by stairs.
Finding how to express these needs turned out to benot so easy.... at
first I got some very puzzled looks even after the first sentance, the
second sentance.... It took me I think almost a year to formulate
exactly how as a person with no assistive device or obvious disabled
image, to say to able-bodied people "I need to use the elevator..."
Eventually I came up with three exact formulations of how to say it, the
short way not disclosing extra information, the middle way mentioning
"difficulty using steps", and the way that tells them more than is their
damned business mentioning "arthiritis" (and I cringe if the resistance
in the situation requires adding the word "severe"; but these are
practical situations; whatever works, works. I learned to not get
politically or emotionally bent out of shape by sitations that require
the middle or longer versions of these statements. Life's too short for
that much stress.)
Coming out about invisible disability, or for a PWD for whom disclosure
is somewhat moot, coming out about thinking you're a full human being
who has rights (or, gasp! you're a member of a self-respecting class,
which has an actual name of its own choosing!!!) is a specific social
and verbal SKILL. We are not born knowing how to do this. Teaching
this skill might be a good thing for organised PWD-education to do, if
it's not happening already.
Every person who is beginning to realise that s/he might be LGBT (unless
they grew up in some fabulously enlightened environment), wonders --
"Exactly how do out LGBT people say it, and live it, and not get swatted
down all the time? How exactly do they pull it off? How do you say
it?" Some people are better at pulling it off, than others. Will I be
good at it? In the (1998?) documentary film "Out At Work", one of the
people interviewed is a very femme-fabulous gay male librarian who
projects such unflappable confidence in his unhidable stigmatised
difference, and has such high social skills too, that it seems that he
has simply and subtelly (sp?) intimidated all homophobic bigots in his
path into shutting their mouths in his presence. I can watch him do it
on film, and I met him after a panel discussion at a screening at NYU in
1998, but I'll be damned if I can pull it off that well myself in terms
of plain coming out (not the unflappable femme part) the way he does.
---
Circling back to Tom's original post, role models for disability as a
facet of one's identity, can be broken down into several distinct types:
1. Finding out that other people like yourself exist, "out there" in
the world. (I'm not the only one" may be a more common discovery theme
with LGBT people, but since disability is a huge-umbrella term, no doubt
"I'm not the only one" can be a revelation for people with any number of
specific disabilities, too)
2. Finding out that people like yourself exist, nearby, so you can and
do meet them
3. Finding out that a POV of dropping the old defensive model for the
new rights / pride model, exists
4. Meeting people who are successful examples of -- Exactly how do
people pull it off in everyday social or workplace situations?
----
My understanding of question number 4 is this:
When you walk down the sidewalk, adn a person with a dog is coming the
other way, if you see that the dog is on the agressive or intimidating
side, what to do? Everyone knows the answer. Show no fear. Dogs are
hard-wired for certain things, like being hyper-vigilant in noticing teh
slightest fear on your part, which can trigger agression or attack.
(And some of the worse dogs are hard-wired to have a problem with eye
contact, too.) As we all know, the way to walk past a problem dog with
a neglegent owner, is to act like you own the sidewalk, don't suddenly
deviate in your path by even a quarter of an inch -- and project the
idea to the dog that s/he isn't even worthy of any special degree of
notice. It works.
Am I saying that people who want to act out their prejudice are like
poorly-trained problem dogs? Yes. In the formulation of words and
other parts of your behavior when "on the spot", the psychology of the
situation is that you must start by projecting that you absolutely do
anticipate that your human rights will be respected. Not that you
demand something that you might not get, but. that you believe it will
happen. That is part of willing it to happen.
One AIDS activist I know who as a political negotiator has pulled
rabbits out of hats -- when I seked her how she and the org's other
master engotiator got two seemingly impossible agreements out of those
in power, once told me "it's a sort of zen thing." You positively lead
people in power to what you want them to do. These are the facts, these
are the needs, therefore the thing to do is this.... as if you can't
imagine that they won't do it. Implying that you can't even imagine
that they're so stupid or bad that they won't "get it". Zero
defensiveness. You lead the negotiation to the outcome you want.
Taken to a higher level, I think this psychological technique is on a
diluted end of a continuum whose other end includes what the literature
on both professional sales techniques (for example - avoiding any
negative word which might break the spell), and some of the literature
on "mild state of hypnosis" techniques (other than the how-sermons-do-it
part) is talking about. It's partly about what you do, and partly about
what you don't do.
I watched the master negotiator Jim Eigo from Act Up / New York do this
on the federal advisory panel that approved "paralell track" protocols
for AIDS drug studies (letting in people not perfectly fitting the
research profile, becasue it is their only hope to survive), and after a
day of resistance seeming to just crack a litle near the end, suddenly
he said "So, I thik we are all agred that we should pass this
resolution...." and I thought "Huh?" And then it passed, unanimously.
I thought "This guy is a magician!" The panel chair had insisted all
day that the panel didn't have th authority to do this. Before the vote
only four out of about 25 had very recently started speaking in favor of
the resolution. The end of the meeting's time was nearing, so he
suddenly says "So I thnk we can all agree..." as if he matter of factly
expects a miracle, and Voila!, a miracle!
Prejudiced people behave like problem dogs. (S)"He who hesitates", gets
bit.
--
My conclusion, and I do have one....
To make it more common for large numbers of PWDs to handle able-bodied
people in a fully self-respecting way in terms of how words get chosen
and used, and to reduce the prevalence of the politically
backstabbing-the-group formula of "Don't worry. I'm not one of those
bad ones. I'm one of the good ones.".... we have to spread
opportunities for all of us to learn not just the abstract rights /
pride principals, but also we all need to spread opportunities to learn
the very specific self-respecting methods of implimentation that work.
Jim
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