In other marginalized communities the term used for this phenomenon
is essentialism. It is a trap that most movements fall into in their
beginning phases. The words connotes that there is one essential
quality or characteristic that gives one authority when determining
membership. It is a political trap and dead end because there are
always ways of being more "essential" than the next person. For
example, the T5/6 para who argues that only wheelchair users can talk
about disability is trumped by the C5/6 quad who argues that only
people who use wheelchairs and personal assistance services have
valid ideas. Then the C2/3 quad argues his particular case.
I was talking about this concept and referenced how the communities
in San Francisco are now calling themselves GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi,
Transexual). I remember that it wasn't too long ago that people who
identified as being Bi felt excluded and often were. The women I was
relating this concept to then self-identified as being a Lesbian and
told me about how she went to a meeting in the early 80s where she
saw a sign that said, "organic lesbians only." She barely knew what
that meant and felt uneasy. It's tough when there's a test to be
included.
At the same time we need to give credibility to the lived experience.
Far too often we have an either/or view of the problem. We need to be
inclusive, rather than exclusive. We also need to recognize
able-bodied privilege (along with male, white, straight, middle
class, etc. privilege).
Anthony
>Is there an established term for the phenomenon of people with more
>severe (or more visible) disabilities perceiving themselves as the sole
>possessors of validity as people with disabilities? And perceiving
>people with less visible / non-severe / not-yet-severe disabilites - as
>impostors or diluters of the concepts of disabled rights or people with
>disabilies?
>
>The word "ableism" clearly doesn't fit. Something like "disability
>degree-ism" would be more like it For lack of a single term, I once
>referred to this in a lecture as "... for lack of knowing any
>established term for it, what might be called an 'authenticity test'".
>
>Examples -- people who say that the scope of people with disabilities
>covered in a law like the Americans with Disabilities Act should be cut
>in half, or saying that only people using wheelchairs should be allowed
>to use "handicapped parking spots" (ignoring other disabilities for
>which such accommodations would be appropriate), or people who in
>disabled social or movement orgs do not want to associate with or accept
>as equal coworkers people who they see as insufficiently disabled?
>
>Another example that comes to mind in a social org which I won't name
>here, that had as it's one project, monthly Sunday brunches in
>restaurants. In which I am told by a friend with severe mental
>disability due to severe brain injury (barely able to work out ways to
>live independantly), that a social pattern in this org. soon emerged in
>which the crowd was big enough to use two big restaurant tables, and a
>binary split happened -- people using wheelchairs refused to sit at the
>same table with people not using them. Not in response to any untoward
>occurances, but based on some underlying attitudes. This was the
>opposite of the "paper bag party" phenomenon (of the light skinned
>African American students refusing to allow into a party anyone darker
>than a paper bag). In the example described by my friend, the less
>disabled / less visibly disabled were socially ostracised by the more
>disabled / more visibly disabled; the bias was clearly a one-way street,
>not a two-way street (which division I hear, eventually led to the
>dissolving of the brunch group).
>
>So I'm just looking for the single word to indicate this phenomenon.
>
>Is there a noun or adjective for this?
>
>Jim
>
>--
>
>PS - It would be interesting to see someone analyze in research this
>phenomenon in terms of the concept of "piss on pity", since the
>"disability = only severe / visible disability" - notion (or the even
>more restrictive - "disability = only wheelchair use" - notion) would
>seem to not be a rejection of pity as a disability defining concept --
>but would actually be an indication of an indirect and unconscious
>embrace of the bad old pity concept.... which perhaps may not have
>vanished as much as certain oversimplified theoretical writings are
>saying?
>
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