Monthly Reading List - February 2018

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Five disability-related items I read in February, 2018:

'Our Lives Are at Stake.' How Donald Trump Inadvertently Sparked a New Disability Rights Movement
Abigail Abrams, Time Magazine - February 26, 2018

This is a sharp and unusually thorough overview of current disability activism. I’m not just saying that because I am in the article. Okay, a little bit because I’m named in the article. But it is the kind of article I would give a newcomer to disability rights, to give them a broad overview.

Being Disabled Is A Job
BeingCharis, June 14, 2017

The title alone is worth recognition. The blog post itself makes a great case for adjusting how we think about disability, work, social value, and money.

1st day of having a home health aide
Adventures In The Mandatory Smoothie Cleanse - February 25, 2018

The blogger is an online friend of mine. Her recent posts reflect the mixed feelings disabled people often have when they start using home care for the first time. It’s one of those times when we are confronted by the apparent contradiction between our can-do rhetoric and the reality that independence often means something slightly different for us than it does for other people, or than it used to mean for ourselves.

Why Black Disability History Matters
Vilissa Thompson, LMSW, Ramp Your Voice - February 27, 2018

February was Black History Month. As a white disabled person, I feel like any explanations I attempt, as to why conversations about race and black history belong in disability rights, are going to be either simplistic or overly intellectualized, and possibly wrong to boot. This feels like a much better, more authentic explanation that's both accessible and right.

What the Neurodiversity Movement Does—And Doesn't—Offer
Emily Paige Ballou, Thinking Person’s Guide To Autism - February 6, 2018

I find the "autism wars" between different understandings of autism are incredibly exhausting. Which is saying something since I am neither autistic myself nor do I have a close relative with autism. Imagine how it is for autistic people and, I suppose, their families too. This article goes a long way towards dismantling a lot of the heated rhetoric that tends to obscure the fact that "neurodiversity" is much more than a fringe theory, but is a valid ... possibly the most valid ... way of understanding autism.

Starting Somewhere

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Have you seen this yet? Watch it now ... (TW for heavy drinking and bleeped profanity):

Judy Heumann and her fellow activists begin the Section 504 sit-in, paving the way for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Watch full episodes of Drunk History now: http://www.cc.com/shows/drunk-history/full-episodes Drunk History airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on Comedy Central.

Honestly, I didn’t come up with this topic just as an excuse to post and talk about this amazing Drunk History video about an important event in disability history, the Section 504 sit-in. As it happens, I have been thinking a lot lately about an often heard phrase in disability advocacy, “You have to start somewhere!” Then this skit aired on Tuesday it seemed to me like a perfect answer to why the phrase ... though technically true ... has become so irritating.

“You have to start somewhere” shows up a lot in disability activism and culture discussions in which one group of observers complain that a disability-themed movie, TV show, advertisement, inclusion activity, or awareness campaign isn’t good enough, and another group defends it because although it’s not perfect, “You have to start somewhere!” Basically, it’s about different factions within the broader disability community calibrating progress in very different ways. What’s groundbreaking for some is often old hat or even retrograde for others.

This problem relates to more concrete matters, too. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 620, a bill that would institute additional waiting and grace periods for businesses to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. One of the underlying premises of the bill is the notion that the ADA and accessibility standards are in some sense new, unusual things that business owners can’t be expected to know about by themselves. They need advance notice that they might be out of compliance, and then extra time to figure out what they need to fix it. They shouldn’t be punished for not having their act together on these newfangled regulations.

That’s where the Drunk History skit comes in.

The 504 sit-in was specifically about accessibility, non-discrimination, and creating a more modern, progressive cultural understanding of disability. And it took place in 1977 … 41 years ago. Now, I’m just old enough to have lived as a disabled person in a time when the ADA, disability rights, and cultural representation of disability were actually new things. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, we were, in truth, “starting somewhere.” But we can’t still be “starting somewhere” 41 years later, can we? Obviously, progress takes time. It took another 13 years after the 504 sit-in for the ADA to pass. But at some point, doesn’t the clock sort of run out on what’s considered “new” and “just starting?” Doesn’t the simple passage of time suggest that we eventually should expect a better understanding of disability to be widely shared and integrated into the fabric of “stuff people just know?” This then allows us to move ahead to the next steps, and the steps after those.

I think one problem is that a segment of the disability community always views disability matters of all kinds as “new,” because a portion of the disability community is always going to be made up of newly disabled people and families of newly disabled people. It’s all legitimately new to them. That’s understandable. But eventually, it has to stop being new, even for newcomers. And knowing the actual history of these movements and ideas is key, because each new generation of disabled people is not, in fact, the first to experience disability or think up the idea of disability rights. It may seem that way to some of us, but that’s what looking around you, talking to other disabled people, and looking up a bit of history is all about.

It’s amazing that of all things, “Drunk History” has given us such a great opportunity to remind ourselves that the disability rights movement is well past “starting somewhere.”

Disability Blogger Linkup, February, 2018

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Welcome back to the Disability Blogger Linkup! If you are new to this, click here to see previous Disability Blogger Link-Ups.

The idea is to share something you have written that's about disability in some way. Please be sure to link to the specific article or post, not just the main page of the website it's on. Also, to make the links easier for visitors to identify, in the “Your name” blank, type the title of the article you are posting. In the "Your URL" blank, paste the URL address of the item. Like this:

Name = Title of your article.
Your URL = Link to your article.

Then click the "Enter" button. That's it! If you have any trouble making it work, or have any questions, feel free to email me at: apulrang@icloud.com.

This Link-Up will close at Midnight Eastern on Sunday. The next Disability Blogger Link-Up will start Friday, March 9, 2018.

Aaaand We're Back!

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I've been on an extended blogging break since December 2, 2017.

The conventional explanation is that I ran out of things to write about. It's more accurate to say that I had lots of ideas that seemed good for 20 minutes or so, but then quickly became stale. Now I've got several topics to work on that have stayed interesting to me for at least several weeks. Hopefully they will all turn into posts worth writing and reading ... something a little more than the usual themes of disability rights in the late 2010s.

I will start back for real with a Disability Blogger Linkup this Friday, February 9, followed by a regular blog post on February 23, then a Monthly Reading List on the 28th. I'll probably stick with that basic monthly routine for awhile. I am also thinking of adding occasional very short "Disability Thought Of The Day" posts. We'll see about that.

However it pans out, it feels good to be back and thinking again about the Disability Thinking Blog. I have missed it.

Disability Blogger Linkup

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It's time for the November, 2017 Disability Blogger Linkup! If you are new to this, click here to see previous Disability Blogger Link-Ups.

The idea is to share something you have written that's about disability in some way. Please be sure to link to a specific article or post, not just the main page of the website it's on. Also, to make the links easier for visitors to identify, in the “Your name” blank, type the title of the article you are posting. In the "Your URL" blank, paste the URL address of the item. Like this:

Name = Title of your article.
Your URL = Link to your article.

Then click the "Enter" button. That's it! If you have any trouble making it work, or have any questions, feel free to email me at: apulrang@icloud.com.

This Link-Up will close at Midnight Eastern on Sunday. The next Disability Blogger Link-Up will start Friday, December 8, 2017.

Monthly Reading List

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Disability-related articles worth reading last month:

How to Get Disability Accommodations at School
s. e. smith, Teen Vogue - October 2, 2017

Why Sex Education for Disabled People Is So Important
Ariel Henley, Teen Vogue - October 5, 2017

Teen Vogue has been doing a lot more political reporting lately, most notably since last year's election. It's also publishing great and relevant writing on semi-political topics, including those related to disability ... like disability accommodations in school and sex education for disabled students. Whether it's a new practice or standard operating procedure for Teen Vogue, t's good to see sophisticated but at the same time accessible articles like this, by disabled writers, in a "mainstream" magazine.

The Conundrum of Consent, Care, and Disability
Emily Wolinsky, Medium - October 14, 2017

This Is Why Consent Doesn’t Exist For Disabled Folks
Mia Mingus, The Establishment - October 29, 2017

These two disabled writers do rather different things, in different but similar online publications, with the same topic ... the meaning of consent when you need other people to help you with basic self-care. It's one of those areas where disabled people have to assert contradictory things. We have to convince people that depending on other people to "wipe our butts" doesn't mean an inherent loss of dignity. Independence is possible, with the right help and tools, even for a quadriplegic. On the other hand, we sometimes need to remind ourselves and others that this reliance does imply a loss of autonomy that isn't always a fair trade. We have to admit that those able-bodied people who fear the loss of dignity that they see in disabled people are, in a way, onto something.

You Are Special! Now Stop Being Different
Jonathan Mooney, New York Times - October 12, 2017

Mr. Mooney starts out with a vivid, down-to-earth description of what it's like to be a kid with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder, (A.D.H.D.). This in itself is valuable because A.D.H.D. is still a fuzzy concept in some peoples' minds, including my own sometimes. Much of my professional life was in the 1990s and 2000s, so there is still a little corner of my brain that thinks of A.D.H.D. as a former "disability du jour," a condition that suddenly everyone was talking about and every kid seemed to have. Today, that might be anxiety. But, these conditions emerge and become talked about because they need to be described, studied, and talked about. So even now, Mr. Mooney's testimony is important. At the same time, he gives a crystal clear explanation of the Social Model of all disabilities ... the fact that in addition to our disabilities themselves, we have to deal with the way society regards them, and usually those barriers are the hardest to deal with. That's not an especially new idea, but it keeps needing to be explained in fresh terms.

Upcoming Blog Topics

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I was meant to put up a blog post this weekend, But, instead of writing a complete post on one topic, I ended up brainstorming at least four different topics I want to write about over the next few months:

Disability Communities: Contested Ideas and Non-Negotiable Principles

What principles are we mostly settled on, and which are still largely contested within the disability community?

Disability Communities: Radicals, Activists, and Everyone Else

In which I continue to try to sort out the different subdivisions and mindsets within the disability community.

Special Needs Parents vs. Disabled Adults

An attempt to understand this very awkward, sometimes nasty and mutually traumatic relationship.

Three Trends In Disability Activism

Things have changed in thinking about disability, mostly for the good, but changes should at least be noted.

Anyone have any other ideas? What topics or questions aren't getting enough attention in disability blogging and journalism? Share your ideas in the comments section below.

Disability Blogger Linkup

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It's time for the October, 2017 Disability Blogger Linkup! If you are new to this, click here to see previous Disability Blogger Link-Ups.

The idea is to share something you have written that's about disability in some way. Please be sure to link to the specific article or post, not just the main page of the website it's on. Also, to make the links easier for visitors to identify, in the “Your name” blank, type the title of the article you are posting. In the "Your URL" blank, paste the URL address of the item. Like this:

Name = Title of your article.
Your URL = Link to your article.

Then click the "Enter" button. That's it! If you have any trouble making it work, or have any questions, feel free to email me at: apulrang@icloud.com.

This Link-Up will close at Midnight Eastern on Sunday. The next Disability Blogger Link-Up will start Friday, November 10, 2017.

Monthly Reading List

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My favorite articles from September, 2017:

My daughter doesn’t have ‘Special Needs,’ She’s disabled
James Davis Smith, Washington Post - September 28, 2017

There are a few lines here that made me raise my eyebrows, but overall it’s a welcomed endorsement by a parent of a disabled child of the idea that parents of disabled children should notice and listen to the broader disabled community. If nothing else, Mr. Smith capably explains why people are drawn to saying “Special Needs,” and why they should feel comfortable saying “disabled” in stead.

Arresting Disabled Bodies
Sarah Jones, New Republic - September 28, 2017

This is one of the most insightful mainstream magazine articles I have seen on the complex meanings involved when disabled activists like members of ADAPT protest and get arrested. On one level it's quite simple ... people who suffer the most from bad health care policy have good reason to make their protests as aggressive and dramatic as possible. But this writer also gets how ADAPT uses people's ableist assumptions ... especially their paternalism and pity reflex ... to draw attention to more substantive issues like health care, and at the same time contradict the assumption that disabled people are passive and weak.

6 Ways Your Social Justice Activism Might Be Ableist
Carolyn Zaikowski, Everyday Feminism - September 20, 2017

This goes well beyond Disability Prejudice 101. Every item here is a real and specific problem disabled people encounter within progressive culture. But for me, item 5 is the most welcomed observation ... that "policing and enforcing academic rhetoric" can be exclusionary and alienating to people we don't want to exclude or alienate. This is not a whiny, privileged attack on "political correctness." It is a real, internal critique of our excessive use of jargon. To me it also suggests a related problem, in which "academic rhetoric" ends up becoming more important than the ideas and issues it is meant to describe.

The ‘Madman’ Is Back in the Building
Zack McDermott, New York Times - September 20, 2017

This is one of the rare articles on any kind of disability that manages to be gritty and pessimistic, while at the same time somehow liberating and uplifting. It presents a pretty negative view of mental illness ... one that doesn't seem too compatible with the idea of "neurodiversity," or the Social Model of disability. Yet, it doesn’t evoke pity, and it doesn't seem to me to suggest that people who are mentally ill are either dangerous or useless. Mostly the impression is that they are just massively pressured and trying really hard.

I have chronic pain and nothing works for it. I'm afraid I'll be forgotten in the opioid crisis.
Julian Malinack, Vox.com - September 28, 2017

I have to admit that while I think my views about disability in general have improved in the last couple of years, my views on chronic pain have probably gotten worse, mostly because of the opioid crisis. I need to read more articles like this one.