Post B6jMnuDUFUQuDQPUx6 by artemis@dice.camp
(DIR) More posts by artemis@dice.camp
(DIR) Post #B6jMnt5eR8ZSipjj6G by artemis@dice.camp
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Least favorite way of framing an issue:"If this happened to [marginalized group the speaker isn't part of], people would care/do something about it, but when it happens to [group the speaker is part of—sometimes but not always a marginalized group], no one cares."People especially love to do this with disabilities. Sometimes people with certain disabilities will even claim this with regard to people with different disabilities.
(DIR) Post #B6jMntIleN3xNVsCXo by artemis@dice.camp
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E.g. "I have an 'invisible' disability, so people discount it & act like it isn't real, but if someone did that to a wheelchair user, everybody would be up in arms."Such a what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about moment.I mean, I'm not a wheelchair user, but if you will spend 2 seconds listening to a wheelchair user talk about their experiences, you will learn that people ALSO dismiss their disability & gaslight them about it.
(DIR) Post #B6jMntY0jhFw8n0NIu by artemis@dice.camp
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It's such a self-centered assumption to make, that x marginalized group is actually so much more protected & cared about than you are.Possibly the worst version: "If [thing that happens to Black people all the time & is ignored] happened to a Black person, people would do something about it, but when it happens to me..."Fuck all the fucking way off with that fucking shit.
(DIR) Post #B6jMntnFp1Ruu48Y40 by artemis@dice.camp
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Bro2 often does this type of thing when talking about his AuDHD, & unfortunately it's not currently really worth it to address it, but I think it's a pretty shitty way to speak about your own disability, especially given that disabled people's experiences seem to be very similar in certain aspects, regardless of what the disability is or the severity of it.If you're experiencing discrimination & hardship due to your disability, then so are other disabled folks.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnu1QyIn9c2lsAK by artemis@dice.camp
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If you're disabled, people will gaslight you about it. If you are disabled, people will act like your accommodation needs are a burden. If you are disabled, people will infantilize you & speak over you. If you are disabled, people will tell you you aren't trying hard enough. If you are disabled, people will tell you that it's not as difficult for you as you know it to be.That's how our culture treats disability.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnuDUFUQuDQPUx6 by artemis@dice.camp
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There is no special category of disabled person who is exempt from that & totally accepted, protected, & celebrated by society.Pretending that wheelchair users are prioritized & accommodated with great care at all times harms them by downplaying & dismissing their needs, but participating in that fiction does nothing whatsoever to help you with YOUR disability. If anything, it has the tendency to further delegitimize your needs as well as theirs.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnuQxRPCytCiFwu by artemis@dice.camp
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But most of all, if you don't know what sort of experiences a marginalized group actually has—if you have not *at very least* listened & learned from people in the group—where do you get off claiming that they get this supposed protective & preferential treatment
(DIR) Post #B6jMnuemc0Gda5BIUy by artemis@dice.camp
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Where did you get that fucking idea?Oh, from the ignorance in your own head & from a racist, cis-heteronormative, misogynistic, ableist society that so resents having to make things accessible or address discrimination that every attempt to do something about exclusion or abuse is perceived as an unacceptable level of preferential treatment?
(DIR) Post #B6jMnutfieB2KG9Bho by artemis@dice.camp
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If you think wheelchair users are privileged & protected by society, you are buying into cultural resentment towards the accommodations that disabled people have literally fought & died for—usually woefully insufficient accommodations that are still routinely denied even when they are legal requirements.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnvAKihVL9vwUfw by artemis@dice.camp
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If you are a disabled person & feel threatened by the accommodations which other disabled people have fought so hard to receive, you are trying to compete with the exact people who ought to be your strongest allies.Here's the truth about disability: abled allies do exist, but the burden of improving disability accommodations has always fallen on disabled people themselves.Example: the ADA was not a generous gift from abled people to the disabled. Disabled people had to fight so hard for it.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnvNRvvzpoc4y7U by artemis@dice.camp
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Before you say "if [thing that happened to me] happened to [person in marginalized group], people would do something about it," please at least ask yourself if you actually know that statement to be true.If it is *sometimes* true...ask yourself WHICH people care about it & will do or say something. It's not everyone, is it? It's mostly just the people who are actively trying to make a more just & equitable world, isn't it? It's the people most likely to care when it happens to you too.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnvZ9ERM0OtYJM0 by artemis@dice.camp
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"People" isn't a real group.Weirdly, in general when someone says "people would care if xyz," they are complaining resentfully not about the people who don't give a shit about other people, but about the ones who *do* care. They are saying they expect *those* people to dedicate more care & attention specifically to *them*.The anger is not directed at people who are callous & disregard people's needs & refuse to advocate for others. So fucking weird, right?
(DIR) Post #B6jMnvqsAXX3HrqSyu by artemis@dice.camp
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I see this attitude especially from people who do not give their own energy to protecting & advocating for other people.They may be marginalized in some way, but it's often true that they do not themselves try to improve the treatment or conditions of other marginalized people, either of their group or not.So you get someone complaining that "people" would (supposedly) do something for another person that they wouldn't do for this person, even though this person doesn't do that for anyone.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnw1rVgK3pwzF6u by artemis@dice.camp
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It seems to be a demand for the people who show the most care & work the hardest for justice for themselves & others to give *more* & to specifically give to *them*.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnwH6b0W2bE7Ps0 by artemis@dice.camp
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I mentioned Bro2. He is kind in his own life to people, but he doesn't see the value of fighting for justice. And then he's complaining because he believes that "people" care about disabled people who aren't him, & he wants more from *them*.He doesn't want to change ableist culture. He wants to be prioritized in the efforts of people who are trying to bring empathy, kindness, & justice in the world, efforts that he doesn't actually respect or think are worth HIS time.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnwS5w9J39JGC00 by artemis@dice.camp
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Autism & ADHD are both disabilities that can have a significant impact on someone's life. I have so much trauma & so many daily struggles.And it's true, a lot of people—including many who really should know better—are dismissive of these disabilities.But the problem has never, ever been the fact that some people give their energy & care to other disabled people & advocate for them. Why would that be the fucking problem? How could that possibly be the problem?
(DIR) Post #B6jMnwe9DKwnkgtomm by artemis@dice.camp
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Honestly, it's weird in general that a lot of people who do not care to improve conditions for other people seem to have a lot of opinions about what those who do try to do that should be giving their time & energy to.It's weird to not participate in the struggle for justice & then get mad when you feel (without evidence) that you *personally* have been neglected. If it's something you don't think is important to do for yourself & others, why do you even have opinions about it?
(DIR) Post #B6jMnwoQb7AeGZi1oG by artemis@dice.camp
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It's also frustrating to be told "people don't care about x" when it's like, "I do! I know a lot of people who care a lot! Could you be more specific about who 'people' refers to?'When it comes to my brother, he's surrounded himself with libertarian assholes & then wants to complain about how "people" don't care about others.He has self-selected to live with people who don't think caring for others & seeking justice is a moral imperative & then complains to *me* how uncaring they are.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnx6rUZurBkKkXg by artemis@dice.camp
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Some people have no choice of who they are surrounded with, but some do, & if someone joins a community where people don't believe they have responsibilities to other people, they are probably going to have some bad experiences & feel that "people" don't value them.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnxMSYaOPy7dCr2 by artemis@dice.camp
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Bro2 complains because he doesn't feel valued by them, but when he says "If I were physically disabled, people would care," it's not THOSE people who would care about a hypothetical wheelchair user.The people who are being callous & uncaring to him aren't the people who seem to bear the blame. OTHER people somewhere ELSE would care about disability accommodations for a wheelchair user, & he has decided that THOSE people don't care about him because of the behavior of the assholes around him.
(DIR) Post #B6jMnxWjwMcGU0RPsW by artemis@dice.camp
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Why does the blame for society's ills seem to always come back to the people trying to do something about society's ills?
(DIR) Post #B6jMnxlz1goFFHZadc by ska@social.treehouse.systems
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@artemis Individual answer: crabs in a bucket mentality. If you make something better, that forces me to acknowledge that things can be better and that I'm not doing anything to improve them, so it exposes a moral failing of mine, and I hate that, so I'm going to blame society's ills on you in order to feel safer.Systemic answer: same reason why freedom of speech always seems to apply to the right and never to the left. The right defends power structures and society stability at the expense of quality of life for the oppressed, so power has no problem letting right-wing speech flow free. Even Nazi marches do not threaten power. Whereas the left questions power and the way society is structured, so it is intrinsically more dangerous to power to let left-wing speech be heard. So, people trying to improve things get blamed for everything.I hate it too.