I mean in today's overly PC world, it's considered "normal" to stereotype people with disabilities, we're all thrown into one category as "stupid", no line is drawn to differentiate functioning levels. Yeah, some PC idiots do stand up for what they understand as discrimination against disabled people (such as using certain terminology to refer to us, ie "ret*d"). But they still treat us like a different species, all of society does.
Like we're "forever children", "broken or defective 'normal' people", or even "charity cases". And those are the "nice" people. This is evident in that they apparently feel that we're too stupid or child like to advocate for ourselves, they think they know better what we want/need than we ourselves do. And they don't want to listen to our perspective. This is the same exact mentality that governed oppresion of ethnic minorities, it's a eugenics-based mindset. At one time during segregation, blacks were "forever child like" and "inferior". And you see the same parallels with ableism.
Because whenver we openly challenge this stigma or their stereotypes, we're seen as "trouble makers". That's basically abled society telling us "how dare you think you have the right to be equal?". But if you call them on it, many go into deliberate denial to save their own egos. There is no feasible way anyone could not see the stigma attached to disability.
And it is highly hypocritical of today's overly PC populace to say "racism and sexism are horrible, but ableism, that's just normal".
22 Apr 2008, 4:36 pm
