If it works, why not?

Yesterday I attended the monthly meeting of my local chapter of a by-and-for-blind-people organization. I don't go every month because I'm often too exhausted and need all the weekend time I can get to recuperate and steel myself for the next work week, and sometimes the weather is too crappy to be outside waiting for the bus--and, to be honest, a lot of the attitudes of the individual people in the organization, and the official positions of the organization itself irk me. The organization does a lot of good in advancing the public image and understanding of blindness, but they do a crappy job of accommodating other differences, whether that be additional disabilities, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

The theme for the current Disability Blog Carnival is "Abuse." I don't feel equipped to do justice to the more mainstream interpretations of this (physical and emotional abuse), although I have personal experience with both. I look forward to reading what others have to say. However, as a person with multiple oddities/variations from the perceived norm, I'd like to discuss a lesser-thought-of family of abuses: willful ignorance and dismissal of minority/marginalized groups by other minority/marginalized groups.

In social theory, one speaks of privilege and power: class privilege, white privilege, male privilege, ability privilege, etc. These privileges exist not because of personal merit or effort, but because of a self-sustaining system that unequally distributes resources and power within groups. The more categories of privilege one falls under, the more likely one is to have resources and opportunities, and the more likely one is to take these privileges and opportunities for granted, to the point of being unable to recognize that they even exist. It's this ignorance that leads to further marginalization of the groups without privilege: "If I can do it, so can you, what's your problem?" or "Those people just don't measure up, it's just the way things are." When the people with the power have things set up in the way that's most ideal to them, they feel threatened by any attempt to change the way things are set up. Whether one actively or passively (through ignorance) resists change, the result is still the same. This shows up especially well when one is dealing with attitudes towards disability and accommodation.

Getting back to the meeting yesterday, I observed several examples of people with disabilities failing to recognize the rights and needs of other people with disabilities, even though the need for accommodation and respect should be more obvious to a person with a (albeit different) disability than to a person without any disabilities, and to recognize that a person with a similar disability may have different, fewer, or additional needs for accommodation. Being figuratively crapped on by another disabled person stings a lot more than experiencing the same prejudice from a person who isn't immersed in the disability culture and concept of accommodation.

I heard an elderly man criticized for using a white cane that's sturdy enough to use occasionally as a walking stick, as opposed to the flimsier type of cane the organization favors. I use both types of cane, and they have advantages and drawbacks. Yes, the long, one-piece fiberglass cane is more sensitive and better for walking quickly, but if one can't walk very quickly anyway, what's the harm in using a shorter, sturdier cane that one can lean on when one needs to?

A woman who is an English teacher has temporarily lost her voice. Someone suggested that she use her braille notetaker (which has text-to-speech output as well as a braille display) as an augmentative communication device, but she rejected this idea. If it works, why not? What's wrong with using a computer to speak for you when using your own voice is painful and inefficient for communication? Is she afraid of being perceived in the same negative ways as other people who can't use their own voices for communication?

One positive experience was the segment of the meeting in which the chapter's secretary reported on a recent volunteer experience with the local Arc chapter's thrift store. She was pleasantly surprised at being treated with dignity and respect by sighted volunteers.

I challenge every person reading this entry to go and try to understand some of the needs and alternative techniques of people with a disability you don't have.

Lashing Out

It's happened to just about everyone who has been in a store or restaurant--an employee does something foolish or nonsensical, and the customer gets angry and lashes out at the employee. Maybe you've been the customer, maybe you've been the employee, or maybe you've just been a bystander, observing this happen. It's not a good situation for anyone involved.

It can get particularly ugly when the parties involved see each other as being One of Those People, and blame their behavior on that category of Other.

A simple perception of being in a different socioeconomic class can be enough to tip the scales, or a difference in gender, race, age group, etc.

Take this example--it may have happened over a year and a half ago, but it still sticks in my mind. I am "over it" emotionally--I mostly just laugh at it, but it remains in my memory as an example of this behavior:

I work at a gas station convenience store and manage the foodservice department (things like coffee, fountain drinks, hot dogs, sandwiches, etc.). Part of my job is making sure that machines have product in them to dispense to customers. Unfortunately, judging how much is left in a particular machine can be difficult. Some machines monitor how much has been dispensed, others have clear (or at least translucent) hoppers that allow one to see how much is left in the machine, but many have multi-layered containers for products to insulate them or protect them from light, evaporation, and pests, so the only way to tell when they're empty is to try dispensing the product. If I test something and it's ok, that doesn't necessarily mean that the next press of the button will also dispense the product.

I have difficulty recognizing all of the regular customers at the store, partly due to visual impairment, partly due to prosopagnosia, and partly due to the sheer volume of customers (I work at one of the busiest stores in the company). However, there are a few people whom I recognize because they're there at nearly the same time of day every day of the week, have a particular consistent quirk or physical characteristic, etc. One of these people is an unpleasant fellow I call "Spider Guy" in my head. He frequently wears a sparkly golden spider pin on the lapel of his suit, has distinctively bushy, scraggly long hair, and impossibly skinny legs (he sometimes wears tights/leggings rather than suit trousers). Sometime I have advance warning of when he's approaching the store, because he curses at the gas pump-authorizing cashiers over the intercom.

On this particular day, he wanted a chocolate flavored Steamer. Steamers are a latte-like product we used to sell at the hot drinks counter along with drip coffee and instant cappuccino. First, Spider Guy was angry because he couldn't locate the machine. He yelled at me because it wasn't in the spot where it "has always been," despite the fact that the machine had never been in that imaginary location because it wouldn't fit there and there isn't a water or electrical hookup there, either. I knew better than to point that out to him, and simply showed him where the machine was (and had been for the past year and a half, at least). Unfortunately, the machine was out of the chocolate flavor concentrate. Instead of informing me of this and asking me to replace it (which I could have done in a matter of minutes), he tore into me and called me a "four dollar an hour retard."

Now, really. What is that sort of behavior supposed to accomplish? What does a person gain by starting out with insults? And, more insidiously, why is "retard" an insult? I think that's what upset me most--hearing the word "retard" used as an insult.