Putting the “Dis” in “Disability”

Long before discrimination was associated with difference and not inferiority, Marvel Comics came out with the story of the X-Men. The mutants’ superpowers clearly made them superior to the average human, yet they were treated as freaks because they were outnumbered and could be subdued.

In reality, we humans have treated some of our own superheroes disgracefully. Copernicus’s and Galileo’s work in astronomy was finally deemed not heretical by the Catholic Church — after 400 years. Alan Turing played a crucial role in saving the planet from the Nazis, but was persecuted for his sexual orientation and driven to suicide when the world was safe again. Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest scientists ever, but many of his ideas went unfulfilled and he faced poverty, slander, and persecution due to Thomas Edison’s manipulations.

To assume that those who are on the right side of the bell curve won’t ever need help is a mistake in the assessment of vulnerability. Yet this is exactly how service mandates are determined even though neediness can be the result of many factors, like lack of social or political power.

Those on the left side of the bell curve might need help more often and their needs may be more obvious. But only catering to the most common and basic needs creates a tyranny of the majority that places people with uncommon circumstances at a disadvantage. Those right-bell-curve people often deteriorate without adequate prevention.

No one should be denied assistance if they don’t fit into narrow service mandates because none of us choose to be born or choose what handicaps we’re born with, whether gender, race, social circumstance, or personal ability. No one should be penalized for things that are out of their control.

Excluding right-bell-curve people from full participation not only robs society of their contributions, it dumbs down society, and each successive generation may continue along that downward trajectory. Maybe some resources should be reserved for helping these outliers to see what return on investment it produces.

Allies

(from http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/americavotes/jfk-civilrights-flyer.jpeg)

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me

I’m reminded of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem today not only because it’s Remembrance Day, but because I’ve been researching effective ways to confront oppression. Researchers have found that the motive for the oppression doesn’t determine how easily it’s stopped. Effective confrontations usually involved allies who didn’t belong to the oppressed group, so as I suspected, all oppression (or abuse) is about power.

I’m not as surprised at the obviousness of the results as I am at how long it’s taken researchers to look at this issue. While there have been decades of research on other aspects of oppression, the majority of the research about the consequences of fighting back has been published from 2000 onward. Maybe researchers needed more victims to begin fighting back before they could actually study this. For that to happen, victims needed the means to fight back, like laws, resources, and more progressive societal attitudes, which didn’t discourage standing up for one’s rights.

Specific examples of attitude changes have been in the public discourse in the last few years. Third parties are now expected to intervene to stop bullying, instead of “not getting involved” or telling the victim to “toughen up,” and victim blaming in gender-based violence is now recognized as sexist.

Shifting the focus to bystanders and perpetrators brings attention to their complicity and self-interest in the abuse of others. The responsibility to stop the abuse is beginning to be placed on those with the power to do so — as it should be.

The Criminal Mind

When you make videos of yourself assaulting people, what should you do with them? Should you hide them like Paul Bernardo or should you show them to your employer like Jian Ghomeshi?

It can be argued that Bernardo had more at stake because his videos were of missing children who he later killed, or that Ghomeshi needed to present a defence in the face of mounting evidence against him. But it seems like Ghomeshi actually believes his own bullshit, like other sociopaths. This is how some of them are caught.

A surprising number of them will admit to committing crimes even when interviewed by police because, by definition, sociopaths don’t understand normal human emotion and values. They genuinely don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. It’s like a guy I knew who didn’t think that fraud hurt anyone because it was a property crime. Then there are the ones who think that anything short of murder is acceptable.

Unfortunately, many who work in the justice system don’t know the laws that are relevant to their cases. An attitude adjustment wouldn’t hurt, either. For example, women’s groups have been complaining for decades that perpetrators of gender-based violence aren’t made accountable because those who work in the justice system have the same misconceptions and prejudices about some laws as society in general. This is happening to this day. Since Slutwalk started a mere four years ago, a shameful number of young women have said they were told by police that it’s not illegal to be assaulted by a boyfriend.

We have good laws for many things. We just need those who work in the justice system to know the laws so they can properly interview suspects and spot any admissions they may unwittingly make.

Do I have your attention now?

(from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/bullying-victims-carry-weapons-guns)

I’ve come to the conclusion that the dynamics of all kinds of abuse are fundamentally similar and that a similar procedure needs to be followed when dealing with any kind of abuse.

All abuse is essentially power tripping, and the same repertoire of abusive behaviours is used (e.g. harassment, stalking, assault, etc.) which suggests that a similar method can be used to deal with all abuse. But abuse isn’t categorized according to behaviour; it’s categorized according to the context in which it occurs. Cases are dealt with inconsistently depending on both the context and the individual being victimized. More often than not, there’s the same tragic pattern of victims asking for help, being refused help, having the abuse minimized, and being blamed for the abuse, all of which allows the abuse to escalate. The same story has been told countless times in every context, from school bullying to workplace bullying to domestic violence.

Too often, the only time a victim is heard is after they’ve killed themselves or their abusers — and even then they need advocates to get attention for their story. No one would know Rehtaeh Parsons’s name if she hadn’t killed herself and if her parents hadn’t been successful in publicizing the injustice. No one would have made a movie about Francine Hughes if she hadn’t burned her abusive husband to death while he slept and been put on trial for murder. How many others have suffered without going to such lengths?

Should the people who ignored the abuse be held accountable? Should it be illegal if the targets of abuse have no other way of protecting themselves than to kill their abusers? Unfortunately, the targets of abuse are judged by those who never need to go to such lengths to get the same respect that most people get.

Ideally, the targets of any abusive behaviours would know where to go where they would be taken seriously. Third parties who are competent in dealing with those abusive behaviours would intervene to help nip it in the bud. This helps the targets of abuse in addition to changing unhealthy societal attitudes and practices. But, as the saying goes, that makes too much sense.

So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair. Antonin Artaud

Inconvenient Truths

(from Democracy Now)

Gabor Maté is a Vancouver doctor who’s been promoting the idea that emotions and social conditions affect physical health, and the suppression of strong emotions causes illness. Seems like common sense, but that isn’t how orthodox western medicine works.

Our medical system uses the medical model, which limits the cause and treatment of symptoms to the presenting patient. Obviously, and especially for targets of abuse, this is ineffective and victim blamey.

For decades, it was standard operating procedure to drug victims of domestic violence into a stupor and do nothing else. It didn’t stop the abuse, it exacerbated illness in patients by forcing them to suppress strong emotions, and it didn’t address the root of a serious social problem. The purpose of the drugs wasn’t to cure illness; it was to silence dissent in order to maintain existing power structures.

More recently, social science research has shown that victims of  bullying, the “isms,” and other abuses suffer symptoms of PTSD, but many psychologists and doctors still won’t diagnose and treat the condition because they don’t equate threatening someone’s safety and livelihood with threatening their life. Supposedly only people engaged in manly acts of war can suffer from PTSD. Other patients are often pathologized as delusional, histrionic, neurotic, or borderline.

This example also shows backwards “reasoning.” For other illnesses — especially physical illnesses — the diagnosis and treatment are based on symptoms, not cause. People with broken legs don’t need to be asked if they were in a fight, or if they fell while snowboarding. The degree and type of force that caused the injury isn’t judged by the privileged to see if it was sufficient so that the patient can be accused of merely having an inherent and abnormal weakness. No word on what doctors would do if people’s heads exploded from their “logic.”

It’s no surprise that Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté is speaking out about this. But more on lived experience later.

(from http://fuseopenscienceblog.blogspot.ca/2013_03_01_archive.html)

Good Intentions vs. Good Deeds

(from http://krissthesexyatheist.blogspot.ca/2012/03/my-lil-thoughts-on-kony-2012.html)

After Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was killed on Wednesday, many people seemed well intended because they used the word “tolerance” to advocate non-violence in general. Others, on the other hand, used the word to imply that they were grudgingly putting up with an individual or group that they found unacceptable.

No one ever says we have to “tolerate” the Tim McVeighs, Ted Kaczynskis, and David Koreshes of the world, even though they are far more destructive than the Michael Zihaf-Bibeaus of the world. No one ever says we have to “tolerate” the Marc Lepines of the world because they aren’t Muslim or Arab and only kill women.

Every demographic has mentally ill or stressed people, but there’s a steeper individual and collective penalty for mentally ill or stressed minorities. I’m guessing the unhealthy double standards that minorities face on a daily basis don’t exactly encourage healthy behaviour.

In my experience, those who use “tolerate” with the negative connotation are trying, for whatever reason, to use inoffensive language, but are awkward around anyone who isn’t white or anyone who doesn’t conform to white norms. So yeah, they may be well intended, just ignorant and clumsy.

I just can’t decide whether we need a new, solely-positive word to replace “tolerance” because some of the ways it’s used makes many of us cringe, or if it’s better to keep the current word in order to identify people who are potentially dangerous to minorities — even if they are unintentionally dangerous, like the mentally ill or the stressed.

aka Multiple Jeopardy

(from http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/library/intersectionality.png)

Once again, gay men have won an important victory. Facebook backed down at warp speed when drag queens began complaining about their real name policy, even though they’ve been arrogant enough to ignore — and even ridicule — complaints about privacy from the general public.

It may be because it happened at a time in history when discrimination based on sexual orientation is a sensitive issue, but there may be another reason: Some activists have told me that the LGBTQ movement has been able to make great advances because white males are a large and politically active part of their constituency.

Would there have been the same degree of progress in gay rights if all gay people were women? Or if all gay people were members of racialized groups? And yes, some gay people can fly under the gaydar. Gay white males still don’t have as many strikes against them as some other oppressed groups.

Recently, there’s been a lot more talk about intersectionality in some circles, particularly among feminists when criticizing white feminism. The ensuing fights are divisive and take our eyes off the ball. Maybe an example of intersectionality that isn’t solely about women (like the one above) would have a better chance of being heard.

The Greatest Canadian

(from CBC’s The Greatest Canadian)

His legacy is undeniable and his obstacles were almost insurmountable. Many smaller people were crushed by obstacles and compromise, but Tommy never was. — George Stroumboulopoulos on Tommy Douglas (from http://archive.thegauntlet.ca/story/george-stroumboulopoulos-tommy-douglas#sthash.75QNTlGs.dpuf)

A few years ago, I came across a woman who had personally witnessed the fortitude of Tommy Douglas during the fight for public health care in Saskatchewan. Fearing another arduous struggle, she was putting up posters to help beat back a creeping two-tiered health care system in another province.

But while Tommy Douglas is widely known as the father of public health care in Canada, his other contributions to Canadian life are less known. He introduced many ideas that were initially denounced by the political parties in power, then adopted by those same parties when it served their interests. He showed that it was possible to maintain your convictions, not get elected, yet still get your way. Scottish swagger indeed.

These are some of the protections, services, and amenities he advocated that we now take for granted:

• Family allowance
• 40-hour work week
• Economic planning agency
• Labour code
• Air ambulances
• Provincial archives
• Old-age pensions
• Minimum wage
• Free textbooks
• Unemployment insurance
• Legislature broadcasts
• Small claims courts (the first in North America)
• Arts board (the first in North America was in Saskatchewan)
• Union rights
• Public auto insurance
• Public-run transit
• Bill of Rights (the Charter)
• Laws against farm foreclosure
• Public utilities
• Lower voting age of 18

Americans have a yearly holiday to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr.’s heroism in wrestling power from those who didn’t want to give it up. It’s the least we could do for Tommy Douglas. He was born on October 20, which is within two weeks of Canadian Thanksgiving. There would be nothing more fitting than to combine the two holidays.

What is this “grrl” of which you speak?

(from http://www.actorsbridge.org/act-like-a-grrrl.aspx)

Like someone else in our class, I was late to the party and didn’t get my first choice in screen names. It turned out to be a happy accident for both of us.

In my case, lots of people had already thought of the turnabout on Madonna’s “Material Girl,” so I went with “grrl” instead. The concept of grrl or grrrl originated with ‘70s punk musicians like Patti Smith and was firmly established by early ‘90s bands like Bikini Kill. Other feminists adopted their strong, independent attitudes and outspokenness about third-wave feminist issues. The riot grrrl movement coincided with new technology, which allowed grrls/grrrls to self publish, both in hard copy (zines) and on the web. Grrl/grrrl is now also used to denote women in non-traditional roles.

This workaround allowed me to keep the theme of my blog. In fact, I agree with many of the ideas expressed by all punk — which should rightly be known as a social movement and not merely a musical genre — even though the attitude doesn’t feel right to me.

So “grrl” is not a typo. Mystery solved.

What happens after today?

This is the International Day of the Girl, yet another useless exercise in empty publicity. From the occasional peace march to Suicide Awareness Day, how many of these events have actually made a difference? It’s even doubtful how much awareness is raised by these designated days/events, or if awareness needs to be raised at all for some of the issues.

Historically, which actions have gotten results? How long, often, and hard did people have to fight to get civil rights in America? Or health care in Canada? For social change to occur, there needs to be a sustained campaign at the grass roots level with a call to action, like this one to prevent child marriages http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/sustained-campaign-helps/article6425844.ece. It’s a small start, but at least they’ve shown measurable improvement over a short time.

I’ve been to some of these designated days/events, which are more like social events rather than social activism. No one wants to work on actual solutions.

At least the protests in Ferguson, Missouri are still continuing, long after the mainstream media found other obsessions.