Reminder: Tomorrow is Blogging against Disablism Day

[capri0mni]

If you want to take part (a couple of hours and change from now, for those working on British daylight time), don't forget to reply to this Blogging Against Disablism Day announcement post with the url of your blog (And then reply with a link to the post itself, after it's written).

I've been working through mine for a couple of days now... I think I'm mostly going to focus on why depictions of disability in fiction are so important, and why most depictions around today are bothersome.

I'll leave the navel-gazing "But why can't I seem to do anything about it?" posts for f'locked entries here. Because, frankly, I haven't figured out the answer, yet, nor do I have any clear way in my head for getting around, over or damned straight through that particular block. And random, psychobabbly, flailing seems out of place in an event meant to raise public awareness.

BTW, is there anyone reading this who can tell me why "Disablism" and "Ablism" mean the exactly same thing (as far as I can tell)? Is it something like the reason "ravel" and "unravel" mean the same thing, too?

[ETA: just to be fair: here is the reason that "ravel" and "unravel" mean the same thing at the same time they mean the opposite of each other:

ravel
1582, "to untangle, unwind," also "to become tangled or confused" (1585), from Du. ravelen "to tangle, fray, unweave," from rafel "frayed thread." The seemingly contradictory senses of this word (ravel and unravel are both synonyms and antonyms) are reconciled by its roots in weaving and sewing: as threads become unwoven, they get tangled.

[[ETA 2: (citation: "ravel." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 30 Apr. 2009. (Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ravel)]]

So when threads are "tangled together" the way they should be, as with a piece of knitting or weaving or braiding, they're smooth, and strong and useful. When the kniting or weaving or braiding comes undone, all those threads get knotted in all different directions, and become a great big, messy cause for a headache.

So I'm wondering if "Disablism" and "Ablism" mean the same thing because of differing attitudes about which is more problematic-- the person's unique conditions that set him or her apart, or the attitudes and actions of the society in reactions to the unique conditions of individuals...]

Comments

[blinovitch.livejournal.com]

I keep reading that last word as Diabolism. Please blog against that instead.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

bwa-ha-ha!

But I'm such a trickster, I think it would be more fun to post in favor of diabolism... >:-)

[scarfman]

Or "flammable" and "inflammable".

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

IIRC, it's because BADD is an international-thing, and the attitudes towards what the problem is are different in, say, the UK and North America. So, here in North Am, the preferred term is "people with disabilities" because of the baggage that comes with defining a person as disabled and thus lesser of a person. In the UK, the preference is "disabled person" because the disabled embraces a social model of disability and "disabled" in this context specifically refers to social issues.

I think.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I think maybe that might be right, perhaps... heh.

I found it fascinating, on reading Goldfish's roundup of The Language of Disability (http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2008/04/language-of-disability.html), that the British culture (mostly) embraces the social model of disability, because that is one that my mother (an American) used, coming up with it on her own. Then again, she always was something of an iconoclast.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

I think (and this is a total guess) it might come from uncertainty as to what "x-ism" actually signifies. Sexism means "discrimination based on sex" and racism means "discrimination based on race", so we assume it goes [thing being discriminated against]ism, hence "disablism", prejuciced against the disabled.

But if you look at "x-ism" words that don't refer to prejudice, like socialism or feminism, it's clear that "x" is something an x-ist is for, not against, and the prejudice words work like that as well (a racist or sexist is prejudiced in favour of a certain race or sex). Hence "ablism", prejudiced in favour of the able-bodied.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Right. That's the rub (if it is a rub), and one reason why I used "ravel" and "unravel" for comparison, because which word you use depends on how you look at the way something is knotted...

(It could also depend on which you think looks cooler in your tags list: BADD or BAAD ;-))