Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

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On 1 September, 1939 (80 years ago, today), World War II began.

This was also the day that the systematic murder of Disabled Children and Disabled Adults (starting with those who had been institutionalized) began under Hitler's Nazi regime.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Aktion T4 (emphasis mine -- citation links #44 and #45 removed):

As early as 1920, Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding advocated killing people whose lives were "unworthy of life" (lebensunwertes Leben). Darwinism was interpreted by them as justification of the demand for "beneficial" genes and eradication of the "harmful" ones. Robert Lifton wrote, "The argument went that the best young men died in war, causing a loss to the Volk of the best genes. The genes of those who did not fight (the worst genes) then proliferated freely, accelerating biological and cultural degeneration". The advocacy of eugenics in Germany gained ground after 1930, when the Depression was used to excuse cuts in funding to state mental hospitals, creating squalor and overcrowding.

Remember that when you hear the rhetoric about how there's not enough money in the federal budget to pay for Social Security Disability Insurance. Also remember that the money is there -- it's just being diverted into military spending, and (~shudder~) the Space Corps. that Trump wants.

(Maybe -- with the usual caveat about unforeseen consequence)

The Earth history, where, after the Christmas Truce(s) of 1914, the generals and political leaders, instead of threatening court martials, had said: "You know? The boys are right. Let's call off this damned War."

And the Earth History where, instead of turning to Alexander Graham Bell (infamous eugenicist and hater of the Deaf), Helen Keller's family had turned to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet for advice in raising their young daughter. (Recommended reading: Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet, and the Communications Debate.

Last year, RH completed their Master's degree in Information Studies, with a focus on human-centric design, identity, and privacy (And thus, I think it might be of special interest to dialecticdreamer). This last week, they adapted it to the style of their on their online comic, broken down into five "chapters."

I was applauding inside, by the end, which was posted yesterday.

Robot Hugs is genderqueer, and so that's the primary lens through which they view the phenomenon of "Otherness." But what they say also applies to all marginalized people, probably.

Anyway, links:

Other -- One: Surveillance
Other -- Two: Categorizing
Other -- Three: Uses of "Other"
Other -- Four: Consequences of Self-Identifying
Other -- Five: Methods of Resistance

Enjoy!

I meant to signal boost this. I failed. The Calender caught up with me. I intended to write something. I may, still. But at the moment, I am feeling speechless.

So I urge you to read this blog post from Dave Hingsburger instead:

http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2013/01/1440-international-day-of-mourning-and.html

A quote:

In a graveyard, not far from where I type, 2011 people were laid to rest. Only 571 have names. A full one thousand four hundred and forty lay nameless and forgotten. Even if you knew them once, you'd never find them now.

How could this be?

The is a graveyard that lay on the lee side of institutional walls. That institution is now closed. No footsteps echo down the long corridors, the smells of human captivity are slowly fading, the tools of segregation are growing rusty in the dark corners of back wards. Many people who lived there are now free. Many are now finding their way as full citizens, part of the community that once rejected them. Many will never know a moments surety that citizenship is an irrevocable thing.

Murderers serve less time than people who committed the crime of difference.
(end quote)

Such a variety of things I meant to post today. But this is what my mind kept returning to.

Still reading... still seeing links between Monster Theory and Disability ... Something.

Today's half-paragraph:

(Quote)

Similarly, Cohen has argued that the monster refuses “to participate in the classificatory “order of things”” and provides a significant challenge to binary systems of hierarchy, creating a need to re-evaluate concepts of order. He states that “the monster’s destructiveness is really a deconstructiveness: it threatens to reveal that difference originates in process, rather than in fact (and that “fact” is subject to constant reconstruction and change)” A keyword in this quotation, however, is ‘threatens’, since a monster such as the medieval dragon maiden may point towards artificial boundaries and ideas of order but she is never allowed to break them down. This limitation on her monstrous character is brought on by the context in which she features, as some medieval thinkers may have doubted the waythe world was ordered but they did not doubt that there was an order to the world. The truth was, as it were, out there and it was up to the human to try and understand it.

(Unquote)

{Meanwhile: the Chorus in my Head makes the following comment}

Of course the Human is the only one allowed to decide what Right and Proper Order is: It's whichever Order that puts that Human on Top.

(In the meantime, I'll be in the back, rooting for the monster. One of these days, she's bound to break through!

I'm trying to find photos (and pre-photographic art) to illustrate This 'Disability Rights Protest Song' video I'm working on... trying to find pictures of the disabled [both physically and cognitively] in settings where they've been shut away from society.

Putting keywords like: "Nineteenth Century Almshouse Disabled History" in Google's image search has pulled up nothing but images of the outsides of buildings, looking all romantic and pretty, with emphasis on the gardens that were around them (and quite a few advertisements for "historic" almshouses that have been converted into luxury apartments for wealthy people... [Sad facepalm]).

Putting keywords like "Nursing Home Disabled residents" and "Residential School Disabled" into the search pulls up images posted by the nursing homes themselves -- online versions of glossy brochures, touting what wonderful, happy, places they are.

Then, there are sites like this: Disability History Panels that make all sorts of "shocking" claims about how horrible people were to the disabled in the past... And while I have no doubt as to the truth of the claims, I can't find a single citation for where these facts come from... so that those people who do doubt the truth would find it easy to dismiss the history as 'hype'.

Meanwhile, that particular site, though posted in connection with Alaska's Health and Social Services website, was plagiarized, word-for-word and image-for-image from an online interactive Flash-based history project done by the Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities.... And the Minnesota site doesn't give any sources, either ... And their eleven-question "Quiz Show" on history of disability is more editorial than fact (asking whether calling someone an "idiot" is acceptable, or not, and claiming for a fact that it is not -- period. While I may agree with the opinion -- that is still an opinion. And "educating" in this manner only plays into the arguments of those who say "Disability Rights" is nothing but "Political Correctness.").

Our elected officials. Are they all fourteen-year-olds?

When I was a Teen, and in my early 20s (~1980s), and Mother and I would attend politically / protest-oriented events, a common phrase we'd see printed on tee-shirts was "Shameless Agitator."

And I got to wondering: is there a specific historical context for this phrase? Was it a common epithet thrown around in newspapers to refer to Suffragettes, for example? Or labor leaders? Can it be traced back to a particular quote?

Bit of random, personal trivia: Once, one of us (either it was I, or my mother, who then shared with me), misread one of those shirts as "Shameless Alligator," which then became a running joke between us until the end of her life. That memory recently came back to me, and that's what's gotten me curious about this...

"And do you know what? I think I've thought a thought!"

(Thank you, Sesame Street of the 70s!)

The thought I've been thinking about lately is the fictional trope of "The secret lives of our toys," mostly from children's stories.

The oldest "modern story" I can think of is The Brave Tin Soldier (1838):

QUOTE:

THERE were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers, who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon. They shouldered arms and looked straight before them, and wore a splendid uniform, red and blue. The first thing in the world they ever heard were the words, “Tin soldiers!” uttered by a little boy, who clapped his hands with delight when the lid of the box, in which they lay, was taken off. They were given him for a birthday present, and he stood at the table to set them up. The soldiers were all exactly alike, excepting one, who had only one leg; he had been left to the last, and then there was not enough of the melted tin to finish him, so they made him to stand firmly on one leg, and this caused him to be very remarkable*

UNQUOTE

Here are others I can think of, off the top of my head:

• Pinnochio (1883)
  
  
• Raggedy Ann (1918)
  
  
• The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) (1922)
  
  
• Corduroy (Amazon link) (1968)

( Cut for TL;DR -- where my thinky-thinky thoughts go really rambly down the wendy-winding road )

It's thundering, here, and raining pretty hard, and if moisture gets into the outlet where my Internet is plugged in, I'll lose my connection. So I'd better post this now.

What other examples of this trope can you think of? Do you include "Android revolts" in sci-fi, as part of this trope?

---

*Bonus Inspiring Cripple trope, which I had forgotten!

Today* is the Twentieth Anniversary of The Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law (Next year, when it's 21, we'll take it to a bar and get drunk, right?)!

And my local Center for Independent Living, held a celebration, promising music, videos, speakers, food, and More!

"Music" turned out to be recorded "Top 40," as far as I could tell, played over loudspeakers at a volume that prevented conversation (I was hoping for live performers, singing songs that were sung at political rallies to get the ADA passed, or something).

"Videos" turned out to be a powerpoint slide show of fact tidbits about how famous people "overcame the prejudice people had toward their disabilities" (I was hoping for slide shows of local history -- the faces and stories behind the fight for access and inclusion here, in Hampton Roads, VA, that this CIL services)

And then, there was a promised speech, live from the White House, at 5:30, from President Obama. That was a live feed over the Internet, and it was projected up onto a wall, big, so that all those gathered could see it. But the Center's Internet Connection wasn't strong enough, and the video kept freezing up (or maybe it was glitchy at the White House end, I don't know).

And of course, President Obama was not the first to speak -- there was a woman, who spoke first, remembering the individuals who fought for the passage of the ADA, starting in 1989, and thanking the Senators and Congressmen who co-sponsered the bill.

I grinned SO HARD when Congressman Fish's name was read, that my cheeks hurt. Hamilton Fish was our Congressmen in Putnam County NY. And I have no doubt that he signed onto that bill, at least in part, because of my mother. She would show up at every town meeting where he spoke, and would take me along to most of those, if they didn't interfere with school, or were past my bedtime, and she would needle him on causes she thought were important -- the Environment, and full access for the Disabled.

Then, after that woman finished, Marlee Matlin got up, and read out a portion of Helen Keller's autobiography (I was hoping for Marlee Matlin to tell her own story -- I really don't know why she didn't).

Then, a blind fiddler (I think he was blind, I didn't catch his name), came up and spent about twenty minutes trying to get his instrument in tune... To be fair, it's nearly impossible to keep stringed instruments in tune on hot, humid, July days. But when finally he started to play, it was the most dolorous and slow and mournful tune I'd heard in ages. (WTF?!!)

Then, Patti LeBelle was introduced. Yay? She sang "I got a new Attitude." Then she rambled on about Bo, the Obamas' pet dog, and told the story of how her own little dog fell in the pool and almost drowned (WTF?!?! #2 -- did she think she was speaking in honor of the SPCA? She really sounded drunk, or drugged). When she started in on "You are the Wind Beneath my Wings" -- Audrey was ready to go. So I never did hear the President speak.

Mostly, though, I'm just a bit saddened that the whole "celebration" was held in the confines of "The Center" -- That 'special place, where they help those people' -- instead of out in a public park, somewhere, or even a public library conference room (Though if it were the latter, we wouldn't have been able to have food, which was quite good -- if you were a carnivore).

I mean, isn't that what the ADA is all about? being Loud and Proud in Public, and mingling with the "regular" general, Public??

I can't help but wonder if that's why it seems that we've made so little progress, in terms of real change and societal attitudes -- because we're so good at self-segregating. You know?

Still, I'm glad I made the effort to get fully dressed, and go out, and do this in three dee space, instead of staying home and "Celebrating" in private.

*July 26th -- it still is, in my time zone, anyway.

Short biography of Margarete Steiff

The facts of her life are fascinating, and make me want to add her to the guest list of my fantasy Space/Time dinner party. This narrative of her life is problematic.

(Quote) Margarete was a very lively, well-built child and led a carefree life until she became ill with polio at the early age of 1½. She was destined never to walk and to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. (unquote)

::Facepalm:: Here we go with the "innocent victim" Disability-Narrative (sigh). And I trust I don't have to explain to my regular readers why "confined to a wheelchair" is full of fail -- right?

(and "well-built"? Really? oy.)

Shall we continue?

(quote) Her mother, above all, found this very difficult to bear. She would have to care for her daughter for as long as she lived. Her daughter would never be able to take on the role of housewife and mother and, at the time, it seemed as though she had absolutely no prospects for the future (Unquote)

Okay, now we're into the Disabled-as-unfair-burden-on-the-Able-bodied Narrative. (Sigh)

But it doesn't end there (snipping a bit):

(Quote) She spent her free time playing with the other children whenever possible. Margarete was a creative inventor of new games. She was always having new ideas and organized the games in such a way that she could take part.

In doing this, one of her natural gifts became evident, one that was to help her a great deal in the years to come: Margarete had a way of telling people what had to be done in a manner that made them want to do what she said. (unquote)

Now, we've got the Disabled-as-emotional-manipulator narrative.

It's that last one that I'd particularly like to translate. How about this, instead?

"Margarete Steiff was a creative and intelligent woman who learned, early in life, to be an effective self-advocate for her own independence."

There. That's better.

Still, since this is a dedicated "Teddy Bear" site, I suppose they'd be tempted to play up the childish aspects (Victim, spunky, inspirational, manipulative) of her personality even if she hadn't had a disability.