friendlytroll:
jumpingjacktrash:
ogrefairy:
I know. This is a very controversial topic right now but hear me out. Because I am disabled and I am frustrated with what this site has turned ableism into. Nothing more or less than a list of words to be avoided . Tumblr informs me that that is all I have to face and struggle with every time I leave the house. I really wish a simple list was all ableism was. I do. But Why aren’t we focusing on the real culprit here?
Ignorance. Ignorance that tumblr is spreading because they refuse to talk about the real issues. How about the unheard of concept that people with mental disabilities are not stupid! And you know what? Not one single time in all of these lists floating around have I seen someone say that. No, instead we are told that you should not use the word because the mentally disabled should find it hurtful and offensive. Excuse me? These lists have spread all across this site and back. Lists informing everyone that the first thing you should think of when you think of the mentally disabled are the taboo words “stupid” and “dumb”. And no one seems to understand how problematic that is. How you all have single handedly put that label on people by claiming to fight against ableism. Let me instead give you something new to think about. People with mental disabilities are NOT stupid and that word has NO place being used that way. Trying to turn it into a slur? That will never happen. It is a common part of our language. It’s not going away. All you have done is told people that they have a new set of words that should hurt them every time they hear it and made an association so that the first thought when someone hears that word is now the disabled, creating new prejudice and more ableism than before.
Why are you focusing on words instead of teaching that not everyone in a wheelchair is paralyzed? Every person who has ever needed a wheelchair knows all too well that this is a very serious problem that tumblr surprisingly shys away from. And what about the fact that just because you see a person walking in a store or down the street, you cannot assume they do not have a chronic and/or invisible illness? These are some mind blowing topics right? Things that might really educate some people about what ableism is help help limit the prejudice and fear that people face every single time they leave their house.
Ableism isn’t a list of words that some able bodied and minded people put together to inform the disabled what they should and should not find offensive. Ableism is maintaining ignorance and ignoring the real issues.
hear hear.
i have a cognitive disability: i’m autistic. tumblr social justice ‘protects’ autistics by yelling at us for using words like ‘sperg’ and ‘derp’ to self-identify, by finger-wagging if we make jokes about our lives.
i have mental illnesses: adhd and depression. tumblr social justice ‘supports’ mentally ill people by telling us we’re simply Different And Better, and flipps the fuck out if we try to point out that no, actually, being sick sucks and we don’t like it.
i have a physical disability: arthritis. tumblr social justice ‘affirms’ physically disabled people by calling us out as oppressors if we use words like ‘lame’ or ‘crippled’ to express our pain and frustration.
but hey, controversy gets notes, and attacking disabled people for their own good creates controversy! that’s how you get popular!
posts reminding people that there are a lot of folks who need a wheelchair for pain or weakness rather than paralysis… well, they’re just not as exciting as posts like the one where someone scolded me for blaming my insomnia on my adhd because they took a class so obviously they know my condition better than me.
Hear goddamned hear. Main blog reblog because Im so tired of being told the only problem in my life is the word ‘crazy’ being used to mean ‘wacky’. Not the intense jags of self loathing, not struggling to make it home after school because I want to die, not needing to work so damn hard just to feel kind of okay just to have it all come crumbling down for *no reason*. Not waiting for my heart to stop palpitating, being too afraid to pick up the phone to call someone I love, not just hurting all the time until my actual physical muscles just hurt.
Stop trampling me in your rush to look good fucking defending me from a feather.