[TW: this post discusses ableist slurs, eugenics, systemic ableism]
When you actually try to pin down what some sort of inherent “intelligence” is vs “has learned some stuff, addresses ignorance” It becomes clear that intelligence is a social construct That is used to maintain privilege and also oppress others
there is no objective way to measure intelligence there’s a wealth of scholarship about how IQ and the SATs are better indicators of “having privilege” than “being intelligent”
Additionally, the racist/ableist fear-mongering about how “crack babies” are born with “lower IQ” and cognitive disability has been shown to be the result of poverty and prolonged stress on the human brain
A lot of our cultural obsession with “high intelligence” and even IQ tests themselves Is rooted in Social Darwinism and the eugenics movement “jokes” like the Darwin Awards directly reference our history of forced sterilization based on “intelligence”
Someone can clearly be ignorant of knowledge, information, facts, etc. Someone can have cognitive disabilities that affect one’s ability to learn and synthesize new information. However, when you try to get at the root of “genius” and “intelligence” … you find that they are things we made up and ideas we perpetuate
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Past-me would hate this thread because when I was younger, I based a lot of my identity around being “smart” or “intelligent.” People kept telling me I was intelligent, and I believed them without questioning what this meant.
If you’ve read anything about what happens to “Gifted” kids as we get older, you’ll know that ideas of “intelligence” also harm kids who are labeled as “Gifted” or “smart” from a young age.
For a long time, I actually didn’t know how to make mistakes. I was labeled as “Gifted” so many times; I felt that making mistakes was incompatible with this. I held myself to an impossibly high standard of perfectionism. I had to learn things perfectly the first try, otherwise I berated myself for being a “failure.” I didn’t realize that mistakes are a huge part of how we learn.
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Since I started trying not to use ableist slurs for cognitive disability (“stupid”, “moron”, etc), I have been thinking about “intelligence” and “stupidity” a lot. I realized that consistently praising things as “smart” was tied up in my impulse to label things I dislike “stupid.”
When I first came out, I spent a lot of time telling people that if what they meant by “that’s so gay” is “that’s stupid”, then they should just say the second one. I feel kinda personally responsible to help work on our ableist language and encourage non-oppressive alternatives, as my earlier activism on LGBTQIA+issues helped perpetuate cognitive ableism.
Big shout out of appreciation to @EbThen , whose writing about why ableist slurs are harmful encouraged me to work on my cognitive ableism and record my thoughts.
If you’re interested in working on your own use of ableist language, @disabilisaur has written a handy guide on how to tell if a word or phrase is ableist language.
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The point of working on ableist language is not to “ban” certain words It’s to learn how MUCH of our language (s) are full of ableist slurs “Tone deaf” as an insult. See also: “Blind to”; “crippled by”; “crazy”. It helps us learn HOW MUCH of society is steeped in ableism.
Sure, anyone can spot that “mocking disabled journalist” Serge Kowalski is bad But always referring to Mr Kowalski as “the disabled journalist mocked by Trump” is also a form of ableism So are the continued efforts to repeal the ACA, and the efforts to repeal the healthcare millions of disabled people rely on to survive is arguably more ableist than a prominent individual mocking someone’s movements or speech.
Ultimately, it is being able to spot systemic ableism that helps us address these structural and legal issues. Learning more about ableist language is practice in spotting ableism, and in learning how to respond to it interpersonally.
The more we normalize that cognitive disability is inherently negative through casual use of ableist slurs (eg “stupid”), the more we end up with attitudes that feed modern eugenics movements. For example, Iceland has almost “eliminated” Down syndrome due to the number of mothers choosing to abort fetuses that test positive for genetic markers of Down syndrome during amniocentesis. The right to choose what happens to your own body (as per abortion activists’ “your body, your choice”) is also an important part of disability justice. We need to be able to choose what happens to our bodies. However, if more prospective mothers were educated on what parenting a kid with Down’s syndrome looks like, they might realize that “low IQ” is actually not the end of the world. We might create space for more kids who are different.
The more we normalize that cognitive disability is inherently negative through casual use of ableist slurs (eg “stupid”), the more we feed the anti-vaxxer’s attitudes that it’s better to risk their child’s life than for their kid to be Autistic. As with the case of the example above, the idea that the worst thing for your child is to “be stupid” rather than “potentially die of measles” is harming children’s access to care. It also contributes to overall stigma for Autistic and other neurodivergent people, as well as makes it difficult for disabled and neurodivergent parents to discuss their own issues in parenting groups. If your parenting group suddenly starts discussing “how awful” it would be for a child to be like you, it is difficult to see it as a supportive and welcoming environment.
I’ve seen leftist people (on Twitter and elsewhere) dismiss ableist language as unimportant or “a distraction from real problems.” These tend to be the same people who dismiss disability justice or accessibility as “a fringe issue.” These attitudes are interconnected: if you cannot even recognize that ableism exists, how can you possibly address the systemic ableism inherent in the healthcare repeal efforts or HR 620?
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Social constructs (such as intelligence, race, money) still carry real world impact, even though they are a product of our collective imagination. I invite you to question how these social constructs impact your own biases and actions, as well as structural inequalities.
What concrete actions can you take to combat systemic ableism? There are so many options; here is a start:
- work on unlearning your own use of ableist slurs
- help educate your able friends and family on ableism and ableist slurs
- believe disabled people when we tell you something is inaccessible or ableist
- listen to disabled people and signal boost us
- caption your videos (so they are accessible to d/Deaf and HoH viewers)
- caption your images with an image description (so they are accessible to Blind readers)
- if an accessible door is broken, speak to the management about fixing it.
- if an accessible ramp or hallway is blocked, clear it or speak to the management.
- Support organizations led by disabled people
- PAY disabled people for our work and activism. @DisabledWriters has a database of disabled journalists and writers available for hire.
- Don’t support paternalistic disability organizations with no disabled leadership (remember : “nothing about us, without us” as a helpful rule of thumb)
- Help us defend the ACA and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Advocate for increased funding into research to help those of us who want treatments or cures, not simply research which creates more genetic screenings to prevent disabled people from existing.
- Use trigger warnings (they are an accessibility tool for those with trauma/PTSD).
- Avoid jokes about how people are “triggered”; this stigmatizes trigger warnings and harms those with PTSD who are attempting to manage their exposure to triggers.
- Advocate for abortion rights, because bodily autonomy is a disability justice issue.
- Learn about disability history. You probably don’t know: that Harriet Tubman was disabled; that Helen Keller was an activist in her own right; that Gallaudet had “Deaf president now” protests; that the ADA exists in part due to wheelchair users crawling up the steps of the US Capitol in what is known as the “capitol crawl”; that ActUP scattered the ashes of loved ones who died from AIDS on the White House lawn to protest the lack of funding for research on HIV/AIDS. Our history of activism and survival is rich and beautiful: learn more and enrich your life.
- Read own voices books about disability and buy them for children and libraries.
- Avoid #DisabilityTooWhite issues, and read about a plethora of disabled experiences. One place to start is Vilissa Thompson’s Black Disabled Woman Syllabus.
- Read journalism written by disabled people; avoid paternalistic journalism written “about us, without us” or from websites like The Mighty (which has very few disabled people involved in running the website).
- Avoid inspiration porn.
- Avoid media where actors are cripping up; support media with disabled actors.
No one is making a list of “banned words” or censoring your speech; there is not government prosecution or fine for saying ableist words. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should : don’t be a jerk, choose not-ableist words. Choosing not to use a slur costs you nothing, and helps make the world a better more inclusive place.
