Intelligence is a myth : on deconstructing the roots of cognitive ableism

[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.

#WatchDis: Six Police Procedurals for Low Energy Days (a starter guide by a feminist killjoy)

WatchDis is a blog series of media meta-criticisms written by my disabled self and others. Because sometimes there are a lot of low energy days and Netflix is a good distraction.

I enjoy watching police procedurals because they typically follow a particular storytelling pattern. There is a problem, maybe it evolves or changes over the narrative arc, but then it is solved. As someone who’s Autistic, there are times when shows that are very emotional are simply too overwhelming on top of whatever else is going on. For me, crime dramas are a good stim for the end of a long day.

Crime shows are also one of my perpetual problematic favorites. Yes, they tend to put forward an unrealistic idea of how the criminal justice system works. As someone who is in favor of prison abolition because of things like prison gerrymandering and prison labor abuses, I also know that the “good” outcome of police procedurals is someone ending up in a prison. I also know that the media coverage of fictional crime dramas is greater than the coverage of actual prison strikes.

On a less serious note, why does no one in Midsomer try to figure out why there are so many murders? Why is there not a government task force, or at least more than two bumbling detectives to solve a series of seemingly unrelated serial crimes in the English countryside.

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Tropes I dislike: cops who drink to deal with the stress of the job; “it’s a period piece so we’re going to say these slurs for authenticity”; the serial killer is now stalking the lead detective(s); the motive is “insanity” or “trauma” or some other form of saneism.

Tropes I love: locked room mysteries; a sleepy little town transformed by a terrible crime; the one detective searching for justice in a corrupt department; smart women solving crimes; smart women solving crimes who aren’t very good with emotions; mysteries with a supernatural element.

I also love police shows like Broadchurch, The Fall, and Top of the Lake, which I feel are actually better examinations of the messiness of crime and punishment. But they are definitely more in the feels and also more gorey than the shows I’m going to list here. Maybe I’ll go into them in a separate post.

Lost Girl

Lost Girl is a Canadian urban fantasy mystery series about a succubus who only finds out that the Fae world exists as an adult. As you maybe realize, the Fae world is filled with all kinds of rules; Bo was raised by humans and feels betrayed by the Fae. So she strikes out on her own and decides to earn a living as a private investigator, along with her new human pal Kenzi.

This show is unapologetically queer: Bo is pansexual (because honestly if you’re a hungry succubus, you’re not too picky). The Fae world is less concerned about the politics of queer relationships, and more shocked when Someone slept with the unaligned succubus! The horror!

This show also has polyamorous representation, technically. While Bo’s various partners understand that she “needs to feed”, there’s a lot of drama around her having multiple romantic attachments. I feel like the morality police maybe stepped into the writing room and drew the line at “showing a happy polyamorous triad”, so somehow love triangles are still a thing. This periodically makes me want to throw things, or shout JUST TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS at the characters.

The mystery investigations are more urban fantasy than science-based, so a lot of solutions are more magical than “let us deduce the answer to this.” My friend described this as “a campy sci fi show with a lot of excuses for kissing” and honestly that’s not a bad description (I like that sort of thing).

Trigger warnings: I think there’s casual fatmisia, because of course there is. Bo also has a fairly intense trauma history, so there’s some depictions of trauma and dealing with trauma (both in mundane methods and magically, because you can do that in the Fae world.)

As far as casting, Lost Girl also cast a Little Person, Rick Howland, play a recurring character (the barkeep Trick). Although the whole “disabled people as magical beings” trope is…less good, I appreciate that Tricks’ magic is unrelated to his size. As such, this is actually a really positive representation of disability on TV. Also, lots of kissing (and other things) if that is your jam.

Elementary

Elementary is a Sherlock Holmes retelling set in New York City. It begins when Holmes is discharged from rehab for his heroin addiction, and Dr Joan Watson (played by Lucy Liu) is hired to be his sober companion. This show has more feels than some of the other shows on this list, as it deals with issues such as addiction and recovery, as well as family expectations, family mental health diagnoses, death of loved ones, and trauma. (In particular, season 3 is heavy on the sexual assault & PTSD related storylines.)

I think this is one of the better portrayals on television today of addiction and recovery, because it doesn’t just show the addiction spiral or “recovery as a static process.” Holmes really does change throughout the show, unlike the Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle. I mean, he can only afford rehab and a sober companion because of his very wealthy family…but the show also kind of discusses those things.

For the most part, I love the Joan/Sherlock dynamic. Although he is not great with boundaries, Joan doesn’t let him just walk all over her the way that Watson does in so many Sherlock Holmes retellings. It’s fairly clear that Sherlock is coded as neurodivergent, although he doesn’t use those words. There are some episodes where he dates someone who is explicitly Autistic, and honestly it’s kind of adorable. I would like it even more if Sherlock was explicitly discussed as Autistic, because then it would be actual representation of Autistics dating Autistics.

Additional trigger warnings include: the fatmisia is fairly strong in Elementary when it comes up (jokes about dead fat bodies are unfun); the episode Pick Your Poison involves a young adult with undiagnosed chronic pain that starts out as highly relatable and quickly devolves into all the worst stereotypes about disabled people + Munchausen’s by proxy.

Rosewood

Rosewood is a two-season show about a private pathologist who consults with the police department in Miami. He’s Black, the detective he works with is Latinx; his sister is queer and engaged to another woman at the start of the show. His parents are both involved with his life. Additionally, Rosewood has some chronic health problems of his own due to being born very prematurely. (It would be nice if they actually named a condition or series of conditions, but I like that Rosewood is basically “look I have a grab bag of things wrong with me, okay? Let’s solve a murder.”)

It’s intensely relatable. There are scenes discussing how medication side effect A is making condition B worse, and difficult choices. There are arguments with family members who have different ideas than Rosewood about how he should handle his medical care, like which doctors to see and being on a transplant list. Rosewood is also dealing with some internalized ableism. I would have loved if the series were continued, and Rosewood unpacked some of that over time.

There are a couple of scenes where Rosewood experiences tinnitus and does the “I’m just going to lean here and pretend everything is fine” coping strategy (instead of “talking about access needs” like I have forced myself to learn how to do). The camera work shows the audience both a perspective on “everything is spinning and the world is ringing” and then switches back to Rosewood trying to look normal in a hallway. I maybe cried during these parts, because it was so revolutionary to see what is everyday for me on screen.

I have not yet finished season 2, so I can’t tell you if all the queers end up happily together and alive at the end. There is some anti-bi bias, but I think it’s dealt with…realistically, although I wish it were more explicitly named. There is also a storyline about having been a homeless queer teenager due to homomisia at home, and being a queer adult helping look for other homeless teenagers. I maybe definitely cried during that episode.

The Doctor Blake Mysteries

The Doctor Blake Mysteries is a 3-season Australian television series about an Australian doctor with PTSD (and a drinking problem) who also works as a police pathologist. It’s set in Ballarat in the early 1950s. I won’t go too much into why Doctor Blake has PTSD that he self-medicates for a season or two with alcohol, because honestly “so what did happen during the war?” is a large part of why I clicked “play next episode.” (Note: he does eventually stop drinking, partly due to liver issues. Recovery is not explored in depth.)

Part of why I like this show is because it makes me feel extremely smart. Doctor Blake sometimes takes awhile to figure out “maybe someone involved in this mystery is queer” or “maybe a woman used heavy machinery.” So when I watch these sometimes it’s watching how long it will take Doctor Blake to question his assumptions. Fortunately, he usually feels somewhat silly for not figuring it out earlier (as opposed to doubling down into “well how was I supposed to know!”)

There are also a lot of episodes where the police think that the death is clearly accidental, and Doctor Blake is convinced it’s suspicious. Also, he upsets a lot of very powerful people by “not just blaming the nearest brown person” or “insisting that the death was murder” or “hauling powerful parts of the Old Boy’s network into the police station for questioning.” I like how it’s clear that Doctor Blake is trying to use his white male privilege for good, but also sometimes/often he messes up.

It’s still a little cringe-y, especially when it involves Australia’s Indigenous people. I do not personally need to hear the A-slur to know that racism existed in 1950s Australia. There’s also an episode involving an orphanage, and the show goes so far as to say that Doctor Blake is very concerned for the orphans but doesn’t point out that maybe they’re not orphans because settler colonial states have a habit of stealing children from Indigenous communities (see: residential schools, current Australian foster care system).

 

Murdoch Mysteries

If you like Steampunk and slow burn romances, Murdoch Mysteries is for you. Set in Toronto around the turn of the 20th century, the show follows Detective William Murdoch, a scientific thinker and Catholic. I personally wish this were the Dr. Julia Ogden show, who is the protagonist’s love interest and frequently consults on cases as the police coroner. Mysteries with Tesla! Discussions of Spiritualism! It is a fun show, although more problematic than some of the others. It also has ten seasons (if you can get access to seasons 8-10 in the US), which means if you’re on the couch a lot with pain this is not a bad show to use as distraction.

Murdoch Mysteries is weaker when they try to add more diversity: episodes such as “The Great Wall” (about a body found in Tortonto’s Chinatown) and “Werewolves” (in which the constabulary consult with an “Indian tracker”) read like a mashup of stereotypes rather than the level of research that goes into, say, the episodes involving Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Murdoch himself reads as “a detective coded as Autistic, but never explicitly stated as such.” It’s not great representation from this regard, but it is an enjoyable show nevertheless. I do enjoy watching Murdoch get confused in social situations I also would find confusing. He gets less bad about misogyny as the show goes on.

The show is, for the most part, depressingly heteronormative. I think I identify so strongly with the Dr Ogden / Murdoch ship because of how nerdy they are together. The will they/won’t they can get grating over time, and there are some “attack Dr Ogden to get to Murdoch” plot lines that skirt very close to the “women in refrigerator” trope. Eventually there is a bit with LADIES KISSING (season 8), but I have not finished the narrative arc because I used the internet to determine that gays are buried. So technically I have stopped just before the gays are buried so in my head canon they can live happily ever after forever and ever.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Set in Melbourne in the 1920s, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries follow a flapper who is a PI  and was a nurse during World War I. Part of why I like these is that they acknowledge that, hey, maybe women also have war trauma? Also maybe it’s mixed with a weird nostalgia for when people didn’t get upset with you for “doing a man’s job.”

Miss Fisher also has an on-again, off-again romance with a police detective. In her case, what’s stopping it is not “no one talking about their feelings” but more “she is never going to stop being herself, and he needs to learn to be okay with that or stop trying to change her into a Respectable Woman because that’s never happening.”

I also really love Dot, who is the housemaid who also solves crimes and is very bad at lying. Dot is maybe me? Except I’m not nearly as Catholic as Dot is (read: not at all). Dot also has trauma from being raised in an orphanage.

Spoilers: basically everyone in Miss Fisher has trauma, to some degree or another. It’s the roaring ’20s. Of course they do.

There’s some historical racism in these that is also not great and centers white people way too much, but mostly I just wish more Miss Fisher episodes existed. There are some episodes that deal with “hysterical women” and institutionalization that push some trauma buttons, but mostly it’s an examination of how we need to listen more.

I would also love to see more Miss Fisher that is explicitly queer, as well as Miss Fisher that deals with disabilities not caused by war. I guess that’s what fanfic is for.